NEW YORK, NY.- Fifty years ago, the province of Almería in the far southeastern corner of Spain became known as "The Movie Capitol of the World." Cheap labor and a landscape that stood in perfectly for the American West, North Africa, and even the surface of the moon, became the locations for some of the most iconic movies of the time. David Lean's epic Lawrence of Arabia starring Peter O'Toole was one of the first large-scale productions that made use of Almería, paving the way for hundreds of films, including Cleopatra (1963) with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, How I Won the War (1966) with John Lennon, Patton (1970) with George C. Scott, and dozens of Westerns, including most notably, all of Sergio Leone's films with Clint Eastwood.

But the aura of Hollywood glamour was mostly fiction, part of a massive public relations campaign launched by the dictatorship of Francisco Franco to change the world's image of Spain. The promised construction of movie studios and production facilities in Almería never materialized. In the 1970's, as the Spanish economy expanded, land prices skyrocketed, and new government regulations favored national cinema over American film productions, the writing was on the wall. By February 1973 an entire month passed without a single film crew arriving in Almería.

Born and raised in Wisconsin with little knowledge of the history of Spain or the Franco Regime, photographer Mark Parascandola was drawn to explore Almería due to a strong personal connection. His mother's family emigrated from Almería to the US in the 1930s. He grew up listening to his grandmother's stories of life in rural Spain, and during his childhood his family would often return to Almería where he would take snapshots and explore the old Western sets, reenacting mock hangings in the gallows or sitting on a stuntman's horse.

Parascandola would continue his personal journey as an adult and professional photographer, making multiple trips to Almería to photograph the barren, inhospitable landscape that captivated him just as it had the great filmmakers before him, and where the specter of the Hollywood of the 1960s lingers in the dry, rugged hills and decaying movie sets -- blurring fact and fiction. These photographs are published for the first time in Once Upon a Time in Almería: The Legacy of Hollywood in Spain (Daylight Books, December 12, 2017).

Parascandola writes: "As a photographer, I became fascinated by these old film sets and locations as a different kind of 'ghost town.' Unlike real ghost towns, the Western movie sets were never inhabited and never served as living communities. They are a fiction, constructed solely for the movies. While some have been abandoned, others have taken on new lives as tourist destinations themselves."

A PhD epidemiologist by training, Parascandola uses photography to explore the relationship between human populations and the surrounding environment, focusing on architecture as evidence of often-invisible social and economic processes. Parascandola's epic, cinematic landscapes of Almería, bathed in the radiant light of the desert, reveal a stunning and otherwordly terrain filled with ghostly remnants.

Once Upon a Time in Almería includes an essay by Parascandola which traces the history and politics behind the meteoric transformation of the sleepy town of Almería into "Hollywood in Spain" through its demise in the 1970s due to changing economic conditions and the ultimate end of the Franco dictatorship. The book includes a section entitled "Notes On The Locations," which provides interesting facts about the films and the actors that starred in them. For example, in "Santa Isabel," we learn that John Lennon rented a village there during the filming of "How I Won The War," and it was here that he reportedly began writing the verses to "Strawberry Fields Forever."

The noted British filmmaker and part-time Almería resident Alex Cox contributes an introduction. In addition to maintaining a house in Almeria for over 20 years, he made two feature films there: Straight to Hell" (1986), starring Courtney Love, Joe Strummer and members of the Pogues, and "3 Businessmen."

This book will appeal to readers interested in documentary photography, as well as fans of Hollywood film history, Spain, landscapes, and the politics of popular culture.

Mark Parascandola was awarded Individual Artist Fellowships from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities in 2014 and 2017, and he was previously selected a Finalist for the Sondheim Prize in 2011 and a Finalist for Critical Mass in 2016. His work has been featured at galleries in Washington DC and in Spain and appears in the DC Art Bank and numerous individual collections. His exhibit Once Upon a Time in Almería was shown at the Embassy of Spain in 2012, and has since traveled to Miami and other locations. In June 2014, his first photobook Carabanchel was published, including photographs and text about the infamous Franco-era prison in Madrid.