That day I saw Óscar cry. We'd both gone to see his show in London. It was autumn 2010. He'd spent the day wandering around the city, because he loves strolling around. We met in the exhibition gallery, a Spanish bar off a street in Soho (I think). It was absolutely chock-a-block. Óscar's photos lined the walls, it had taken a long time to put it all together. I arrived when the opening was already underway, and Óscar flung himself at me, with tears in his eyes and a huge smile breaking across his face. Is he that happy to see me, I wondered? Then I recapitulated, No!, It's the thrill of showing his work in London. I'm happy! So happy!, Óscar kept saying, as he hugged me. I saw he wasn't excited because I was there or because he was opening a show in London… Terence Davies is here!, Óscar shouted, I'm ecstatic! He introduced me to Terence Davies, a man who transmits a genuine sense of joy, he has a calm, warm smile that makes you wonder where one earth he can have found all the suffering he pours into his films. Davies and Orengo where standing there, arm in arm, and Óscar was introducing him to everyone as if it were Terence Davies's show, not his. That gave me another peek into Óscar's naivety and modesty, like a child on his birthday who wants to see everyone eating cake, even if he doesn't get to eat a piece.
- Óscar
- I find the directors I want to portray, but that exhibition with photos of actors, La escena cotidiana, had been a commission and I remember I thought to myself: I'm going to do it in colour, because in a way I also wanted to break away from the other project. Then I turned to a photographer I really admire, Philip-Lorca, for inspiration. I wanted to embark on the project creating settings that resembled a mise en scène, with the actor portrayed in a place that was very personal, but all arranged as if they were going to shoot a film there.
- Javier
- That's exactly where I was getting to. A commission forces you to make certain decisions. I think that's what's good about commissions. Everything Michelangelo and Mozart produced, even the Requiem, were all commissions. Jan Van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait was a commission… A commission forces you to make decisions that allow you to produce a different type of photographs. When I saw that photo of Javier Bardem in his lounge playing the bongos I thought it was the falsest thing I'd ever seen. That artifice is the perfect way to portray Bardem, considering he's continuously reinventing himself, changing skin, with make-up, clothes… He might play the bongos everyday for all we know, but when you portray him like that it looks absurd, the kind of absurdity that verges on poetry, as we were saying before…
That was such a problem photo. So many things went wrong, there was a problem with the appointment for the photo, the setting for the photo, the pose in the photo, the girl that Bardem was with the day of the photo, the clearance to publish the photo… Óscar never talks about people that have given him a hard time, doubted his skill, made him feel uncomfortable or unauthorised, or belittled him… People for whom their image is as important as a cane is to an old man, but who make you feel their power, their superiority (?), their vanity… That all happened when Óscar and I met Bardem.
- Javier
- I also like the portrait of that actor… the one who played Camarón (Jaime Chávarri, 2005)
- Jonás
- Óscar Jaenada…
- Javier
- Yes, he's on a bench in a gym with a cane. He conjures up an image that says: I'm an actor and I'm playing myself. All those photos are bordering on the absurd. That's what's so interesting about them. Other photos look straight out of a magazine spread, others look spontaneous, others aren't as good, but they're amazing portraits. I remember one of an actress I really like, Mercedes Sampietro. That picture is like the photo we mentioned before of Madame Curie by Cartier-Bresson, a hurried shot. She's rushing down the stairs, grabbing her bag, her glasses… That's what Mercedes is like. If you don't know her, you just see a photo, but as a person who knows Mercedes I think it's a great portrait. That's what she's like, she's always in a hurry, she lives in a whirlwind, even though she always plays calm women in films. Mercedes is like the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland, always running off. That's what makes it such an incredible photo, such a magnificent portrait. There was nothing controlled about the scene, because she was on her way out and you just snapped away.
- Óscar
- That's exactly what happened. We were pressed for time, I think her sister was arriving from a trip… and the photo captured that anxiety. I don't think she liked the photo, but I think I really got the essence of what was happening, because that's how she made me feel. As soon as I walked through the door she said: Óscar, I'd told you not to come, but, since you're here, let's get it over and done with. It all happened so fast… Like the photo that Jorge Sanz used for the DVD edition of the David Trueba series ¿Qué fue de Jorge Sanz? (David Trueba, 2011).
- Javier
- Magnificent
- Óscar
- That was really good too. He said: Look, I'm really hot, go thinking about where you want to take the photo because I'm going for a dip. I didn't have a lot of time, because I'd arranged to meet Emma Suárez afterwards, and she'd already cancelled on me about ten times, and her house was miles away. So I thought: Pool photo. I made that decision because there was nothing else I could do. He wanted a swim…
- Jonás
- It's one of the best ones…
- Óscar
- It's also one of my favourites. Then I went off to meet Emma Suárez, I remember she was with her children, she was very anxious because she had to have lunch, get the photo done and head off to shoot the series she was working on. She said: Óscar, I feel really bad, I don't think we're going to be able to do it. I said: Come on, you've cancelled on me ten times… In the middle of all that hassle I started getting the shot ready and she said: Well, I suppose these portrait photos are going to be in black and white, right? I answered: No, they're colour shots. I took the photos and when I got home I realised I'd used a black and white film. That's funny because she said: I suppose it's black and white… and that's what I like to use… It really did happen by chance…
- Javier
- Great story! Sometimes the most beautiful things in films and photographs are coincidences. Even the first photograph ever taken in 1939. That photograph that Daguerre took from his window shows an empty Parisian street because of the long exposure time. The only image is a shoe-shine hard at work. Daguerre waited for so long that he captured a ghost. From that coincidence to the Emma Suárez coincidence, to the fluke of Jorge jumping into the pool… You have to celebrate coincidence. Coincidence doesn't exist, you're blessed by it.
- Jonás
- Speaking of things that have happened when taking photos… those things also happen because you still develop your photos. You still use that photochemical process. You don't use digital cameras. Why do you remain loyal to film? What makes developing a photo so special?
- Óscar
- Developing involves a ritual and has an importance that I've learnt from my teachers. When I studied photography, film was the only option. There were projects I couldn't undertake when I was a student because the material was so expensive and you knew how pricey each photo was going to be. I trained with classical photographers, I mentioned Newman, Cartier-Bresson, Avedon, Diane Arbus as my main references, and they all used film. Honestly, I prefer analogue. I know digital gives you more freedom, but when I take digital photographs, and I sometimes do, although not on this project, I never leave anything to chance. I put the same amount of work into digital as I do when I use film. I follow the same ritual, I study the frame, I use my photometer, I measure the light intensity… I'm as meticulous as always. I mean, you're not going to be careless just because you're using a different tool… I started this project in 2001, that's ten years ago, and digital cameras were not widespread back then… Plus, I love this ritual.
- Jonás
- That ritual also allows things to happen, or more things to happen… We saw the photo of director Félix Viscarret before. He's portrayed holding his daughter in front of a wall with a graffiti that says: «I love you». Tell us about that.
- Óscar
- Well, Félix Viscarret said: My daughter has to be in the photo, she's a few months old and I am crazy about her and I want you to take a photo that depicts this moment of my relationship with her. Then he said: I thought we could use a place with English style red brick walls. Off we went. He had the pushchair with him and when we got to the brick wall I noticed it said «I love you» and I thought it was a weird coincidence. There it all was, the «I love you» graffiti, the pushchair, the baby… All right there in front of us.
- Javier
- I found it a bit obvious, if you ask me…
- Óscar
- This is an example of what we were talking about before, you see, of how the photograph reveals more than the eye can see. When I developed the photograph, I realised it didn't say «I love you», it said «I don't love you»…
- Jonás
- You hadn't seen the negative particle!
- Óscar
- Exactly! I read "I love you" and that's what I thought it said and I was so chuffed. Then when I developed the photo I thought my mind had betrayed me. How could I not have seen it? How could I have read "I love you" when it actually says "I don't love you"? I still included it, though.
- Jonás
- Those things just happen…
- Javier
- Even though time is not a part of your photographs, it does appear in the concept of the series, like those Impressionist photographers that go back to the same model. You're now taking pictures of directors that you had already photographed. That is so interesting: places disappear and change, but so do people. Thankfully, Jonás Trueba is not the same person as the Jonás from two years ago and he will be a very different person in three years time. It's awful when people don't change. We also change physically, particularly after we hit our forties, when we start to be responsible for our looks. Why are you taking photos of the people you had already portrayed?
- Óscar
- I want to go back to the people I get along best with, like you two, or Isaki or Agustí Villaronga. I did like the idea that we all change, we move, we look different, we grow. I think this project works with that notion. For instance, the Joaquim Jordà shot is one of my favourite photos. Jordà was very poorly when I took that photo, he was already very ill and he said: Choose the frame, then take as many pictures as you like, but don't make me move from my bed… that's going to be the photo. I was surprised, because I thought I would work from different angles… but then I realised that challenge of his was really appealing.
- Javier
- For sure!
- Óscar
- His portrait, that look, is one of the nicest in the whole book. What I love about the photo is the memory I have of that day, that hug he gave me, so warm, so friendly, because we had shared a moment, almost without talking… Then I took him the photo, I framed it for him to see. He really liked it. That was the last time I saw Jordà… when I gave him the photo.
- Jonás
- We talked about that lots of times, about how what you end up narrating in each photo is not the technical process, but what happened when you took it. It's like I was saying before, you can actually trace your biography through the photos. You can remember what happened when you got to Jordà's house. Each photo is a moment of your life, and that's what you take away from the experience.
- Óscar
- The truth is I usually hit it off with most of the filmmakers, although there's always someone… For instance, what happened when I met Antonio Giménez Rico… The first time we met, he looked really elegant, in a white linen suit…
- Javier
- Did he have his awards with him?
- Óscar
- (Laughing) No, he was wearing a white linen suit… I travelled to Burgos to take the photo, and when I arrived I asked if I could have a coffee, because I'd had to get up at the crack of dawn to catch the bus from Madrid to Burgos… I asked him where we could take the photo, and he said: Well, how about right, here? I got the feeling that he was in a hurry. I don't think he fancied doing that shoot… but then we ended up driving around Burgos and chatting for about three or four hours, he told me about the city… Sometimes, taking the actual photo isn't that crucial.