There is an idyll between Casa Secuoya and cameras. Our spaces attract interesting and personal glances. The building, harmonious and powerful; the garden, with its texture of calm: they are places conducive to photos of great intensity and beauty.
We love hosting photographers. Collaborate with them, stage their work, enjoy the results. No matter how much we know the house and the garden in depth, there is always a point of discovery, surprise and pleasure in the photography that is born in Casa Secuoya.
Through this short questionnaire, we collected the opinion of four of "our" photographers. How they work, what attracts them and how they have experienced their relationship with Casa Secuoya. They are Chomi Delgado, Toya Legido, Tomás Zarza and Marina Palacios.
INTERVIEW WITH OUR PHOTOGRAPHERS
1. The Bilbao photographer Aitor Ortiz says that photographing means doing without and synthesizing. In your practice, what do you leave out? What do you do without?
2. How do you describe your photography?
3. The German photographer Candida Höfer treats the spaces she photographs as characters she portrays. What is space and architecture for you? How do you approach the photography of architectures and built places?
4. What does Casa Secuoya mean to you? What does it mean to photograph it?
5. Nature is, along with portraiture and buildings, one of the traditional themes of photography. What interests you? The garden of Casa Secuoya, what is special about it from a photographic perspective?
6. Who are your references in photography? Because?
Chomi Delgado
chomidelgado.com www.instagram.com/chomi_delgado/
Chomi was one of the first to photograph at Casa Secuoya. Today, his images continue to fascinate us like the first day.
Burgalés, specialized in documentary photography, won a prestigious award in 2020 Gold Lux for the work Daniela's story. As a wedding photographer, his work always shows a unique and vibrant seal.
1. Disregarding what does not contribute is the ideal, but I always prioritize the message over aesthetics. Within the story you want to convey, the simpler, more elegant and fewer elements, the better. That would be my goal, to tell everything synthesizing as much as possible but without manipulating anything.
2. Today I define my photography as the ideal "vehicle" to retain unique and real moments. Although any description is complicated when I feel that I am continually evolving. You never stop learning and it is training and experience that are basically, at this point, defining my photography.
3. Architecture photography is far from what I usually do, but I try to convey the same as when I photograph moments or stories. It is about playing with light, color and the environment so that, in addition to describing the place, it transmits that dimension that is so missed in photography as is the smell.
4. For me, Casa Secuoya is a nice surprise that brings fresh air to events in Burgos. Photographing there is a luxury, every time I go I feel lucky to have such a "canvas" to tell stories.
5. At Casa Secuoya the ensemble is inevitable. I can't imagine that beautiful garden without the house or the house without the garden. Everything fits perfectly. From a photographic perspective, it is very interesting because of the aforementioned, but you also have to take into account the light, which makes each time of the year have its magic and I really like that because, when you go there, you have the feeling of capturing different scenes. .
6. I am not very staunch about someone in particular, since continuous training makes you discover authors who become temporary references. But I always have two very present: Sebastião Salgado and Eugene Smith. His way of working, of getting involved in the stories, his sensitivity and his empathy for others.
A wedding in the garden of Casa Secuoya, by Chomi Delgado
Marina Palacios
Marina has been to Casa Secuoya several times covering activities organized by Flower Culture and Lady Raspberry. Equal parts dynamic and thoughtful, she focuses her work on weddings and other events, while maintaining an interesting corporate side. In the future, we will love to see you much more in our spaces.
1. I try to do everything in the most natural way possible, fleeing from all types of narrow rules and always seeking what is real without altering it.
2. I like to work as a bit of an omnipresent ninja, watching everything but not being seen. I enjoy portraying the soul of both people and places, seeking to achieve that in the future what I do now has an important value for those who trust me with their best memories. That they can feel again what they felt through my photographs, but always without being the center of attention and going as unnoticed as possible.
3. In the end, spaces are places where many different stories develop and where people meet who may never see each other again. That is why I like to see them and portray them as something special that has been built so that things happen inside. I like to make them both empty and portraying someone who complements them in the best possible way.
4. It is a place where you can be calm and get out of what the routine in a person's life entails. To photograph it is to admire it in terms of form, materials and nature. The pool is capable of making you feel like the main character in a Wes Anderson movie.
5. I like to photograph each place giving it its best: foggy forests, snowy mountains or piers at sunset. The Casa Secuoya garden is like a lung in the middle of a city, a place where nature and geometry coexist in the best possible way and the perfect setting for any disconnection.
6. Maria Peralta, for always seeking the voice in women photographers, for their friendship and for always launching into any idea that is on our minds.
Daniel Alonso, for having always been a guide and reference in wedding photography and for being the best example of effort and success from absolute humility.
Benjamin Hardman, for being able to portray the most extreme nature in the most beautiful way possible and always making me travel with my eyes closed.
Fran Mart, for portraying his life in a beautiful and natural way, uniting people and spaces with calm and great taste.
Image of the indoor pool, by Marina Palacios
Toya Legido and Tomás Zarza
In the early summer of 2021, Toya and Tomás spent a weekend photographing Casa Secuoya, a process that resulted in a wonderful collection of images. They are specialists in gastronomy, botany and architecture, with a very deep link with the world of culture and visual arts. His work also expands to the fields of exhibition curating, publishing and training.
1. We dispense with the unaesthetic and chaos.
2. We describe our photography as orderly, aesthetic, synthetic, calm, clean, natural, and sometimes abstract.
3. For us, space is architecture, and in many cases – as in Casa Secuoya – it is contemporary art in capital letters. When photographing places we always like to photograph the place, make general and exterior shots where the whole is understood. Then we move on to see what is inhabited with shorter shots, interiors, and how the furniture coexists with the architecture, photographing the remains of life.
We also love to make short plans that tell about the construction details, materials, finishes, which tell us about what is felt and experienced through small things. Tomás is always more abstract and a little bizarre when seeing space, he loves the surreal things that happen to him, and I cannot conceive spaces without nature, I like to see them through the vegetation that surrounds them or photograph them from the indoor plants that they contain, no matter how small they may be.
4. Casa Secuoya is first class contemporary architecture surrounded by nature. It synthesizes everything we like, the dream of any photographer. It's a pleasure to work there.
5. The variety of species it contains, the confrontation is also beautiful, the dialogue that occurs in Casa Secuoya between architecture, nature, how things as antagonistic as concrete and wood coexist harmoniously...
6. We have both been professors of photography at the university for more than 20 years, the list would be endless, but it is clear that we are influenced by the whole current of artists working in contemporary art and architecture that comes from the Düsseldorf school. If we have to talk about a Spaniard, then we have a good friend to name: Juan Baraja, who would love the house and who right now (June 2022) is exhibiting at the ICO Museum, within the framework of PHotoEspaña.
Main hall, by Toya Legido and Tomás Zarza
Detail of the upper floor, by Toya Legido and Tomás Zarza
