Interview with Mauricio Fandino
Please introduce yourself
My name is Julián Mauricio Fandiño, a Colombian photographer, I am 23 years old and I was born in Bogotá D.C. Lately I have been getting very into landscape photography taking advantage of my like for hiking and trekking, also getting into a landscape photography where they might call “bad weather conditions”, but where you can find gorgeous scenes to capture.
How did you get into photography?
It started in my teens, when I used to travel with my family to places nearby my hometown, such as the countryside, where I could find very inspirational landscapes and I realized that would be better if I had a camera with, then I began with a compact camera to start my photography.
Do you have an artistic/photographic background?
Not at all, neither from my family nor my school, because most of my relatives got into business, engineering and economics jobs, and in my school, there wasn’t any art or photography encouragement or foment, because they were more focused on other types of careers for us to study then in university.
Afterwards I followed my desire to develop my photographic skill in university as I always had the support from my parents and family, knowing that I was one of the few in the family who decided not to pursuit a career such as the ones I mentioned before.
Which artist/photographer inspired your art?
As I was beginning and developing my knowledge about photography and its mean referents, I knew one of the most representative landscape photographers of all times, who is Ansel Adams, then by the time I discovered many photographers who inspired my work or who I can feel related to, such as Todd Hido in terms of the mood that you can see in many of his pictures, also Christoph Jacrot, Jan Erik Waider and Michael Kenna, who is the one I feel the most related to, not only because of the pictures themselves, also due to the way he works when taking pictures out there.
How much preparation do you take into taking a photograph?
Many of the times I just stay in the place beholding the landscape and thinking or waiting when would be the precise moment to capture. But sometimes I have to be honest, some of the shots are quick shots because of, as I said previously, the weather conditions that don’t let me think that much when taking a photograph.
Could you please tell us something about your technique and creating process?
Lately I have been taking pictures in digital format with a simple DSLR, but I want to shoot again with film because besides the quality you can reach with digital there is a different feeling when processing and beholding a picture shot in film.
What do you do in your life besides photography?
Besides the photography I like to do, recently I have been exploring, practicing and doing restoration and colourizing of old photographs which is a hard work but very worth it once you look at the results.
What future plans do you have? What projects would you like to accomplish?
Of course, know more places around the world and their landscapes and different cultures. But I have a pending project which I would love to develop that is related to the Sierra Nevada in El Cocuy (Boyacá, Colombia), which involves the very few snowy mountains that we have in Colombia and would be nice to have a last look on them regarding the times we are living in.
Website https://mauriciofandino.wixsite.com/photography
