First person

Photos: © Pepa de Rivera

Text: © Manuel Bayo

Traducción: © Nacho de Los Ríos y Carmen Arias

  • Pepa de Rivera’s images are always suggestive, personal, very attractive. They don’t attempt to explore the limits of photography, but of her own introspection from fortuitous events that surround her, intuitively, very poetic. They are personal images of accidental situations, with no claim to constitute series or anything that frame them in a restrictive understanding: They are very open images, each one may suggest the most diverse stories from a very definite sensitivity.

    The very short stories that accompany the photographs are fabrications from a trip south (Tierra del Fuego) north (San Pedro de Atacama) of Chile, with one lucky (and inevitable when traveling by car) step by Argentina. Affected by the sensations that, like fine rain penetrated me, I have not found a better way to keep them in my memory. In these stories happen things that can be associated mentally with places, sceneries and lights (especially if they are known in reality or through readings, videos or photographs) on all similar to those experienced on this trip. But essentially they contain intimate moments and Pepa's photographs reflect those moments with beauty, honesty and simplicity.

    I like the contrast between text and images that, at first glance, does not appear to be related (or do not appear clearly) but they seem to converge in their intimate expression. Moreover, the process has been somewhat upside down: it was Pepa who offered me through her images those intimate moments, followed by a process of identification with my own travel experiences. In this way have been built these very short stories.

    They are two works in first person, the images and the stories that carefree for its lack of formal agreement, essentially lock.