Original subtitles

Hello friends, in this chapter we are going

to talk about inspiration, how we transfer ideas

and concepts from other fields of photography to

ours and how we try to get the

most out of it.

In addition, we want to tell you how

to get a free ticket for the Barcelona

Photoforum Congress that will be held on November

11, 12 and 13.

Hello everyone, welcome to the second episode.

As you can see, I'm still as nervous

as I was in the first one.

I thought that this nervousness was going to

be just a matter of the first chapter

and, as you can see, we are already

in the second one.

And I think there are going to be

a few more until I get rid of

the nerves, right?

As I told you in the first one,

talking in front of a camera is not

my strong suit, so I ask you to

be patient with the number of mistakes or

erroneous concepts that I can say, so please

be patient.

I also want to tell you that in

these videos I do not intend to sit

in a classroom, I am not the right

person, I am not a scientist, I am

not a super technical photographer in which all

concepts are known by heart, so please, for

the umpteenth time, be patient with me, okay?

I want to thank everyone for the support

we have received for the first chapter.

It has simply been a positive energy kick

and, above all, I want to thank those

120 people who have signed up that we

did not count, although so many would sign

up, so we thank you from the bottom

of our hearts for all of this, right?

And we cannot forget about the whole team

of Fotoforum Barcelona who have supported us with

this second chapter and, well, as I was

telling you, they have given us an entry

to draw, we want to draw it with

all of you, so well, I want to

tell you a little bit about what this

draw is about, because I think it is

not a contest, but it is a contest,

okay?

In which I want to tell you, throughout

this whole video, you are going to see

five times the logo, five times the logo

of Fotoforum Barcelona, the logo of Fotoforum Barcelona

is something like this here, I cover it

again, so I have already given you that

logo once, so you need to find it

four times.

As soon as you find it, you just

have to write in what are all the

comments, that is, in the comments of the

post, just write, sorry, well, we have seen

the logo in the minute, such, such, such

and such, and the one who hits it

or the one who hits it takes the

entry, okay?

So it's very good, right?

Simply, well, speaking of Fotoforum, well, tell you

that I have a huge affection for both

the team and the congress itself, because it

was the first congress that I attended as

a photographer, when I say the first congress,

it is like all of you, right?

When the first time you go to a

wedding congress, that congress is usually always like

the reference or the bomb that opens your

head, right?

In the case of Fotoforum, back in 2012,

I visited it, well, just to clarify, right?

That I had no idea what I was

getting into, I was a wedding photographer, or

I just left, sorry, I left the press

photography, I started to get a little bit

into what wedding photography was, at that time,

I thought that being a wedding photographer, well,

it meant to have weddings in your city

alone or in your region, of course, when

I arrived at the Madrid Fotoforum, as I

tell you, in the year 2012, well, that

was like, well, as I have told you

or as it has already happened to the

vast majority of you, right?

It was a mental explosion, I started to

get to know a multitude of colleagues from

the guild, not only from abroad, but mainly

from this country, and what helped me first,

well, to make community, to support each other,

to recommend weddings, or simply, well, to hang

up the phone and ask them, hey, how

did you take such a photo?

Hey, what would you do at this time?

Hey, in the contract, how, well, all these

things that have made all, that is, all

colleagues, well, grow up, but just like it

has been, or it was, well, and something

fundamental, right?

To grow up, in my case, as a

professional, it was also a double-edged sword,

because of course, attending a piece of a

wedding congress, what happens is that it opens,

well, it opens, well, your head and you

start to know world references, which at first,

as is logical, open your mind, your photograph

opens up in the channel and, in short,

well, you go, that is, with the tip

of the knife forward, and you start, that

is, well, to know, as I tell you,

the work of a multitude of colleagues, since

they are not only Spaniards, but from all

over the world.

Of course, in my case, when I started

to observe so many and so many and

so many colleagues, in the end, without, of

course, the line, the line between getting inspired

and getting to copy, is very, very thin,

and sometimes, that is, well, I realized that,

in my case, I was stuck in a

loop, I don't know if it's the word

copy or inspire me, but it has a

loop that, well, you observed great colleagues or

great photographers, their work so, so, so consciously,

that in the end, because of the essence

of Víctor, or my essence as such, as

a photographer, he ended up getting lost and,

well, he was, as I have told you,

in a loop in which what those colleagues

did, well, in a certain way, I ended

up doing it, and it was useless for

someone to put a flash here and you

to put it here.

After all, it's still the same.

So, to get away from all that blockade,

in this chapter I would like to talk

to you about what is inspiration of some

professionals who are helping me to find the

photographer that I want to be, or what

is the project that I want to have

as a photographer.

Almost always, in the greatest number of cases,

I try to get inspired, or look for

inspiration, in colleagues who are outside of what

is the wedding circuit.

I mean, photographers who are not wedding photographers,

who are dedicated to other genres, such as

the great photographer Álex Hueb, such as, for

example, Eni Leibovitz, such as Chamama Doz, or

such as Peter Lindbergh.

I have selected four colleagues, or rather four

photographers, four geniuses, sorry, to, well, to comment

on or to show you how I affect

or how their work has affected my photos.

What I want to make clear is that

this video is not a comparative video of

the great geniuses with my work.

I mean, I'm just going to tell you

how it has helped me, and how I'm

going to tell you how some of my

photos are clearly influenced by the work of

all these great masters, okay?

As not the first of all, I must

talk to you about my photographer, or one

of my favorite photographers.

We are talking about Álex Hueb.

If we talk about Álex Hueb, well, the

first thing that comes to mind is always

color, bright colors, dense colors, primary colors.

We are talking about a photographer, he is

a documentary photographer, he is a photojournalist of

the feet and the head.

He is a photographer in whom his frames

are of an incredible complexity and, above all,

I love him, right?

How he repeats patterns, how he finds compositions,

as I was saying, in places that you

say, how could he get that?

And of course, when you see his work,

you almost have to close, for example, the

book, because it really depresses you, right?

Because every time you see some of his

photos or his images, you come down.

Well, it's not that you come down, but

you come up, but you think that it

was a stroke of luck, right?

That you say, well, maybe this is all

put together, right?

But when you move on to the next

one, you see that clearly, no, of course,

we are talking about one of the most

important contemporary photographers and what I would like

to show you, as I was saying, some

of the images that I have captured, that

I have photographed, but that have clearly been

influenced by him.

Remember that I do not want to compare

my work, which is what it is, with

the work of a genius like Alex Webb,

okay?

In other words, no one takes his hands

to his head or anything like that, okay?

So I would like to start by talking

about one of the images that is clearly

influenced by him, right?

How is this one?

As you are seeing here, well, all the

colors are primary colors, that is, notice how

well the sky blue works with the red

of the cap, with what is yellow, both

that of the shirt and that of the

flag, that is, that I was lucky because

it raised just the yellow flag and that

makes the image, well, that is, it is

twice as complete, right?

And also notice how well those guys work,

just the couple that goes from left to

right and how the couple is perfectly fitted

in, that is, in the box, which is

very, come on, very, very typical of Alex

Webb, right?

I mean, finding patterns and framing within boxes,

right?

I mean, frames within frames.

And it is also something that is very,

very typical of Alex Webb, dividing or splitting

the scene into two parts, that is, notice

how this image could work perfectly if we

divide the image from the right to the

left, or from the left to the right.

Notice that they could be two completely different

images and that they work perfectly, right?

That is, that is Alex Webb's own, right?

In the same frame, in the same photo

we can read two completely different images and

that really complement each other, right?

If we move on to the next image,

the one we are seeing now, it is

an image that, if we talk, for example,

about composition, it is quite complex.

You see how there is a first term

in which we quickly look at all the

people who are applauding, sitting, standing, like the

human eye or like the viewer, how we

pose first, in a foreground, and how our

eye quickly goes to the background, where the

bride and the father are, there, hugging, right?

You see how both the bride and the

father are fit in a mirror, that would

be a frame or, as I say, it

would be a box.

So, you clearly see how, well, how the

influence of, well, a great master like him,

of, well, that is, of a great photographer,

makes it be there, right?

And in fact, well, I mean, if you

look a little bit, well, because in a

large part of my photos, not in a

large part, but in many, well, you are

going to see, well, that clear influence, right?

I also remember, in one of the interviews

that, well, that I read about him, in

which he came to tell how something like

that, you have to be prepared when you

go out to photograph on the street, in

which 99% of your photos are going

to be bad or they are not going

to reach the level of quality that you

want.

And it is the same in wedding photography,

right?

When you start, well, documenting weddings, you have

to be prepared that many of your photos,

well, they are going to be a bit,

well, they are not going to reach what

you are expecting.

Notice if I am a photographer, well, not

very good, to get to photograph 6,000

-7,000 images per wedding, if I take

6,000-7,000 photos and dedicate 4

,000 there more or less.

Notice if I am a not very good

photographer to have to shoot 6,000 images

and that only I like 100 or 200,

at most.

And if we stop to think, maybe just

one of those is really worth it or

that it is really brilliant, right?

Of course, you always have to see it

and you have to be aware, right?

Well, as I have told you, I am

a photographer or I try to be a

documentary photographer, it means that 70% of

almost the entire wedding, well, I am going

to try to capture moments as they appear,

as they emerge, but that does not mean

that in a 30 or even sometimes more,

in which the time comes to make a

pose, to portray, for example, the couple, the

groom and the bride and that they need

to be inspired, right?

Well, to speak of inspiration when it comes

to portraits or poses, what better than the

master, the genius, Annie Leibovitz, that is, for

me she is one of the references of

this century.

Surely there will be plenty of presentations, there

will be plenty to tell you who she

is, so we will directly move on to

what would be one of my photos that

was clearly influenced by her work, right?

I am talking to you, for example, about

this image and simply, well, clarify first, right?

I try to take the, well, the work

of Annie Leibovitz as a challenge to my

work or to my weddings and in the

case, for example, of this image, that is,

I must tell you, right?

That, well, it is clearly influenced by the

photo, by one of her photos, in which

George Clooney comes out with a group of

girls who are there, everyone interacting, that is,

something fundamental of Annie or what I try

to take for my terrain is the acting.

In the image that you are seeing now,

to everyone, to everyone you see, for example,

in the scene, I tried to place them

in two completely different situations, I mean, some

above, some below, some on the side, others

on the left, others on the right, that

is, and that everyone, above all, interacted with

each other.

I tried to take care, like her, well,

to look like her, taking care of the

image a little bit, in which elegance was

breathed, and in which, above all, strength was

breathed, right?

I mean, what is typical of her is

that when we sometimes see her photos we

say, wow, and we clearly know that they

are hers.

If I showed you, sorry, another image, I

mean, I would like, for example, to have

me in this one, right?

And in which, clearly, it is not, I

mean, the first thing that appears or the

first thing that comes to your mind, for

example, is a wow, it is typical, right?

As I tell you, of her photos, I

mean, this image was captured, like many of

them, in the same place of work of

the artists that Annie has photographed, in my

case it was photographed in the same church

that she got married, and in this case,

as soon as they left the ceremony, they

were thrown into the rice, all these little

things, I got them inside and in the

same corridor in which an incredible light entered

through the door of the church, I mean,

I placed the bride with the groom, I

asked, in this case, the bride to kneel,

I asked Erika to move the veil up,

and what, thanks to the direct light, to

the light so hard that entered through the

door of the church, well, we got this

image.

And now I would like to talk to

you about one of the greats, surely you

also know him, Chema Maddoz, what Chema has

taught me is to take me, or, no,

sorry, not to take me, to stop, to

stop for a moment and observe things and

understand that these things can have a completely

different meaning, it is very typical of Chema,

or it is one of his things, one

of his strengths, in which the objects that

he photographs achieve that they have a completely

different meaning, it is like, for example, like

this cup, I mean, this cup for all

of us is simply a cup, and it

may be something completely different for Chema, right?

So, then, I would like to show you

this image, the one you are seeing now,

I know I showed it to you in

the first chapter, but I think it's time

to talk again, right?

In which, for example, the birds here have

a completely different meaning, I mean, everyone believed,

or we could think that they are living

birds, that they are resting there, but clearly,

well, they are not, it is a simple

statue, and you see how I tried for

the couple to mimic the same statue.

If we move on, for example, to the

second one, in which I am going to

show you now, I mean, I want to

show you how, for example, the bouquet, I

mean, it is clearly a wedding bouquet, but

look at the angle I photographed, for example,

this image is not what we are used

to seeing, right?

It is an angle in which the godfather

of the wedding went up the stairs, and

I caught him right from below, right?

What you see right in the line that

starts in the middle is simply the railing

between the stairs.

What Chema Amado has taught me, for example,

is to look at things with different eyes,

forgetting that we are wedding photographers, I mean,

remembering that we are photographers, we are all

photographers, but our last name is the wedding

photographer.

To finish, I would like to talk to

you about the great work of Peter Lindbergh,

of course, many will think, well, but Peter

Lindbergh, I mean, your work goes along the

path of Peter Lindbergh, not directly, but indirectly.

What we are now focused on is trying

to get, to always get the bride really

beautiful, to get that femininity, that air of

a woman, always beautiful.

It is what we have been looking for,

for example, now, in recent years, or mainly

in the last year, I want you to

look at this image, in which you can

clearly see the feminine side of the bride,

in which she is surrounded by her sister,

in a perfect environment.

You have to look at, above all, the

naturalness in which the bride puts on the

dress, and how, look at her fringe, how

it is raised by the breeze, by the

air, and that aspect is what I was

looking for, that natural aspect in which we

get the beautiful woman and the image, I

mean, it breathes a really beautiful mood.

If we go to the next image, you

see, it is clearly inspired by the image

that you are seeing now, it is an

iconic image of Peter Lindbergh, in which you

are seeing girls doing girls' things.

It is something that I love, and it

is that I always say that one of

my favorite parts, for example, of weddings, are

the preparations, and as you are seeing in

the image, I put the girls here, I

mean, I put the bride right in the

center, and I surrounded all her friends, and

I said that each one of them would

occupy the corresponding place, so that the light

would work quite well, and the rest, well,

it was magic for them, right?

The atmosphere that day was brutal, and I

had little to do to capture all this,

right?

And so, well, and so, people, that's almost

everything, I think I didn't leave anything, this

is as far as, well, as far as

I wanted to talk to you about what

was, well, all about inspiration, well, some of

the teachers, sorry, who are helping me and

inspiring me, and what I tell you, or

what I invite you, right?

I mean, of course, it is great that

we continue, that we continue the work of

wedding companions, but that we always see it

in a form, in quotation marks, aseptic, in

which we see it in a way, well,

this colleague, this colleague does an incredible job,

ah, what a beautiful photo, well, we give

him the like, but nothing more than that,

right?

If in the end we are all inspired

by, if every wedding photographer, if we are

inspired by all of us, in the end,

as I told you at the beginning, it

is a loop, it is a fishing that

bites the tail all the time, and that

we get out of it, right?

When we already bring it to us from

other great genres, from other fields, I mean,

we are making our work, or that our

photos start to shine a little, right?

So, well, nothing more, friends, I hope you

liked all this, I hope my nerves have

not made me say things that I should

not, and above all, I hope you liked

it, and I hope you have guessed where

the four logos of Photoforum were, so that

you have taken that entry, simply as I

told you, you just have to write in

the minutes, or in the seconds that those

logos appeared, and just write it down there,

okay?

Well, friends, until the third chapter!

Bye Bye!