One day…
My sister left me a Soviet-made camera on the bed. I put my eye on the eyepiece and the world appeared before me naked and full of grace. It coincided that at that time I was studying physics at university, so it didn’t cost me much to understand the operation of photography. But that is not photography, there is something else that physics does not say. I found myself lacking tools that would allow me to use photographic language as a form of expression. That is not science. Transmit my vision of reality in images and, at the same time, be able to express my own inner world to others. I must give infinite thanks to two great friends, Nacho M and Diego D, who helped me to develop the capacity for reflection and analysis of contemporary visual arts. Then, with my knowledge of Fine Art, and my innate research attitude, I could develop a perception and critical approach to reality, and I began to take seriously the profession of photography.
Chemical or digital?
I shot my first photographs with conscience in the 90s, of course, at that time the photographs were with film and had to be sent to be developed to see if the result it was more or less decent or a real shit. Over time I migrated to Europe and was able to buy my own digital photo machine that I still use. But, something happened while I was studying, all the books and websites I visited took me back to the origin and finally I parked the digital machine in a box and started with an analog machine again.
What is better?
It really doesn’t matter if the photography is chemical or digital; the important thing is “photography” not the tool. I don’t particularly get into these sterile discussions. I realized that what interests me is the artistic result. Particularly, I practice digital and chemical photography with the same intensity, each one offers me different and beautiful sensations. I pay more attention to chemical photography and its image production processes than to digital processes. But I’m very versatile, (as expected in me). The methods of obtaining images for artistic purposes are in themselves my only purpose, I don’t care too much about “how do I do it”, but rather about “what and why do I do it”. Today, I’m a chemical and digital photographer. It’s simple.
Final note
You can do whatever you want with the photo and pass as an author’s photographer, but don’t forget one thing, the “automatic mode” turns your machine into the author and you are the idiot who shoots… Think about this when you want money for your royalties.