Photograph: Ricardo Jambrina
Lost in the mountains latent echo, in its overwhelming vastness and on the cold peaks covered by ice and snow, where the spirit flows like water into the rocks and releases from the imposed prison... It is maybe there where we revive and where our smallness to the world make us remember what is our real place and those things we are an immanent part of.
It is in the journey to the clouds, on its ephemeral beauty, on its forms and elegance where I find the harmony that caresses the hills, plays with textures on the stone, with light on valleys and lakes reflections.
It is in the lush woods and its paths, it’s in its darkness, where I find the mystery that fuels my curiosity. In the freefall of a cascade, in its sober roar turned into white silk....It is there where I find the real silence, where I find the everlasting truth.
It is in the twisted trunk of a tree asleep in the middle of a steppe, in its centenary loneliness, it is in memory of a thousand twilights where I find wisdom.
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I was born in Zamora in 1985, a small town in west Spain. Since I was young I have always worked at my family business, where I keep on working. My passion for photography started at the age of 19, when my mother gave me my first reflex camera. Until that day, I had never been in touch with the world of photography, and all was new and complicated for me. Curiosity and dedication soon turned into not only passion but also a way to, little by little, capture what my eyes where seeing and what my heart was feeling. My learning was always self-taught, although I cannot deny the great influence on me of the work of great American photographers such as Ansel Adams, Wynn Bullock, Edward and Brett Weston or Paul Caponigro.
I was always deeply attracted by the grandeur of mountainous landscapes, their textures, their inaccessibility and the mystery in their overwhelming peaks ripping the sky. It is not surprising that our ancestors saw in them the abode of the gods. It is my admiration for the grandeur of the natural landscape, in all its aspects, as well as the way in which our ancestors related to it and coexisted, which I seek to transmit and capture in my photographic work. It is the search for these images that takes me to the most remote places in my travels, through an exhaustive investigation and preparation of my photographic routes, which can last for days or weeks, with all my heavy photographic equipment, in my backpack.
I do my work on film, mainly in a 6x6 cm medium format and a 4x5 '' large format. For me, the richness and depth that offers black and white film is not reached by any digital sensor to date, and the same thing happens with the photosensitive fiber papers when are compared with inkjet prints. In addition, the classic photographic process, without mediation of computers, offers a more handcrafted approach and a sense to the photography, resulting in prints of the highest quality, which reflect the care and detail in each of the steps that give rise to their elaboration.