Today I'll start posting the texts I wrote for the May issue of Mina Magazine, starting with the interview with Spanish photographer Sandra Fantova, an artist whose work needs to be known by lovers of authorial photography here in this community.
I discovered Sandra's work through Twitter, as she is one of the female artists in the active (and growing) NFT community there.
Her work is for me one of the most outstanding among the female photographers in the community and that is why we invited her to be part of the second edition of Mina.
Below you can see the result of the full interview. All images are reproductions from Mina's pages and the photos were produced by Sandra Fantova.
The Camera Girl
Spanish photographer Sandra Fantova, 32, says that although she has always been known as "the girl with the camera", it was at the School of Arts in Huesca, the province where she was born, that her relationship with artistic photography became more intimate.
At the age of 18, Sandra moved from her hometown, little Barbastro, to Huesca, where she began studying graphic design. "They had varied subjects, from drawing to photography, to graphic printing techniques or audiovisual media. There, at school, I met Ángel Carrera, my photography and image theory teacher, a very peculiar older man, who used to ride his Harley to school and with whom I got on very well, but also very badly: he made me discover photography and love it."
Sandra's first contacts with analog photography, her favorite technique to this day, also started at university. "During that course I bought two cameras, a digital Canon 450D and a Diana, from Lomography, which I used only on special occasions and to photograph memories", she says.
The second step in photography came with a very old camera that his parents bought him at a flea market. "I didn't know how to use it, and Ángel, my teacher, was the one who helped me and also laughed at me. That camera, an Agfa Compor, was too complicated for my notions," she recalls.
It was during this time when she lived in Huesca that Sandra's camera collection began. Her time in the city came to an end and it was time to leave for an even bigger destination: the city of Barcelona, where she studied editorial design and production.
"Barcelona gave me all kinds of opportunities: good, bad, a lot of fun. But most of all, it gave me the chance to autonomously study what I wanted and when I wanted. With this I can say that my passion and madness for photography erupted in this city," she says.
In the Catalonian capital, Sandra took a course on developing negatives, another on laboratory and a third on ancient techniques. "Photography attracts me in almost all its versions, but mainly I am fascinated by the fact that our mind is able to generate and relive a moment, just by looking at a photo. Even though we sometimes 'invent' this moment, I believe that a photograph is a memory that is as real as it’s fictional."
Among the techniques Sandra uses today are cyanotype, van dyke brown and salt paper. "All very analog to later be digitized."
Formally, Sandra works as a graphic and editorial designer. "Photography has never been and nor do I want it to be my job, so it doesn't lose that magic and peace that it transmits to me. Photography for me is about creating, feeling, and letting go. I don't want anyone to tell me what I have to do or how I have to do it, because my photos are mainly for me."
For this reason, Sandra says that her creative process is very intuitive and organic, "I can't say I have a particular process. Things just happen, I feel and do. Sometimes I start and finish something in the same day, sometimes I drag out the idea and it forms and transforms over time. Sometimes I start something and leave it because I don't like it, and the next month it looks wonderful," details the artist, stressing that her creation is totally influenced by her mood, the environment, the light, the company or the solitude.
For her, photography has no rules. "If in a month I want to photograph flowers, I do it all the time. No rules, no deadlines, no processes. I just let it flow.
Currently, Sandra has developed a project of cyanotype printing of her images on cardboard packages of the films she uses. "I started saving film packaging when I took one of them apart and realized that the material is typical folding cardboard. I decided I had to do something with them and thought the easiest thing would be with cyanotype," she relates.
The artist also says that at first she bet on direct prints with negatives, but because cardboard is a very porous material, the image ended up blurred. "So I thought that with flowers the result would be better. I'm still working with the prints to perfect the idea.
Flowers and elements of nature are also quite present in Sandra's work, but in the pandemic, she started to risk some self-portraits. "I feel better and more confident doing them than if someone else photographed me. In fact, I have rarely allowed myself to be photographed in an artistic way by anyone. Photography saved me from many boring moments in the quarantine. When I was inside my house I would take self-portraits and when I went to the roof, I would photograph the neighbors," she concludes.
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