A Photography Journey

I find myself contemplating this idea wherever I go, whenever I shoot, and whenever I think about taking images. It's been two weeks since I started ‘returning to Chile’, coming back doesn't feel like an event finished the moment my feet landed on the Chilean arid soil. It’s a process, something I’m living through, like the excitement of peeling a ripe fruit ready to unveil its sweet flesh.

If you're here, you probably know that I am a passionate street photographer.

Scenes of the past few days

However, something has been growing on me for a while—a thirst to give my photography more ‘meaning’, a conscious thought before pressing the shutter. I’m an improviser, a roaming soul. Yet, just like seeds breaking the soil to see the light, I need my pictures to be like seeds, even though they're made of light and moment.

After almost seven years away from South America, and a couple more travelling outside of Chile, my old room feels like a time capsule. I found old cassettes, a floppy disk, my school calculator, a chessboard, cables of all kinds with seemingly forgotten purposes, and pictures of my parents. All of them share a common trait—a weird greenish tint—as if time wanted to ensure it left a mark on them, making sure everyone knows they're icons of the past.

What is it about colour that can even whisper the age of something?

Even before leaving, I wasn't exactly much at home. Probably more than 10 years have passed since the last time I slept here. Everything seems so familiar yet so strange, similar to the sensation of knowing something that you weren't supposed to, only to find yourself late into the night scrolling through ‘past lives’ on Google.

Among these things, there is an old Olympus point-and-shoot camera. I’ll try to find its charging cable, of course, none of the random cables is the right one. Probably I’ll find one in Istanbul; there’s a big building right beside Sirkeci train station full of camera shops. A photography enthusiast like me could dive into this place for hours and still have enough oxygen.

I also found an old Skina film camera, a Sk-102 model. These point-and-shoot film cameras are now basically worthless, as they were mass-produced with several different brandings. You might find the same model branded as Olympo, Sirius, etc. However, despite its seemingly low value, there’s a treasure inside—an old 400 ISO film patiently waiting to be developed someday.

What’s interesting is that this used to be my dad’s camera. He’s neither dead nor too old; we just departed in separate ways, physically and mentally. Photography played a crucial role in helping me to heal this wound. It might sound dramatic, but these pictures might be the last chance that I have to engage in a conversation with my dad – hope it’s not –.

Photography is a one-way journey; once you truly embark on this, there’s no way back. This goes beyond the joy of a good image or the look of a new piece of gear. Photography has helped me shape the way I see and understand the world.

The great American photojournalist and documentary photographer Dorothea Lange coined the following phrase: “The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.” For now, this is my new favourite quote, my new mantra.

“The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera”

“The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.”

I haven't done much street photography lately. I thought I was going to be shooting every day restlessly. These days, instead, I need to photograph my family, my grandma and friends, my beautiful partner, and the cup of coffee that lights up my day.

Clarisa, her name is.
She raised 6 children,
My mom is one of them.
She has buried two already,
a newborn and my uncle.
She smiles,
She loves,
She cooks beans like heaven.
Her hands hurt at times,
She smiles again.

Cochabamba