After all, my most admired photographers created their art with whatever they had at hand. A disposable camera, old film cameras, an iPhone, polaroids, you name it.
So, on my last trip, as usual I had a long agenda, but in the back of my mind was, of course, to organize some shoot.
It always amazes me how things work, at least for me. Usually I try to hire some model, or at least place a casting call to see who's interested. This time, models were way out of my range or simply too pretentious. So I went my way, talking to some people and asking if they knew somebody and so on so forth. Well, the thing is, who doesn't know somebody who would love to have a little fashion photo session? Aha!
So with my good friend Mayra, we asked the owner of a little Cafe, if we could borrow it for some pictures. Crazy thing is she said yes! So we woke up real early, got some props, got Claudia to do the make up and Voilá! we got ourselves a photo shoot!
The whole point I'm trying to make, if there's such a thing, is that it doesn't matter all the gear you have, it can fail. what if you don't know how to use it, what if you don't get to carry ALL with you, or forgot the exact gadget you wanted?
It amazes me that still today, I see many photographers bragging about their expensive cameras (So they think, I'm yet to see any of them shooting with a Leica) or they huge telephotos, when you just can't top a simple $200 prime lens.
To me is all about creativity, adaptability and passion. if you believe in what you want, people will help you, they'll share your dream and they'll make it theirs, at least for a moment.
So I call my style guerrilla photography. almost no budget, local and mostly free talent, and ad-hoc locations. This often envolves a quick retreat. So you need to travel light, and you need to use your gear at it's best.
So, the first picture at the top is the borrowed dinner/ cafe. (Cafe Zapopan. You gotta stop there when you visit Jalisco in Mexico!)
Then, this is our brave model Itzel, before the make up.
Now, my hard-working assistant, who got an outstanding 10 minute on-the-spot training in advanced photo lighting techniques.
And this is what you get to do in about 50 minutes, with bystanders and the worst light you can get coming through the windows.
For that matter, we used every corner of the tinny place, the doors, the bathroom, the tables. Even the tequila bottle was improvised: it was really almond syrup of sorts.
This model had the best attitude, she just needed a crazy photographer with lots of imagination.
Then we moved right out of the joint., where a bunch of middle school boys were having a nice experience yelling at the model. Boy she's brave.
And we went for a more traditional look, just for her parents.
Finally, the make up lady wanted to give it a shot too. She had a different take on things, so we came up with this:
