“Looking is seeing intently”

How did your relationship with photography begin?

As teenagers, before we met each other, photography was already part of our lives and when we did meet it continued to form part of them, but from that point on it was as something we did together.

The practice of photography developed in parallel to our professions, and evolved until it eventually became a profession that takes up all our time.

This does not mean that we don’t continue to use the knowledge we acquired in the disciplines we learned and practised in the past. We believe that wherever knowledge comes from, it is useful for any other activity, and your personal baggage is revealed in a very simple way: by asking yourself why you carry out your actions.

What is photography for you?

It’s a way of understanding life. It’s the excuse we have for travelling, learning languages, reading, understanding, solving problems or studying disciplines that are very different to the ones we know... Using diverse fields of knowledge helps us have more perspectives for understanding reality. And photography, like nearly everything in life, is a continuous process of decision-making and having to step outside of your comfort zone. To reach the final copy (the ‘what’), you have to go through how to do it, and the most important and difficult thing is finding out why.

How do you plan your projects?

Since we are human beings, we have a thirst for knowledge which makes us ask ourselves questions about the reality that surrounds us. We really like the Thomas Huxley quote that says you should try to learn something about everything and everything about something. The first step is to ask oneself questions: Why is the universe so complex and vast? How can it be that visually similar elements are so different on a structural level, and vice versa? What is time? What is identity and how is it associated to a space? Are memories only something human? What is the essence of something?… And the most important thing: Do all these elements exist per se, or are they simply a mental creation based on our perception and memories?

These questions force us to learn – by reading, through films, talking with people who have a much broader knowledge base than our own in certain subjects… Our theory is that this acquired knowledge changes the way in which we perceive reality. When our inner vision is clear and balanced, our ability to see life from a creative point of view is awoken. Photography stimulates our thirst for knowledge and personal education in every possible way.

How do you choose the places where you take your photographs?

The place isn’t so important. For us, the state of mind the place we are in gives rise to is more important. As we said earlier, when you have internalized a certain knowledge, when you come to a place it makes you see more things than you may have imagined initially. Looking is seeing intently. It’s having intentionality, that’s how you capture the essence of what you are seeking, wherever you are.

What is essence?

It’s what you are seeking. The questions you ask yourself, which are reflected in the place you are taking photographs of. Reality itself does not exist as something absolute. Every one of us sees a reality and interprets it in a personal way. For us, that essence is seeing that reality from the greatest number of angles possible, with the aid of the knowledge we have acquired through our experiences, and using photography as a tool.

Memories of the past and dreams for the future. But how do we live in the present?

Most of us forget to live in the present. We live [...]

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