Moments with my Family

 

   © Photos: Pepa de Rivera,Text: Paqui Tellez

A few years ago, a photography teacher commented to us in class: "be careful when they tell you about your photographs" How beautiful! ", Because you are still making postcards".

It was something that stayed with me forever. I think that today there are many photographers who have a work that visually is like candy; It attracts us a lot because aesthetically it is very attractive and it enters our eyes very well; and even technically flawless. But, they are like soap bubbles that when you get closer you discover that inside there is only air, nothing.

I explain all this to you, Pepa, because your Photography seems very beautiful to me from the start and hence I already activated my alerts for what I said above. But after spending a leisurely time on it, I get something else that I need when seeing the work of a photographer, which is depth, meaning.

I think that it is not so difficult to find a reason for our photographs, the key is in the commitment to what you photograph; with that it is enough so that apart from aesthetics there is substance underneath, which gives it weight and solidity to hold. Your photographs are beautiful because what you photograph, the family, your family, has you in love. You already told me on the phone, however, even if I had not known it in advance, it is easily guessed: that feeling is in each of your photographs of your close ones. But that beauty is born from a real feeling, and that is why it is not gratuitous beauty, and it gives meaning and depth to your work, which is what I need to feel for a photographic work to make sense.

One imagines when you see your photographs that in family gatherings there is an element that does not bother you, which is your camera. That the members of your family are very used to being accompanied regularly when you are together. That is why it is a Photography without fanfare, calm, natural.

On the other hand, saving the distances, the work of Sally Mann has come to mind from the intimate side of portraying the members of her family; when they are calm and relaxed in their everyday surroundings, simply enjoying the company of spending and even wasting time together.

Your family is lucky that you are part of them; It is a gift that one of the group, in this case you, is creating such an intimate visual record that is born of the love with which you feel and look at them.

I can only congratulate you for having achieved, in my opinion, what every photographer should achieve, which is to find what to photograph and without ceasing to put commitment and passion every time the camera's shutter is pressed.

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