Mònica Figueras: between what is seen and what is felt
By Nacho Izquierdo
There are female photographers who capture the world. But there are others, such as Mònica Figueras, who caress him with their eyes. His quiet and human style has created a work that is felt more than it is explained. With a unique sensitivity to rescue the intimate and a special connection with natural light, she reminds us that the everyday can also be poetry.
Mònica, your photos have a special warmth, almost as if time stopped for an instant. How did you discover that visual language that is so much yours?
It has been a process that has arisen naturally. I guess being myself and trying to look with the viewfinder the same way I do with my eyes. I seek to speak in a very intimate, realistic, sincere way and always trying to have a strong connection with the environment or the person I am going to photograph.
What role does spontaneity play in your work? How do you balance the natural with the technical in a shoot?
My work has a controlled spontaneity or spontaneous control. It seems like an antagonism, but that’s how it is. I observe the situation, place myself where the photographic composition works for me and wait or patiently let the photograph find me. Or on the contrary, I organize the elements that are going to make up the image and let it flow on its own. I bring spontaneity and technique to a balance, just like in real life. Although I think that in these the impulsive wins a lot.
You work with FUJIFILM, a brand that is much loved by those who value texture and color. What connects you the most with their cameras?
All my life I have shot with analog cameras, for the vibrant colors, the texture of the grain and the romanticism of the things that await and that are made with time, dedication and love. With FUJIFILM what I have found has been a very strong link with all this, but with contemporary technology and the facilities that today’s advances give you.
Beyond the camera, what objects or rituals always accompany you when you go to photograph?
If it’s summer, a watermelon. If not,” he laughs, “I look for summer somewhere else where there are watermelons.
Many of your photos seem to whisper more than scream. How important is silence or pause in your creative process?
A few years ago I lived in the city because I thought that cosmopolitan life would give me more opportunities, but I always wanted to escape the asphalt, noise and crowds. I wanted the weekend to come and go explore rocks and secret beaches. Until I went to live on the Costa Brava and realized that my great inspiration was there. Getting up every morning in front of the sea and observing life from my balcony. The color of the sky at all times of the day, the full moon from the sofa and the grandparents who go down to swim at the same time, in the same place. I am a calm person, very attached to nature and to a leisurely life, and so I feel more comfortable to be able to create.
How do you choose the people you photograph? What must a look or a skin have to invite you to shoot?
I photograph professional models in advertising assignments in which it is given since the production of the campaign. But I always prefer to do it with people with whom I have a bond and a connection. With them, I manage to generate a more intimate, sincere and safe atmosphere. It is not a matter of having soft skin or light eyes, but that the relationship between her and me is real, worked on and cared for, then it is when relaxed environments are generated where spontaneity plays a great role. You believe the look and it pierces you because it has been provoked from love and honesty.
What place does natural light have in your work? Do you consider yourself a “hunter” of light or a “companion” of it?
I will never be able to hunt something as big as light, which is for me, my goddess. So I prefer to accompany her and pray to her so that she comes out beautiful. Natural light is unpredictable, it is changing and mysterious. You can explore it and get to know it, but you never know how it will surprise you. It doesn’t get more exciting than this.
How does looking through the viewfinder affect you, emotionally? Are there days when you prefer not to photograph?
I’m a water sign, so I’m made of pure emotion. Photographing is largely a therapy, it is my form of expression and the purest way to show my feelings. I also believe that this world needs more art. More sensations that make you vibrate, smile, think and cry. My great intention is to be able to give something beautiful to all hearts that want to appreciate it and to be able to get out even for an instant from this cold and practical life that society wants to impose on us.
Finally, if your camera could talk, what do you think it would say about you after all these years?
Surely, she would kill me for having put her in a little dangerous and embarrassing situations. Problematic manifestations, aquatic situations on the verge of drowning, caught of tourists photographed on the beach. But, at the same time, I would be grateful for having taken care of her and treated her as the most important object of my life. When I fall in love, I love it very intensely, and that’s how I feel with it, as the healthiest and best love you can have. I hope it’s being mutual. I’ll never know, but I guess I will.
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