Assingment 2

[Santiago Santos Valle]

Cristina García Rodero

She is one of the photographers whose pictures inspire me the most, however I am really far from her style, she specialized in illustrated reports of the traditional culture and celebrations around the world. She is currently a member of the Magnum agency.

Her pictures inspire me because they show the soul of the moment when they were captured and she is really original in many of her pictures, trying to find this different or breaking fact, which attract you to the image.

I really love her work on Spanish traditional celebrations, since I am also Spanish and most of her images show celebrations that are unknown for many of us, because she went to very hidden and small places where they kept ancient traditions. But the best is that in each of them, I can feel the essence of Spanish character, that little detail that defines our culture, gestures, objects, light, any detail is so well studied. It is amazing that she can achieve in situations where everything is spontaneous but her pictures never seem to be like that. It seems like the world is just a studio where she places people and situations on her will.

I would like to focus in this topic of people and culture, since her work opened a new world for me and I would like to investigate more on the possibilities and techniques used to make great pictures on it. I would like to characterize the traditions of different cultures around the world, since I travel a lot due to my work. But I find it really hard to be part to these atmospheres, which is something that her pictures transmit, you don´t need to know much that particular culture, just at first glance you are inside the action.

Photographically I admire a lot that all her work is in B&W, and the tones and sharpness in her pictures are amazing. For example in her work in Haiti, it is incredible how well she defines shadows and contrasts in very challenging light situations. The dynamism that most of her pictures have is something I am really jealous of, mine are normally dead or boring. I think that movement (suggested or real) is really important to make oneself pictures more interesting.

So, what I could say is that the discovery of her work made on me a great interest in people, and have them in my pictures, but on their usual environment/culture, I would like to develop skills that help me to shoot in those critical moments, involving people in the picture and making that image dynamic and attractive. However, I don´t have problems to shift from colour to B&W, I think that sometimes colour is important.

The problem is that I feel that with time I am further and further to get to this point and my pictures become less and less interesting. Maybe reviewing her work is a good start to get inspiration.

Here is a link to a google search on this work i mention:
http://www.google.com/search?q=cristina+garcia+rodero,+españa+oculta&hl=es&client=safari&rls=en&prmd=imvnso&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=QepuULHYDJHMrQeJi4HQCw&ved=0CCMQsAQ&biw=1280&bih=680

[Duncan Rawlinson]

Hi Santiago,

Thanks for submitting your assignment. I hope that you’ve learned a thing or two here and that you’ve refined your inspiration. This assignment is really designed to get you to think about what inspires you and why. The goal being that the sooner you find what inspires you in photography the sooner you can go down your path.

Some people discover in this lesson that they love landscape photos and then they get to focus on that. Some focus on portraits. Others learn that they don’t quite know what inspires them and they spend more time thinking about it.

Whatever the case, you know more about what inspires you and that drives your learning process faster.

I agree that color is important. In fact I often find black and white images to be a bit over-rated. Don’t get me wrong, there are some absolutely fantastic color images out there but often people just use black and white because they are seemingly more “dramatic”.

Cristina García Rodero is an excellent photography and she has done some incredible work.

I would recommend you follow her work and try to learn as much as you can about how she does what she does. Learn from the masters and keep shooting!

Can you post a few examples of her work here? The link didn’t work.

Thanks!

[Santiago Santos Valle]

Here are some examples. I hope you enjoy them

[Duncan Rawlinson]

Wow these are some stunning images.

Thanks for sharing them!

See you on assignment 3.

😉

[Author]

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