How did your interest in landscapes begin?
Although during my childhood and adolescence I did not have many possibilities to go to natural spaces, I always felt a deep feeling of love for nature. For that reason, when I was in my university years, I began to travel to know my country and discover new places that with their beauty would feed my soul and my heart. Nature became the main destination of my vacations. I traveled to meet those landscapes that gave me emotions, feelings and sensations. And Chile is perfect for it! It is a country with beautiful, diverse, and contrasted natural spaces. It is a privileged territory with varied and changing lights that draw beautiful, challenging, and motivating atmospheres… I couldn’t help falling in love with its landscapes.
How do you describe your journey as a photographer and a person?
The love for nature, travel, and adventure, especially for those most isolated and unknown places, motivated my interest in capturing and perpetuating those magical moments in the landscape.
Little by little, I began to feel the need to convey to people not only the beauty of the place but also the emotions that the connection with these natural spaces produced in me.
I bought a basic SLR camera (a Zenit) and made it my new travel companion, but having no photographic knowledge, the images I took were frustrating, to say the least, because they did not reflect at all what I had seen, lived and felt in the place.
For this reason, during the years 1999 and 2000 I took a Diploma in art with a mention in photography at the Catholic University of Chile and thus began this beautiful journey through the landscape, which for the past 20 years has focused on the constant search for beauty and visual poetry that gives us our wonderful and extraordinary nature.
During this journey I have made several solo exhibitions and participated in several group exhibitions, I have collaborated in various publications, participated as a jury in various photography competitions, gave talks and developed a complete Image Bank specializing in landscape, nature and travel.
All these activities allow me to be in a continuous learning process that constantly motivates my personal and photographic growth. Tiredness, cold, extreme heat, waiting and patience have been my traveling companions, but so have the emotions that lights, shadows, colors, lines, shapes, presences have caused me and the absences in the landscape.
In this photographic adventure I have created and developed a concept that guides my walk through photography and nature … it is “The Emotion of the Landscape”, a concept that seeks to rescue the essence of each place, stopping time in an image that motivates the spectator to think and feel, where I position myself in natural spaces from contemplation, from that spiritual state that appears in the human being when mental silence is practiced. I seek to go beyond the mere descriptive field and show the intimate dialogue sustained with nature to stage created emotional landscapes, where images have their own voice.
What is your view on Nature Conservation? How can we, as landscape photographers, help to protect our Mother Nature?
We are in a time where the human being and its accelerated and excessive pace of life has negatively impacted nature, generating serious damage, which not only endangers the continuity of many species on our planet, but has also caused the extinction of some of them. Hence the importance and urgency of being able to relate to the natural environment from respect, care, responsibility and it is here where education plays a very important role in this process.
My intention is to contribute to the enhancement of the majestic natural heritage that we have, rescuing the charm of the immense, the simple and the beautiful found both in a great landscape and in a small detail.
In this sense, photography has become a communication tool for me, where I try to rescue the silence and the essence of each place to transport viewers not only to these spaces, but also to the feelings that the interaction evokes in them with these natural compositions, facilitating the generation or strengthening of an emotional bond between people and the landscape.
Serenity, peace, nostalgia, admiration, harmony and amazement are some of the emotions that accompany my photographic work and that I intentionally share to generate or enhance a positive feeling, which allows raising awareness about the importance of respect, protection and care of the fragile ecosystem in which we live, where each of us always has something important to contribute. I consider that generating an emotional connection with nature is of vital importance to generate respectful and responsible behavior towards the environment. As Jacques Cousteau said: “People protect what they love, love what they know and know what they are taught.” And here we are the photographers and nature photographers to contribute to publicize natural beauties, so people fall in love with them and are more likely to take care of and protect them.
Finally, in the editorial area I published “Chile in Silence”, a photobook that transmits the important natural heritage of Chile and that was considered by the Learning Resource Center of the Ministry of Education as “a stimulating support for the knowledge of geography and the valuation of the country’s natural spaces ”. Also, since 2016 I have been a collaborator of the “Ladera Sur” Landscape and Nature Platform. In short, taking care of nature is taking care of ourselves.
Can you give our readers the best landscapes photography tips? Do you have any recommendation on settings or gear for landscapes photography?
Embarking on the adventure of the landscape is a path that requires a lot of creativity. It is not so easy to find compositions that transcend the common gaze and that differ from classic shots. Capturing an interesting image depends a lot on the photographer’s ability to capture an emotion, a feeling, a sensation, a mood, an idea.
For me, the main value is not found in the image itself, but in what it causes us. It can be love, joy, admiration, energy, peace, security, freedom, hope, nostalgia, loneliness, abandonment or endless other sensations.
Knowing how to observe and contemplate can make a difference. Sometimes, small details transform what would be a common photograph into a special photograph: an object, a color, a shape, a perspective, a light … you just have to contemplate, I mean seeing not only with your eyes but also with the heart.
But in order to achieve this we need to know and master the photographic technique and we achieve this by studying, either in a photography school or in a self-taught way. In these times the internet provides us with a lot of material to be able to carry out self-learning processes.
Another essential element is practice. Once the necessary knowledge is acquired, it is essential to put it into practice. We have to practice, practice and practice until we achieve the expected results.
For me the essential photographic equipment to use is the following:
– A camera body that has manual control.
– Lenses of different focal lengths, which allow obtaining different frames.
– Polarizing filter, to handle reflected light and color saturation.
– Tripod, for when slow shutter speeds are used in order to achieve greater depth of field or to rescue, for example, the movement of water. Also, it is useful when using a telephoto lens.
– Cleaning supplies, mainly cleaning cloths or paper, brush and air bulb, to clean the dust and dirt that remains on the equipment.
– Bag and / or suitcase to protect equipment and materials.
– Clothing appropriate to the climate, the place and the activity to be carried out. – If you still use an analog camera, use a fine-grained slide film to obtain greater detail and sharpness of the image.
Many times the photographers require long walks to achieve their objective, having to select and prioritize the equipment to be used very well, since any small unnecessary weight seems to be a great burden as the hours and kilometers pass. At such times a single camera body, zoom lens, lightweight tripod, and lightweight bags are valued.
What plans do you have in the future related to landscapes Photography?
To keep capturing and transmitting “The emotion of the landscape”
Tell us something about the gears you use.
My photographic archive comprised of different cameras over time, analog and digital. Currently I work mainly with a Nikon D810
