Luís Miguel Flores ha escrito un artículo sobre la fotografía musical para una revista inglesa SPN. Los que tengaís Ipad podeís descargarla aquí https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/spn/id734800717?mt=8 para ver la galería y las fotos. Siempre es de agradecer que cuenten con un montón de buenos fotógrafos y que se hable de nuestro trabajo, se agradece el esfuerzo. Espero que os guste el artículo.
Spanish Rock Photography: The Sound of Flash
Even though
the Spanish music industry is one of the sectors most hardly hit by the economic
crisis and what have you, our rock photographers seem to be on fire these days.
It has become a labour of love in most cases, but even though there may be little
or no money, there seems to be no shortage creativity-wise.
Searching
for the perfect rock-concert photo is tough. You have 5 to 10 minutes to steal
a soul. You need to balance the dynamics of the show with the intensity of a
portrait. Then, a professional photographer has to fight not only his avid
peers, but also all of us crazy instagramers and smartphone-bearers. “Never
mind the hardware, a true photographer still lives in the eye and the finger”.
So says one of today’s prominent concert-guerrilla shooters, Alfredo Arias. He´s
worked for most Spanish rock magazines and has a few cover-shots under his wing.
He captured Skin, the singer from Skunk Anansie, in what we could call a
spectacular “concert-portrait”, his specialty. Is it a stage... or a studio?
Oscar
García understands photography in a similar way and looks for “honest images,
devoid of artificialness”. He works mainly in Spain but also for some British
and American music magazines. He captured another British lady, Anna Calvi, in
a joyful but very deep note. Self-taught Juan Pérez-Fajardo, also a musician
and a 3D artist, is all about the moment. “I follow and learn the musician’s
moves for a while until I understand it’s the perfect time to shoot”. His amazing
AC/DC’s Angus Young picture –which hangs in the walls of Las Vegas’ Hard Rock
Café, by the way- proves that point.
Óscar,
Alfredo and Juan are still young, but even younger spanish photographers like
Sergio Albert and Salomé Sagüillo (also a painter) have yet a different
approach. They are both true Madrid’s underground creatures. And that shows in
a somewhat uncommon and twisted approach. Sergio shot desert bluesmen Tinariwen
from an almost surreal concertgoer’s perspective. Salomé captured ex-Sonic
Youth’s Kim Gordon from the floor: we can’t see her face but we feel her
intensity.
More views:
Maite Nieto is quite unique, as you can see in her close-up of Slipknot’s
singer. He might be wearing a mask... but the picture is far from inexpressive.
Actually, working at this show is “what made (her) decide what (she) wanted
from photography”. And she has quite a future, like Mariano Regidor, who
captures the blood sweat and... Smoke of the live experience of Andalusian
garage-blues heroes Gualupe Plata. Nacho B Sola, likewise, portrays Madrid’s
band Havalina in a fiery motion. More recent names, lest we forget: Javier
Salas, Marta Pich, Iñaki Campos, Tom Hagen, Javier de Agustín, Antonio Alai,
Jorge Ontalva, Nathalie Paco, Lorena Watt, Alfredo Rodríguez... The list is
long and succulent.
The “live
experience” might be synonymous with rock, but somebody has to do the album
covers. Most of the above mentioned have worked for promotional and magazine
shots, but Jerónimo Álvarez (songwriter Javier Alvarez’s brother, whose picture
for his “Grandes éxitos” is a must) may well be the referent. He has a unique,
totally recognizable style and he snugly fits his subjects into this “minimalist
search for the crucial instant, the naked portrait”.
Just before
these 21st Century photographers came an intermediate step to the
“classics” in professionals like Jordi Vidal who, after 25 years in the
business –as photographer and musician- feels he’s going “back to the roots,
blending with the band and the audience” and, what’s more, “being saved by rock
and roll once more”. In his picture of Elliott Brood he just seems part of the
band. Meanwhile Xavier Mercadé, a veteran with nearly 30 years in photography,
gives us the definitive impression of the techno-turned-stadium-rock icon Dave
Gahan from Depeche Mode. And adds: “muscle, strength, passion and assurance”. Blanca
del Amo has photographed the whole Malasaña musical scene of the 90s and has a
deep knowledge of that Madrid’s barrio nightlife –she owns a bar-, but offers a
chilling and recent black and white stage portrait of Leonard Cohen in
Benicassim.
All of them
are the sons and daughters of photographers such as Miguel Trillo, Alberto
García-Alix and Mariví Ibarrola: three great “painters” of known and unknown
faces of the “Movida”, artists, true rockers, all-nighters and insiders of the
turbulent 80’s in Madrid. Or Domingo J Casas, a recurring and emphatic presence
in pits and backstages since the late 70s, known for being in the right place
at the right time and befriending ultimate rock stars such as Keith Richards.
We see him in a double picture: posing and onstage. Domingo grew fascinated
with the Stones and finally met Keith in 1991: “what was said and done only we
know, but in the picture you can feel our complicity”. And then, we can’t
forget other photographers who started in the 80’s or early 90’s like David
Calle, Liberto Peiró Juanlu Vela...
But this journey
has to end -or begin- with Mario Pacheco. He died in 2010. Record producer,
owner of Nuevos Medios label and main conspirator behind the “jóvenes
flamencos” revolution, he shot the cover for Camarón’s masterpiece “La leyenda
del tiempo” in 1979. And just 9 years before, when he was 20, he got to photograph
Jimi Hendrix at the Isle of Wight festival. Well, that’s quite a shot...
Luis Miguel Flores
