About me
JOSÉ LUIS GIGIREY
First at all, thank you for taking the time to read my words and look through the lens of my particular vision of photography, and more precisely: nature photography.
How all this started? Take a minute to think about this: day after day we move around in the same sceneries. We go to work, do shopping, to the park, and accomplish our daily routine activities without looking in detail the world that surrounds us. However, one day you notice something that has always been there, but you have never paid attention to. That is what happened to me one autumn afternoon while I was looking for chestnuts. Suddenly, I discovered a whole new world under my feet, a world full of fungus of different colours, sizes and forms. That is the reason why I am here.
I started to take an interest in mushrooms. I studied and collected pictures of them with my compact camera. My collection increased rapidly and at the same time I begin to discover more worlds: flowers, trees, insects… All of them living in harmony. I felt the need to capture that rich natural life in photos and started to study photography. I changed my compact camera for a better one. I immersed into the work of great photographers and worked very hard by taking more and more pictures. At that moment, a new passion was born in me: nature photography; only the love for my family could outplace it. In 2012 I decided to buy my Canon EOS 60D. From that moment on, the camera has become my third daughter.
As you can see, I am new in this fascinating universe. Nevertheless, I see photography as an art, an art in which the camera is the brush and the nature, the canvas. Each photograph is a new painting, and each painting requires a previous work. It is that kind of duty what makes photography a one-off experience, a moment of magic, peace, calmness and inner silence. Brush stroke after brush stroke you create the painting and, although the output it is not always what you expected to be, that magical moment you have shared with the camera is unique and special. For me that is what photography is about.
My photography tries to transmit the beauty of the day-to-day. Flowers you see in the park every Spring, the beach you go for a walk in summer, mushrooms growing in the garden or colourful butterflies resting before flying away. As Vincent Van Gogh said “If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere.”
Each photo is a challenge. I try to transmit sensations, cause emotions and arouse curiosity. Observation, patience, determination, experience, effort and passion, above everything, are essential in my quest. "Sin pasión no hay arte"...Henri Matisse.
This is what my web page, “EL RINCÓN DE MIS SUEÑOS” (My dreams corner), is about. If at least one of my pictures has aroused an emotion in you or awaken your curiosity, my efforts have been worthy.
Thank you with all my heart.
Special thanks to Begoña, María y Martina, without you my life is meaningless.
Bertamirans, March 2017