Thanks to Filmmaker and writer/poet David Martinez Romero, I’m privileged to introduce many of you to another talent from Spain, photographer Juan David Cortes. As with any artist, their words inevitably are echoed best and loudest within their body of work, but attached is a brief Q&A to get to know the man behind the camera. What binds us all, is the element of ‘story’, and as the saying goes “a picture says a thousand words”, mainly because every image communicates a different message to each new set of eyes. A common theme among photographers is that their work is simply a perception and interpretation of life, and within this dynamic we find different meanings to lend more resonance to our existence. One could look at it this deeply, or you could peruse the photos just to find something beautiful and interesting, because what would the world be like without these elements and finer details? I chose to display this first image, because I lived it just last week... Enjoy! Q & A with Juan David - [Darkened text are Juan David's words] 1. What model camera do you use/what would you like to use in future? I use several cameras. A digital slr (5D mark II) for assignments and some specific personal work, for all the rest I use film cameras: 35mm reflex Olympus OM-1 and eos 5, 35mm rangefinder Canon 7, and medium format Bronica. I´ve never thought what camera I would like to use, I think each work needs it´s own tools, so one that I feel comfortable with. 2. It's different with every artist, but if there is one, then what is the most striking/vivid/favourite photo you've ever taken? And partnered with that, what is your favourite subject - some photographers, like landscapes, nature, movement...? I can´t choose a favourite photo, every photo has it´s particular mood, moves some feelings and doesn´t move others. I mean that the pictures among my own that strike me today are not the same that will do tomorrow. I like the fact that there´s always some discreet and subtle photos that eventually become “chosen” and some striking and powerful ones that you get eventually tired of. 3. When did you realize you wanted to be a photographer? One day, when I was 23 or 24, watching the photos that a friend has taken in a travel. I felt as if I was watching photos for the first time. Looking at his pictures (Marcos Bauza great and inspiring photographer) I felt something hard to explain, but that could be said that life will be much more interesting with photography in it. Later on, I realised that while I have photography I will never feel alone or meaningless, It provides me a place in the world. Later on I discovered that It´s like living with a highlighter pen used to express your opinion in an metaphoric way, more instinctive and at the same time more open and more accurate. 4. How has photography changed the way you see the world? I don´t think that it has changed my way of seeing the world, beyond that now I pay attention all the time to light and composition, even when I don’t have a camera with me. I think that photography is used from inside to outside, to express more that to see. 5. If you were not a photographer, then what would you be (also, what was your ambition when you were a little boy, since I believe photography could not always have been your passion)? When I was a little boy I wanted to be a sea biologist, I was a sea life freak. When I was six or seven my dad bought me a five-volume sea world encyclopaedia and practically memorized it. As an adult I think I would like to be a carpenter. I think a good phrase is very similar to a good photo... “God is among pots” “It´s not the mountain ahead that wears you out, It´s the pebble in your shoe.” - A Chinese proverb that I first heard from Muhammad Ali. Regarding the photos… I´m not going to pick any [favourites], just tell you that the most personal works in my web are “rhetoric”, “summer is almost gone”, “przewalskii” and “yerma” which is a work in progress... *** [All images are Juan David's and are used by his permission. The captions refer to the name of the respective series'. The one image without a caption is from Tumblr] Muchos Gracias Juan David!
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... and/or some more thought provoking pictures (yes I know - my titles need work) I've been a little distracted lately, with other work, and yes this does kind of show my hand with regard to this blog - it is rather a little "off the cuff" at times... I reserve the the intricate thought processes and planning for other endeavors. However, I do like to mix it up a little between words and pictures (among other things - keeping it simple), so here's some images from my 'reserve' files. (FYI - find more from the above photographer here.) National Geographic photo contest 2012 contenders: for the full list, click HERE... Simply amazing nature: Street Art - by Alice Pasquini: (there's more from Alice Pasquini in the archives - check the first month in the categories!) And finally - a look at Syria, today... ... just to keep things in perspective. On our journey of progression, and for many of us, discovery, we focus on David Romero, filmmaker, writer, novelist, poet... A creative at heart, David is a man on the move with great insights as well as goals and surely someone to look out for in the future. It gives me great pleasure to feature this artist, whom I hope to work with someday: Poetry: Story of remoteness, 47. By David Martinez Romero The soul of an artist Gently silence falls as white bird eating holes in the clouds, where broken glitter beams cross needles in ice flowing, slow death of magma yesterday on our hands clasped, now lost underground. Because the dust has eaten the paintings in the library: those books, on which dreaming we once promised immense love and pleasure and caresses, have been lost, such as dust, as white bird that rises. Pages and pages of gray images, fragmentary, I remember the futility of all the roses and I know that beauty dies that woman is beautiful and her beauty shines, the time ineluctable push intensifies and a wave comes and goes like foam. Slowly, from a tear magnificent the whole philosophy springs, all the knowledge of the truth, the night, the sugar, all that is worthy of being known or kissed, glazed moons with lids wide open as if an albino animal had crossed the room at the speed of a smile: perhaps an angel ... perhaps the soul of an artist. * Videos by Eldorado Entertainment "Motorway" - Anni B Sweet. Directed by David Martinez Romero Movida Corona 2010 - Executive Producer: David Martinez Romero Mini Biography: Born in Madrid in 1976. Journalist, writer, video producer and on his way to make a filmmaker out of himself. Founder of Eldorado Entertainment, production company in which he has produced and directed from TV commercials to music videos and his first short film, The Offer. As a writer, he has published one Poetry book, El mundo cuando sueña, yet he has written several collections of poems, two novels and one autobiographical essay. He publish a blog under his own name in which he shares poems and other writings every week. Right now, looking for financial support for a documentary film. Q & A:
Zahara de los Atunes (a little town in Cadiz) La Judería, Córdoba For more, contact and follow David: Juanda Cortes Photography Referenced earlier: visit Juanda Cortes photography, another contributor at Eldorado Entertainment. |
[Banner illustration by Joel Kanar]
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