Fotografxs
Taking a portrait of a fellow photographer is always a delicate challenge – Estela de Castro set out to do exactly that. Over the last 13 years, she photographed more than 140 of the great Masters of Spanish photography. Her analogue black & white portraits are classic, captivating and as honest as they can get.
Photography Estela de Castro
“Photography has given me a place to invent myself.”
Alberto García Alix
Thirteen years ago I began to photograph the great masters of Spanish Photography, simply because I liked spending time with photographers and listening to their experiences in the world of photography.
A project that aims to become an exhaustive archive of our creators and that includes photographers belonging to different generations and with different aesthetic and conceptual approaches. The work currently has 140 portraits, but I hope to be able to reach 200 portraits.
With my analogue Hasselblad on my shoulder, my tripod and my films, I have been visiting each one of them in their personal space, using only natural light that I find in each house or studio to take the photographs.
This project is a personal look, without artifice and decorations, which aims to fix not only the image of our greats of photography, but also to collect their testimonies and experiences in the photographic environment, recording video interviews and choosing small fragments of the conversations that They form an audiovisual that can be seen on my website.
“Photography is life.”
Alberto Schommer
“Photography, the direct path to memory.”
Joana Biarnés
“If you have no interest in the world, it is very difficult to take pictures.”
Eduardo Momeñe
“The photographer is not only someone who carries a camera, he also has to know what world he lives in and learn to tell it.”
Juan Manuel Castro Prieto
“Photography opens the doors to the true loving and passionate reality.”
Ouka Leele
“Photography is the perfect excuse.”
Cristina de Middel
“I took photographs because I liked it, sometimes I was surprised to earn money with them.”
Oriol Maspons
“Photography is my weapon, my shield and my greatest act of sincerity.”
Elisa G. Miralles
“It is finding answers to questions and questions to answers.”
Gloria Oyarzabal
“A good fashion photography should not follow a certain fashion of photographing.”
Manuel Outumuro
“Photography has changed the way we use memory. (Milan Kundera)”
Pilar Aymerich
“For me, photography is a profession that allows me to live and a magnificent language to express and transmit the things that I see, feel and move me.”
Ferran Freixa
“Photography is a beautiful tool to change the world.”
Ana Palacios
“Photographing is one of the most beautiful ways to defy time and fill it with life.”
Cristina García Rodero
About Estela
Estela de Castro (b. Madrid, 1978) specialises in portraiture. Part of her work is linked to the fight for human and animal rights. Formed together with photographers such as Eduardo Momeñe or the Vallhonrat brothers, in 2011 she began the Fotógrafxs project, exhibited at PhotoEspaña 2014. Between 2017 and 2019 she developed her Zoocosis series, with which she participated in the Capital Animal project, directed by Rafael Doctor.
In 2017 she created the PHES project “Solidarity Spanish Photography” and in 2018 the 33,293 project, which gives voice through photography to displaced people of 17 nationalities.
In 2019 she was commissioned to take the Official Portraits of Their Majesties the King and Queen of Spain, the Princess of Asturias and the Infanta Sofía.
In 2020 she carried out his work Resilience, which will be part of a collective project in book format co-published by the Factory and the ENAIRE Foundation and which will be exhibited at PhotoEspaña. In addition to carrying out his project The Animals, in which she portrays animals rescued from different types of exploitation.
In 2021, the documentary series "Detrás del Instante" broadcast on TVE2 dedicates a chapter to her career as a photographer.
In 2022 her project "The Animals", in which he portrays animals rescued from different types of exploitation, is exhibited in PhotoEspaña and published in book format by La Fábrica.
She teaches at various photography schools. She has worked as a freelance photographer for the Planeta group and Spainmedia. Her work has been published in media such as El País Semanal, El Mundo, La Vanguardia or The Times.
To see more of her work, visit her website or follow her on Instagram
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