🎁SORTEO Día de la Madre!🎁 Mother’s Day GIVEAWAY!🎁

For Mother’s Day in Spain, I’ve decided to do a little giveaway to one Mom!

Why? - Because I think we don’t celebrate them enough. Moms deserve beautiful photographs of themselves at every stage in their life, a place that they often give to their children. There is nothing wrong with that, accept that everyone is a separate individual and deserves the best despite being the parent or the child.

Also, as an expat I don’t see my mom often. As I get older I understand how much I miss this face to face, heart to heart connection and therefore I want to do something for a mom that is close to me here in Barcelona.

The price is 1h studio photo session & a photographic print (30x40cm) + its digital equivalent to show off on all digital platforms.

All the info and ways to play and win the giveaway you can find on my Instagram.

Good Luck!!

Portrait Session for the Photographer Eddy Kelele

Recently I had the honour to photograph a fellow colleague - the Girona based sport and documentary photographer Eddy Kelele. There is always a different feeling when photographing another photographer. Something between fear of the quality control and an honour that I’ve been trusted by someone who actually knows what the game is all about.

Eddy is an incredible person and professional. With decades of experience, published photography books and portfolio full of commercial and cultural photographs that will remain in history.

He was one of the first people I’ve worked with when I moved to Spain. I assisted him in a shoot with the professional basketball player and top medalist Laia Palau for La Vanguardia. I was with almost zero Spanish (Castellano) and nervous as hell. But my professionalism and experience took over, helping me to remain calm and concentrated.

The shoot was quite quick as it goes in such environments, well scheduled, with perfectly mapped location spots and poses. The experience was great and very nurturing. We had a great time and the final result was better that I’ve imagined.

This time around the task was different. Eddy asked me to take some portraits of him for a project he’s currently working on. Of course, I agreed straight away - it’s always a pleasure getting involved in anything related to photography.

We were supposed to do one quick photo. Instead, we ended up playing for 4 hours, changed 3 different light settings, 2 outfits and completely lost perception about time. The job definitely got done perfectly, but also we had a lot of fun.

We used 2 constant lights on each side of his face, a white background and at the end the door near by to make the background look black - photographers’ tricks and treats ;)

But I’ll tell you a secret - we didn’t actually his proper studio as it was supposed to be “just ONE quick photo” and his studio seemed too far away for us (3 min walk :D). So, we decided to set up a little studio in the pasillo in his house. Literally meter by meter square space, but you don’t really need much of a space for a classic portrait.

And here are the results - just another proof that you can create anywhere if you want to. With or without a proper studio, with or without a proper camera, what you’ve got is what you need to make something good right now.

Why Photographing Yourself Is Beneficial For You?

Throughout art history, self portraiture has been a way for the artist to reflect and capture themselves in a unique way. Nowadays, with the phone camera we have a constant access to we also have the ability to capture, portray, and record ourselves. Being an artist or not, photographing yourself can be beneficial for you in a few ways.

• Helps you release emotions

As living life and going through experiences, we’re faced with variety of emotions, that often can be overwhelming. All of us humans have moments where we’re faced with challenging emotions, very often unable to express them due to lack of understanding or deep rooted traumas that might not allow us. Here is why standing in front of the camera (and ideally a mirror) by yourself, honest and with all of those bare emotions, you experience an allowance to realise and share. Movement, facial expressions and gaze are all channels to release what you’ve had trapped inside. Unreleased emotions get stored in the body and convert into diseases at some point. Therefore releasing what is bothering you, what has been hurting you, is healthy for your mind, body and soul.

• Helps you get to know yourself better

Self portraiture is true mirror that you put in front to observe, examine and learn more about your own self. Trapped in the human body, your soul is directly expressed through your eyes. How often do you look in your eyes? How often do you stop and stare, examine your facial and body features, but also pay attention to the energy that your souls is transmitting to you? By portraying yourself you get closer to your own soul by paying attention to what’s inside that wants to get out.

You can also learn to accept your physical form, your body. We’re here for a certain amount of years, occupying a body that we often want to change and modify instead of accepting and loving it so it can serve us longer, which is directly related to our life time. Getting to know yourself and accepting yourself as you are here and now would benefit you enormously - you’ll live a more fulfilled and peaceful life, with less anxiety and worries. Because fighting and denying it will only lead to more suffering.

• Helps you learn more about photography

You have a constant access to yourself and your body. Photographing yourself is the quickest and easiest way to practice posses, to play with light or explore further. By practising it you’ll become more confident in your craft and with your clients/sitters. You’ll see and correct mistakes that you might be making often. You can learn more about how light and position can change the feeling of a final image. Never the less, you will end up with interesting body of work that you’re proud of, can use in other ways for variety of purposes, but it will also give you a memory of the captured moment in time that will never return. Self portraiture can become a present that you leave behind to your family and children, to the future generation to remember you and your special light.

In conclusion, photographing yourself is beneficial for you in the form of therapy, art or memory. It can enhance your professional work, but will also develop stronger connection with your soul. Practiced regularly, self portraiture can give you a personal, mirrored look of yourself and where you stand at this point in life, that you can’t find anywhere else. A unique reality check to learn from in a deeper level. Looking and accepting yourself is powerful practice. Being your own art piece will give you joy that you can tap into anytime you want.

I’d love to know how you get along. Let me know in comments! :)