We spoke with María Viñas (1997, Madrid), a photographer and art director from the capital who stands out for the sensitivity with which she captures and immortalizes the moment. Femininity, detail and color are the three aspects that resonate in the photos with which María seeks to stop time and memory to value each moment.
Tell us: Where do you come from and why photography?
I don't remember exactly when I started taking photos. I always remember the need to take them: with the family camera, a disposable one, my mobile phone or a compact one. Whether it's to treasure moments, to slow down the passage of time or to save thoughts. I think a lot about the finiteness of life and moments and taking photos has always seemed to me to be a good way to help me stop and look and pause life.
In fact, a few years ago I switched to analogue precisely for that reason: while with digital I was obsessed with a result, with film, contemplation and detail take precedence. And it helps me a lot to value each moment.
How would you describe yourself as Maria (both as a person and as a professional)?
A 27-year-old from Madrid, with an interest in writing, art and photography: everything that leads me to analysis, contemplation and pause. I always say that design taught me to solve problems and Fine Arts to look. Music lover, dancer for enjoyment, professional walker and creative in advertising agencies for the last six years.
How has your work evolved?
I started taking self-portraits. Not for nothing, but because I barely left home when I was a teenager and I started exploring with my body and with the small details I found on walks. Little by little, my photography started leaving home, looking for the details that make me feel alive. Some time ago I realized that, unconsciously, if I take a photo of something, it means that it matters to me. Now, I mostly take photos of my friends and in the moments of exploring and resting with them.
What is your priority when capturing in a photo?
To save that moment and feeling in my memory, with the sensitivity that this entails.
Photography is a very vocational activity. You connect with it either throughout your life or over the years, and you have the ability to feel a special connection every time you take a photo. What does photography hold for you that no other practice holds?
The superpower of stopping time. Being able to choose what you like most in the world and archive it to remember it forever: storing sensations, details and memories.
Your work has a certain analogical and ambiguous treatment. There are blurs, undefined lines and a lot of grain in some of your photographs. What format do you work with and what do you seek to convey with the treatment of the image you make?
For personal work, I tend to work in analogue because it allows me to stop and pay more attention to detail. I don't obsess over the result, but rather think more about the moment. When I work digitally for more specific campaigns, I sometimes play with the format, printing, scanning and touching the images. The fact that it's all a purely digital process makes me feel a little disconnected from it.
Let's talk about color: What do you base and get inspired by when choosing the color palette that predominates in each session?
I've noticed that they tend to be simple palettes, and that, in some way, they remind me of specific sensations or of what is natural.
You introduce touches of colour. I don't know if it's conscious or unconscious that you create a balance of contrasts by introducing a pair of trousers, a cloth or a piece of fruit, and suddenly that element takes centre stage. How important and important would you say the treatment of colour is in your image?
In some ways, I've realized that I'm already doing this without meaning to. I've always liked to simplify the tones and have few blocks of color, so that the shapes, the gestures and the voids take center stage.
But there has been a transition in your work. In 2018 and 2019, it seems like you were working much more in black and white. Why this transition?
It was a time when I was exploring form more. I found colour a distraction. I also took more photographs in the city and I find city colours, as a rule, sad and uninspiring. In general, it was a sad time. From then on, I started to have more contact with nature and with people who gave me space to stop and value my sensitivity and I returned to colour.
All your work has a common thread that seems to be becoming your hallmark. Whether it is a portrait or a landscape image, there is a sensitive, transparent and feminine character about all of them. How do you portray from your perception of the feminine and femininity?
I think it's a virtue to be sensitive. And I try to surround myself with people who value it and perceive the world from that perspective: that's what I think gives grace to the narrative of life. I like to photograph the vulnerable, the at rest, the fragile, the distracted, because I feel that it's the most natural, authentic and human. That's why, relatively recently, I realized that I have a lot of photos of my friends sleeping: that's when they're most serene and real.
It seems that in your work sex and gender dissolve, leaving only identity. What is there about the queer community in your work?
I don't think I look for a space for gender in my work, at least not consciously. Above all I focus on the contemplative: I look when I'm not seen. I like to look when I feel people being, without pretensions. But without entering into any specific attitude, discourse or identity.
Yes, there are some sessions that I have done that are more thoughtful and can be identified with a more queer image , so to speak, but they usually respond to a more intimate and personal narrative: for example, the Helena session , which talks about sexuality as a result of a particular concern, and the Transformation session, which takes as a reference a reading of goddess cards that Soraya did for me, which is why she is the protagonist of the session.
If you had to choose a type of photography (music, landscape, etc.), which one would you choose?
Landscape and portrait of my friends in nature. That's what gives me life and fills me with love.
A color?
Teal Green
For those who don't know your work, you have collaborated with brands like Kling and artists like Russian Red, and your photos appear in catalogues for various companies like Nada. What project do you remember the most and what was the experience like?
I remember María de la Flor's session with special affection. Lucía (the stylist), María and I prepared the session with a lot of confidence and with a beautiful fluidity. Also, the photos of Russian Red made me especially excited because I was a big fan when I was a teenager, and it meant a lot to me. The twists and turns that life takes are fascinating.
A dream portrait?
Patti Smith
Future steps?
Starting this month I'm starting my freelance adventure as a photographer and art director. If photography gives me life, it would be nice to dedicate more space to it, right?
