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01. EARLY DAYS: DIFFICULTIES AND MISTAKES

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In my early days, photography was not an end in itself

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I never though about becoming a photographer

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I found photography a bit by chance

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I was studying Fine Arts but ever since High School

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I was interested in photography, with some peers we even

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started a photo lab to do some prints.

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It was all experimental, a way to broaden my range of creativity

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and I was lucky to have Cristina Garcia Rodero as teacher.

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She was the one to put the ich of photography

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and made me see that it could be as creative, valid, important

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artistically speaking as I thought of other arts:

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sculpture, painting or any other Fine Arts specialty.

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While studying Fine Arts,

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I discovered photographers that Cristina showed us

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One of them was Javier Vallhonrat, she spoke

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highly of him. He had been her student, and that made me discover

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not only photography but fashion photography

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-in the 90s started to become something very creative in Spain-

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It was creative enough for someone like Cristina

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I discovered that photography was valid in every single way, and some vere very creative

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and one was Fashion Photography.

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It was the time from Mariscal, where also

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Graphic Designers were starting to fly high

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Well, photography was taking all the creativity around it

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and it started to have Fashion Photography

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in this country to give very important names

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for sure Im leaving some behind, but for example:

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Miguel Oriola, Ferrater, Vallhonrat, Alejandro Cabrera

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Michael Brae, a lot more... Outumuro...

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I suddenly discovered there was tons of creativity

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within photography and that it was something

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as valid as any other art to express myself.

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At the beginning I started as self-taught photographer

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what i wanted was to make a portrait of what was around me

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and make it visible.

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I remember the first time my dad lent me his camera

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I went on a "trip" with it and everything was

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really well framed but all the photos were

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out of focus. He gave me a camera which had

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a little paper with the diaphragms and speeds according to the light

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I memorized it all, but I forgot to focus,

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as simple as it seems.

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I was looking through the viewfinder, everything sharp

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and I thought "oh magic!" and that was going to be perfect.

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I took a long time to learn. I wasn't so lucky,

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like people today, and I had very basic knowledge

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about photography.

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That has brought me many problems in the long run

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and some advantages too, I mean,

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I haven't followed "rules" about what can or cannot be done

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but I've been researching and adapting it

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to what my artistic job has required.

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For a long time, I've followed techniques that were

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not correct, or what other said were not,

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but as long as there is an image to create,

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there is a possibility to use some creativity.

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When I was doing negative but developing them as photographic slides

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everyone was doing, at the time,

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exactly the opposite,

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and at first those photos were "ugly" but ended up being

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very nice and also interesting. It was not a mistake,

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it was a different way to show the images.

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So I believe that upon "mistakes" or "that cannot be done"

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you have to always think: "Why not?"

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"What is the advantage of me doing this?"

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"Why cannot I invert a process?"

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"Why cannot I make the pixel something interesting?"

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The most important for me was to make

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my photography work to tell or make feel something

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different of what the reality was.

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I used to do all kinds of photographic work because

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you can take always something from whatever you do.

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There are some jobs you take because of the level

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of creativity you can add into the mix,

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other because you will use a different kind of camera,

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sometimes because lighting is a challenge...

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The main goal is to be able to contribute

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to the photo something new, something

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you want to experiment with, which at the end

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the photo will able to transmit to others.

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Learning from the mistakes.

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What you really have to keep in mind,

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as a photographer, is that challenges

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will come your way every day.

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Challenges that sometimes you think

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they will be easy but they end up not being easy at all

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Some others that will be within your knowledge

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and some others that will end up in mistakes.

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I remember an interview, I used to make photos

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for interviews, and I had a couple of minutes

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to make a photo to an actress at Jardín Botánico,

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and well I loaded the camera, I started to shoot,

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I took the shoot to the point I finished the roll and

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I started running the film..

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36.. 36.. 36 ..

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and I realized the film roll was not correctly loaded.

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Crisis. The actress was leaving, I asked

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"please?", and she gave me time to make 3 photos

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and well, here I am. I put my whole attention

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to those 3 photos and they ended up being used.

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Most likely, if all 36 photos had turned out well,

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I would probably have chosen the last 3.

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But there is no need to be afraid nor dramatic.

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I remember the first time I made a photo retouch

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I had to but a bathing cap to a model,

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we put all this modeling clay, make up as she was bald

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and I poked spaghetti shaped clay around her head

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How did we do the analog work?

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Shooting a whole film roll, developing a couple of prints

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to check if it was okay, if there was a need to adjust or force the negative,

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so we shot that film, we developed the photo clip,

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it was great, and then the rest of the film was developed

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two hours later, but the whole thing ...

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everything was ruined, the lab's fault.

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There was an issue with the lab's temperature

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and everything was wasted. We ended up only

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with the first 3 images, and we had

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to complete the job with that.

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There are problems that you cannot avoid,

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there are some that will happen because

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you are having a bad day,

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but you can learn from everything.

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You have to make a 1000 mistakes to have

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1000 solutions,

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and the more issues you resolve,

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the less problems you will have in the future.