My name is Joan López and I live in Barcelona, although I was born in a very close city called Sabadell. I’m a photographer, although almost all my professional life has been spent in secondary education, teaching the Catalan language and literature in public institutes. Apart from photography, my other great passion is music.
His website: https://joanlopezphoto.com/
In fact, I record and produce my own instrumental music in a basic home studio and I like to combine my two passions as much as possible: I edit videos with slideshows of my best photos while my music plays in the background, for example. Nevertheless, there are two elements in my life that are above all devotion: my wife and my 3-and-a-half-year-old daughter, with whom everything makes more sense.
Table of Contents
How did you get started in photography, and what drew you to this art form?
When I was a child, my father and my aunt used to take photos of outstanding family moments. Their cameras were always analogic, of course, but very simple, because neither of them had knowledge of photography beyond using automatisms. I’m absolutely sure they didn’t know what shutter or aperture was. My aunt even dared to take the step into digital photography and bought a Sony compact which I kept when she couldn’t shoot anymore a few years before her death.
Without being aware, the two brothers’ interest in photographic fact left a certain mark on me. I started to become aware of that with the arrival of the first smartphones. The truth is that I started taking photos with a certain creative interest with the first smartphone I had. It must be the year 2010. The certainty that this was not authentic photography worried me, but, due to professional and personal circumstances, I couldn’t solve that concern until eight years later, when I decided to take the first introductory classes on photography and digital image processing.
It was then that I first heard about concepts like diaphragm/aperture, shutter/speed, ISO/sensitivity, and white balance… Fortunately, that intermediate time of self-teaching with the smartphone let me begin to approach reality from another perspective, with a new view, till the point that I started to appreciate details that previously went unnoticed.
Why this art form? I feel photography documents reality and the moment like no other art. The unavoidable lapse between the artist’s perception of reality from the rest of the artistic disciplines and the culmination of his work generates such a distance that the ease for the artist’s subjectivity to intervene in the reproduced reality is much greater.
I don’t mean photography prevents the expression of the subjectivity of the photographer; nothing is further from reality. Nor am I pretending to elevate photography above the rest of arts; there are even those who don’t consider it art. Deep down, photography can be what each one wants it to be. Even more so in such a technologicalized contemporary world in which the capture of the moment is suffering a sort of perversion that saddens me in a certain way.
And we’ll see what comes next, with the development of artificial intelligence. I’m not against it at all. It’s just that I’m concerned about the denaturing of forms of life, knowledge, communication, and expression. And, even though being aware it’s a paternalistic feeling, the attraction power that virtuality exerts especially on the youngest.
What is your preferred style or genre of photography, and why?
Street photography. Without doubt. When I’m shooting in the streets it’s when I mostly connect with my essence and feel how my viewfinder reduces the entire world to what it’s framing. The magic interval of time between the search for suitable framing and the pressure of the trigger is indescribable. Time moves much faster than usual.
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In fact, although I’m a punctual person by nature, I would end up running late wherever I have to be after each street photo session if I wasn’t especially aware. Knees pain that I have suffered since I gave up football disappeared as if by magic. The world goes on spinning out there, but my world is restricted to what the viewfinder shows my eye. I have come to photograph pigeons on the floor of Catalonia’s Square that even touched me when I have a phobia of any animal with wings due to a traumatic childhood episode.
People who wander within the limits of my viewfinder –some of whom will remain forever in my photographic world– are not them individually, particular entities with names and surnames, with personal experiences and concrete feelings, but rather they will become expressions of humanity as a whole, allegories of everything we all feel, live and experience equally. All this gives them the greatest dignity and importance, the greatest possible meaning, and true sense. I’m conscious it may be a naive, unreal, and pretentious approach, but magic exists when life has given you the privilege of being able to experience it.
I’m sure it’s the same magic that the dancer feels when moving around the stage, the athletes when their actions has deserved a triumph, or when the scientific researcher observes the results of the experimentation.
However, street photography is not the only genre I like to indulge in, of course. Landscapes, nature, urban nooks and architecture, cityscapes, and, above all, seascapes are also my viewfinder target. I don’t dislike portrait photography, but it’s not the genre that appeals to me the most either. It’s also true the internships I did throughout my specialization in photojournalism discovered to me contexts that really captivated me: concerts, shows, and sports above all.
It can’t be surprising that someone who loves live music and who played football non-stop until 34 has found a particular attraction in these visual contexts. Be that as it may, all these experiences have awakened my interest in recent times not only for photojournalism but also for documentary photography in broader terms, to the point that my goal for the next academic year is to present a documentary project to get a postgraduate in this subject at Institut d’Estudis Fotogràfics de Catalunya.
How do you improve and develop your photography skills?
Shooting up. Nothing better than that. Shooting a lot, rehearsing and correcting, and facing new challenges and situations. And reading from the best. Public libraries usually have a section, however small it may be, with a collection of books on photography in which one can find experiences and advice from renowned professionals.. I remember that when I started I read a lot on the Internet, even. I searched the experiences of others for the answers to my concerns, worries lack, and mistakes.
And I go on doing so at specific times. In a way, and even having studied almost everything I know at Institut d’Estudis Fotogràfics de Catalunya, I consider myself more self-taught than anything else. In what sense?
First of all, I tend to self-teach. Second and much more important, I believe it’s the experience with the camera that really teaches you. And a perfectionist and self-critical spirit, of course. The continuous review of your learning and experiences is basic. There is no progress if the results are not analyzed patiently and with an interest in improving. As with everything in life.
And well, I feel lucky to have been able to work with one of the best here in Barcelona on some chances. This is Pere Virgili, my photojournalism teacher. The master. Watching him in action is extremely inspiring and enriching. When you think there are no more relevant images left, when you think everything is done there, you notice he’s staring at something that would have gone completely unnoticed without his ‘magical’ gaze.
It’s not just that where he’s staring there is a good photo. There is a photo with capital letters. Photography with capital letters, in fact, is what his camera gets. That photo is not exactly the one that most newspapers will publish the next day, but the one that explains a story starring souls.
That’s what Pere was looking at in that magical moment I’m talking about. Perhaps it’s a romantic approach, but now I’m getting to know him a little better I understand this is what motivates him to go on after so many years in the profession.
An invaluable way I have to improve my visual skills: learning from one of the best in action. ‘You have to photograph with intention’, he constantly repeated in class. At first, I didn’t understand exactly what he meant. The photographic practice and, of course, watching him in action revealed the secret to me.
The same image from another perspective, with a different lens, or with the focus over another point tells a different story. Only by remaining absolutely conscious of what we wanted or we needed to tell we’ll get the most suitable photo. That was precisely what Pere meant with the word ‘intention’. I will always owe this learning to him. A treasure.
What equipment do you use and why?
Fujifilm X-Series cameras and lenses. When I started learning at IEFC, my first teacher invited us to buy a camera that would allow us to practice the knowledge he was teaching. I went to one of the stores that he recommended with the aim of buying a second-hand SLR since I didn’t know at that time if my journey through the world of photography would end up being more or less long.
However, the person who served me there, who I still have the pleasure of dealing with when I need photographic material or advice, suggested a Fujifilm X-Series kit consisting of a Fujifilm X-T2 and a Fujinon XF18-55mm F2.8-4 R LM with OIS stabilisation system that I no longer have and that became my pass to a new way of understanding the world.
I had a hard time deciding between this brand-new equipment and second-hand SLR alternatives, certainly. I also had a hard time adjusting to the kit once I bought it, but not so much because of the equipment as because of my still very limited photographic knowledge and skills. As I went practicing, that tool became something like an extension of me. Unconditional love.
To the extent that I was experimenting and acquiring fluency, I was expanding my lens equipment, always from Fuji X-Series. And updating my cameras based on what Fujifilm goes bringing to the market. I currently work with a Fujifilm X-T4 and two X-T5. As for lenses, I work with various Fujinon elements: XF14mm F2.8 R, XF35mm F2 R WR, XF50mm F1.0 R WR, XF90mm F2 LM WR, XF50-140mm F2.8 R LM OIS WR, XF 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 R LM OIS WR, two XF 16-55mm F2.8 R LM WR and an XF 2X TC WR converter.
What do you think is the most important element of a great photograph?
Emotion. I don’t think what is reproduced is as important in a photograph, nor a specific formal ingredient, as the emotion that it is able to arouse in the person who contemplates it. I understand photography –and art in wider terms– as a process of mental coding and decoding in which various actors are involved.
The reality that is reproduced and the eye of the photographer who interprets it, of course, but also the eye of the viewer, who (re)interprets not reality off camera but that first interpretation of reality by the photographer. There are many experiences, feelings, moods, and knowledge involved in the same fact. The characters in my street shots, for example, are ones for themselves and they become other ones for me. But they become as many others as the concrete number of people watching them in the captures.
Each one of us projects our experiences, feelings, moods, and knowledge in everything we see and do, I insist. And I believe that in this process there is a recurring element: emotion. Emotions. The emotions of all the actors I was referring to above. I’m not going into formal issues to answer this question because formal issues are just one more ingredient in this whole process. Are they essential? Of course, but like another actor that contributes to the generation of those emotions that the photographic fact makes emerge.
What professional photographers have influenced your work?
The more I learn about the craft, the more presumptuous it seems to me to talk about influences from the great masters. It’s evident that the visual culture of each one influences their photographic gaze and their shots, but, to be rigorous and even impertinent, neither Cappa nor Cartier-Bresson guides anyone’s finger towards the shutter button.
In addition to this, I think it’s unfair to compare the analog era with the digital one. Without going any further, my shots are not conditioned by a film with a limited number of shots like they were. On the other hand, it can be said that they explored virgin spaces so that originality is nowadays a true luxury within the reach of very few.
Despite all that has been said, I completely agree with those famous and hackneyed words by Ansel Adams about everything that each photographer invests in the photographic act (‘the images they have seen, the books they have read, the music they have heard, the people he has loved…’). That includes the work of the great masters.
It’s also true that on other occasions when I had to answer this same question, I quoted closer masters such as Antoni Campañà, Toni Catany, Colita, or Joan Colom, as well as international figures such as Robert Capa, Gerda Taro, Richard Avedon, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Ansel Adams or Diane Arbus. I suppose the politically correct thing was showing I knew their work more or less.
Do I like their photography? Of course, but, honestly, I don’t know if they have influenced me a little, a lot, or not at all. What I feel myself able to express without fear of being wrong is that there are three geniuses out there whose work fascinated me from the first moment.
They are Francesc Català-Roca, Fan Ho, and, above all, Brassaï. Essentials. Of course, I cannot say that their documentary and photographic work is better or more exhaustive than the ones mentioned above. It’s a matter of personal taste. Perhaps it’s a matter of contrast, one of the aspects of a capture in which I fix my attention the most –even involuntarily– and captivates me the most. There is no one who more nor better takes the contrast to the limit without going overboard than those three masters.
Then there is the matter of direct learning. I explained before how the direct observation of my photojournalism teacher, Pere Virgili, has been and is being, luckily for me, an unbeatable influence. A master of the profession and the good practices with a sixth sense for the achievement of that image that no one has been able to observe, much less suspect, cannot offer less than the best mastery.
How do you stay inspired and motivated as a photographer?
Honestly, since I started handling the camera with a certain amount of fluency, I have never felt the slightest demotivation, so inspiration and motivation are just there. I don’t feel I have to do anything to keep them.
I cannot deny that there are moments of greater and less inspiration and that there are times when it seems nothing is going to arouse my photographic curiosity. Until it happens again. As if by magic a photographic motif appears. Then I can come home with the capture to process and feel like it deserves to be thrown away before even starting, but at the moment it was worth framing, focusing, and shooting.
What’s more, in moments of low mood, I try to find a moment to go out and photograph, usually in the Old Town. Therapeutic. Then there is the matter of challenges and projects. Nothing better than to ward off demotivation and keep the eye and mind active.
How do you handle difficult shooting conditions or subjects?
They are challenges. The best incentive for improvement and learning. Not long ago, last February, I was crouched under the Bishop’s Bridge (el Pont del Bisbe), one of the iconic places in the Gothic Quarter, especially photogenic and photographed. Around eleven o’clock at night and, between the cold and the time, practically no one passed by.
The lighting was poor and minimal. I was waiting for the right moment to capture someone interesting under the bridge. If possible, a food delivery rider (they have become my weakness). The capture was beginning to acquire overtones of a mirage. My right knee sunk to the ground, with the pain in my knees and the cold… It was hard not to give up. Photographers must be mad, a little bit at least. And for what, after all?
That capture wasn’t even part of any project. Suddenly, a presence and a voice brought me back to reality. A couple had stopped next to me and he muttered a friendly question. ‘A difficult photo, isn’t it?’ I didn’t understand him the first time and he had to repeat the question. He added something before getting my answer: ‘I like photography, but I doubt I dared to shoot in these conditions’. We started an interesting conversation that allowed me to become aware of what I’m trying to express here now.
The more difficult the situation, the greater the challenge. That man left convinced of the advisability of tackling challenges and encouraged to do so. I don’t always achieve the challenges I set myself, and then it’s convenient to check the information to try again.
And try new solutions after discarding some shots. But it’s worth trying and persevering. If the challenge arises in an assignment, things are more delicate, because you cannot finish without having achieved the necessary shot.
On those occasions, I shoot a little bit more than usual trying different camera settings. It’s the way of achieving something half-decent. And that half-decent shot that will only manage to solve the commitment must be the one that will let me start to improve and learn for a new chance with similar conditions.
What advice would you give to someone who is just starting out in photography?
Do it. Do it without fear. Ask for help when you need it, but keep trying. Don’t worry about the quality of your equipment, but do what it’s able to do because you don’t need state-of-the-art equipment to take a good pic.
Shoot. Shoot every day and as much as your gaze suggests, because only by practicing will you improve your skills. Lose the fear about showing your work to those who can appreciate it, since a pic that is not shown is a pic that doesn’t exist. Enjoy the photographic process. If you don’t enjoy it, you will end up quitting, which isn’t bad; it will just be a symptom that it wasn’t your thing.
In fact, if enjoying it depends on not dedicating yourself professionally to it, find another job to enjoy photography in your spare time. Don’t give up without having the full feeling of having tried. And, above all, find your own voice, your own look, and your own visual discourse. You can do the same as others do, of course. It may even be necessary as an apprenticeship. But only by daring to be yourself will you be able to give your creations life and soul.
What do you hope your photography communicates to your audience, and why is this important to you?
I think we should ask them. When I get someone’s order, I try to ask as many questions as necessary before starting to work. I try to study the context and people before the photo shoot. As much as possible at least. I try my conscience tells me that it’s sure that I will achieve something close to what that person or those people wish.
Sometimes people communicate more with what we don’t say than with what we say. This is the reason why one must know how to read between the lines and in the depths, not only words but above all the soul. The easy thing is fulfilling the job. What really enriches you is giving it meaning and emotion.
It’s not easy to achieve it, but having such a goal in mind is what protects your work from the bland, from the ordinary. In fact, the most common thing is not to achieve it, because of how complex it is. It may even be sad, but there is something sadder: not having tried.
I’ll end with something that makes me feel especially honored: when people I just worked with tell me that they didn’t notice I was there. Especially if I’ve had to move among them while they were working. Therein lies what I consider one of the main challenges and skills of the documentary photographer: having learned to work so discreetly as to not influence or intervene in the context.
Even doing street photography, a character’s gaze at the camera reminds me that I haven’t been able to go unnoticed enough. It may be a very rigid approach, but I think that altering someone’s behavior, even minimally, with a camera is tantamount to faking a reality in which neither it nor I had a place. A very different thing would be a consenting portrait or an improvised eye contact of acquiescence.
