1. Your photos, especially the complimentary ones, remind us of graphic arts and painting. What kind of education and artistic experience do you have?

One day, when I was twenty, I wished to become a photographer and I began to practice. I learned working, interested in all kinds of creative expressions. Quickly I realized that I had to learn to look like the camera does: with a one and only deep eye.

The last 30 years I have worked in diferent jobs. Photography is a constant presence in my life. But I can't hide that I have a love and hate relationship with photography.

There's ligths ...and shadows... There are moments when you believe it's better to let the camera apart.

Now I know that some images I've done are simply the result of working, living, enjoying without a camera between reality _outside_ and my eyes _inside_.

But its "eye" helps me to find something that, being there, I had never seen before in this way.

Literature, cinema, music, arts (and artists, of course) guiding me.

Concept, project, process, attitude, time, memory ... are more than words for me.

2. What was that crucial impulse, which made you start being interested in the art of photography?

I'll never forget the magic moment when I submerged the exposed paper in the liquid developer. The dark red light ...

I fell in love ... and I wanted to learn more and more technique, history ...

The special gaze of hundred photographers uknown until that moment, seduced me.

Benjamin, Barthes, Sontag, Berger fascinated me too.

3. It is plain to see that you concentrate on traditional analog photography. Also, one gets the impression that you experiment with the final effect of the photo at the stage of working in the darkroom. I mean your complimentary works here. Do you develop films and make prints yourself? I would be nice if you could tell us a bit more about the technical side of your work.

Yes, I've developed, and I've made some prints but it isn't my best.

Technical side is not the most important thing for me. Sometimes innacurate practices show me interesting ways. I've always experimented by test_error method. I'm a truly self-taught photographer! Honestly, hazard was a significant part of my work.

4. Susan Sontag once said: “We have to study photography – not how to do it, but how to perceive it and understand its function.” Do you share that kind of opinion?

Yes ... I share so many things whit Susan ...!!!!

To perceive and understand like a "reader" of images, taking a glance it is not enough.

It takes time. Reflection, cultural background, sensibility ... are also needed.

5. It is difficult to describe and pigeonhole your photography. It surely has a unique style and the variety of subjects is impressive. No matter if it is your complimentary work or a specific commercial order, it is easy to recognize your distinctive character. Do you have a more general idea to all your work? In general, how would you like your photography to be perceived?

A general idea about my work... Maybe, soulsearching, work in progress... I don't know.

Let me answer your second question with a beautiful Robert Frank's statement:

"When people look at my pictures I want them to feel the way they do when they want to read a line of poem twice"

6. What advice do you have for inexperienced photographers? How can they develop their own unique styles?

There aren't magic recipes. The question is not only to give knowledge. Motivating students or people interested in photography it is also important. In any aspect. Beyond technique, in my classes, I try to transmit my experience. Its all about experimentation, enjoying time, with creativity, with effort and patience, without fear, with passion, freedom and with our own feelings.

7. We are intrigued by your “coleccio original” series connected with dolls. Can you tell us about the intention and reason for coming up with this subject?

One day my friend Xavi bought 81 dolls in an old market. All were of the same model. Dolls remained in a bag for a weeks.

But I realized that each doll was diferent. And each had her own gaze and I decided to do a portrait of 81 dolls. I made one shot _only one!_ of everyone. I wasn't searching for a perfect portrait. While, I asked myself: who are they?

And I started to ask people around me:

who they believed these dolls were

wich one demanded their attention

wich of them maked them feel ... no matter what.

I worked with 64 people _aged from 5 years to eighty years, including me and my daugthers_ They choosed one or more dolls. They named them and invented their histories. And I proposed them to give me some artwork, from or about her_ either a photo, a esculpture, a video, an istallation, a text, a poem ... whatever_

I had no idea how the project would end up

Patienly I waited for... two years!, to have all the "artworks". In between all this people only few were artists but everybody had their sensibility, their skills, their feelings to express themselves.

Dolls were the spark for it. It was a fantastic and deeply experience.

At the exhibition there were the dolls portraits beside their artworks.

The curious matter there was that nobody knew previously what the others had done

Not all knew each other. I was the only one who knew, who was who and what everyone had done.

Now in my webpage you can see every doll with the name of the person who choosed her.

8. Your also do commercial photography. How do you usually work on a commercial project? Do you find it difficult to keep your vision against the customer demands?

Of course its difficult. Its about one word: "but"

Clients always say: I like your work BUT...

and then you need to behave politely, professionally and yes! with ... a great patience.

9. Your portfolio reveals a soft spot for classical portrait. It is very difficult to capture that “peculiar” moment, especially in studio and staged photography. What is your idea of the photographer – photographed relation? Do you make your models do exactly what you tell them? Do you manipulate your models? Or, do you negotiate and

cooperate?

... and collaborate? Yes

while I'm doing a portrait I usually talk with the person. Not much... well, is up to them. Slowly I can see how their resistence goes ... or not. I have not a prejudgements. While I'm looking out for shooting I can feel the suject forgeting the anxiety about his aparience, the restlessness about how they sould be portrayed. At some point the mask falls. I have a great respect about that moment.

It does not mean that my portrait of him/her "IS" him/her. At last, It's my way of seeing it in a moment of time. We can't forget that after shooting, we must choose one picture: "the portrait". Sometimes it's difficult, sometimes it's instantaneous.

10. When you start being interested in a subject, does it come to you spontaneously or is it something you prepare for carefully? How do you work?

I don't prepare anything. Some people seduce me. I can't explain why. Usually I ask them to do a portrait.

It's important to me they come voluntarily to my studio.

Always the camera intimidates them. Some get nervous, but and at the end, mostly looks towards the lens without fear, with a great dignity... if it takes the necessary time.

11. You seem to like experimenting. Present but controlled anxiety and constant pursuit are there in your works. Your photography seems very smart and somehow humanistic. It is also significant that you use the “big format” camera and not fall for the digital craze. Where do you get inspiration from? Where does your interest in traditional photography come from?

Inspiration comes looking around, thinking concepts, mixing ideas. It's a process, sometimes fluid, sometimes not so much. In the eighties I learned traditional photography. Now I use digital because "the times are changing" not because digital offers me something better. All things have lights and shadows, positive and negative aspects, of course. What's never going to change behind every picture there's a person taking a hundred decisions in a blink of an eye.

12. When looking at your pictures one gets the impression of a certain kind of dynamics and constant changing. Your cycles evolve in totally unpredictable directions. We enjoyed discovering you photographical worlds a lot. Do you tend to develop and add to your cycles or rather treat them as closed units?

It depends.. Most of them are a closed units. Few can grow with time.

My web is a work in process too. That's way I builded it by myself: a showcase with many drawers.

13. The “Jonathan Singleton” series has many plots and layers. A visionary and full of uneasiness approach to the subject. Could you enlarge on that a bit?

He is not only a forniture designer. He is a kind of "gentlement-stainless steel-worker". He works hard in many things at once.

This images could be the better answer to question 8. With him it's not difficult to keep my vision.

He likes my work, he trusts in it, and he has collaborated all time: placing forniture, projecting images on them.

Sic also agreed with my way of putting together two or more photographies.

I think the results surprised us both

14. Photography can be close to abstract but still is strongly tied to reality. There is a specific magic and poetics to it that makes it different from other arts. That kind of magic is especially present in your “narciso & medusa” series.

I remember that after every sitting I was exhausted. It was something highly emotional. The people's eyes fixed in my eyes. Especially the eyes of my parents Rosa and Carlos. Never before i saw my parents gaze. That impressed me.

Sometimes, with some people whe laughed together and i shooted spontaneously.

Sometimes there was a long silence between us... I realized that they had forgotten beeing photographed.

Sometimes an imperceptible gesture is at last "the desired photo", like Mireia`s...

Every portrait was a magic experience.

I wish to make a tribute to three people who have left us: my father. My best friend Fredy. And my friendly and helpful Medusa, Anna,"good boy": I'm proud you choosed her portrait (with a third eye in her mouth) to introduce my work in your web page.

15. In your cycles you build an unusual narration. You often add sketches and notes. It feels like taking part in something very personal like a diary, which is different from a classical series, where the story is constructed only with photos. You go beyond that. Is this intentional? Why such an approach?

Every cycle is a true history. I always explain that building this kind of little narrations is like being in trance. I begin playing, with a selection of photos. I listen to them, if they want to be together or not. After all, some of them don't resist more than ten minutes, others find its place quickly. At one moment there's a kind of revelation and I realize the cycle is completed and finished. It doesn't matter if sometimes I spend to much time in it. I really enjoy this process.

I don't care about showing tricks and imperfections.

I like signals, traces of my pencil and, also, of the pass of the time in photographies.

16. The works in “Educational projects” are devoted to children. Where does the idea come from? Obviously, apart from its educational purpose, working with children is great fun and a valuable experience. The “autoretrats” series of self-portraits and drawings made by children must have been a unique experience, especially taking into consideration the fact that it covers a long period of time. Could you tell us more about working on these subjects and if it changed anything in how you feel about photography? Has it enriched you in any way?

The ideas are in the air. Having two daugthers has conditioned my vision of life. A few years ago collaborative works were not so common, like right now. My work is about the construction of identity. And the keywords are, collaboration (with teachers, children or people who wants to participate), creativity, enjoying, respect and dignity to oneself and to the others. Learn together, how equal and different we are. Borrowing each others ideas is a fantastic way to change preconceptions in the classroom, at school, or wherever.

These experiences immensely enriched me, of course, and I want to think they enriched the others too.

17. In relation to the question above. There is a pair of artists: Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin, who touched the problem of self-portrait in a similar way. They, however, gave the freedom to press the shutter to the mentally ill patients. It is in the “Ghetto” series (www.choppedliver.info) Do you happen to know their work? What do you think about it?

Thankyou for your apreciation "in a similar way" of that awesome work.

In my case I col.laborate technically and conceptually with people but the act to give the shutter is about to give possibility of deciding -how- and -when-. In "our works", selfportraits are not a private act. People share this intimate moment. The group is present. Selfportrait is like a big mirror where we have the possibility to meditate about us and about the others. The important thing in my collaboration works is that one photo can't explain the process. Maybe each are more and less a god photo, but I believe that the complete cycle of every child is essential for understand their experiences.

18. The subjects “By the mouth fish dies” and “Lighter island” touch the problem of human influence on the environment and human’s functioning within the environment. How important is it to you? Do you think that the “artist voice” is capable of changing anything in the minds of the people?

For me and my family it's very important. But in my case not in the sense of fighting or beeing worried all the time.

The thing is: linking all our little actions, every day, everyone, we may change more than repeting good words, more than having only right thoughts. I learned the importance of everyday acts living with my wife Mireia. She does always little actions. Even when it's not easy.

Commom sense is esential when we eat, dress, travel, work, when we have fun. Furthermore it's necessary considering us as a consumers.

I don't feel artists voices are specially different from other's voices. As I said, it is not about good intentions. It is a vital and responsible engagement, of all of us. And that is far to be only a privilege of artists.

19. The fact that we live in a visual chaos makes it difficult to catch something important. Something beyond a photo itself, something that makes people think and look inside themselves. Your photos are visually extremely attractive. The black and white photography is much wider for interpretation. What is your idea of the photo – viewer relation?

...catch something important... in this visual chaos... what a hard and difficult thing!!!

There's something that bothers me: questions like, what's your prefered (book, film, whatever....), and rankings like the 100 better photos in the XX century... the best photographer in the world ...

I mean, my idea about photo-viewer relationship is about freedom. It depens of so many things! What the viewer feels, sees, remembers, lives? ... Everyone has a personal and untransferable relationship with the photos we choose.

The more you know the more you can see in a photo. Apreciation of art is a cultural issue too. Do you remember a few years ago, without internet? For example, did we said names of african photographers they are not included in the "officials books"?

20. What is it that you are working on at the moment and when can we see it?

I hope to have an exposition the next year in Menorca Island where maybe I can show my works "by the mouth fish dies"

I realize that project includes others works inside: woodfish, driftwood, lighthers, flips flops...

I'm thinking about how to show my works, and the most important, how to transmit the concept, the feelings of all I have lived in that island

On the other hand, I finished my classes, and I'm waiting for new orders.

21. Do you teach photography, have students and work in schools?

I work in IED, ESDI and EATM. All of them are schools of graphic and visual design. I teach fashion photography, but I try to give them the same advice I've given in question 6: to search for a personal seeing, to work with freedom expressing theirselves with sensibility, audacity, honestly.

I try to make them understand how hard it's for an idea to become an image and knowing their potential and their limitations.

22. You live and work in Barcelona. Are there any Spanish photographers you could recommend to us? In general, are there any Spanish artists you hold dear?

...God question. I'm thinking about it. You said before we live in a visual chaos isn't it. I will send you a short list. because right now there are many "big" names in my mind.

23. What made you laugh recently?

Your question number 22 because I just realized there are so many interesting photographers who should answer a modernphoto interview first than me! Thank you very much for your consideration.