Question Responses:
Name of Artist: Esteban Brocos
Date of Artist's Life: 1983- currently still alive (age 34)
Date of Artist's Life: 1983- currently still alive (age 34)
1. Personal Background:
Esteban Brocos is a talented self taught photographer. He was born in Piura-Peru in 1983 and is currently living in Panama. He discovered his passion for photography in 2004 while studying industrial design at the University of La Plata in Argentina. He shoots a lot of beauty, food and commercial photography. In 2005 he started his professional activities working as a correspondent in the magazine 20/20 in Colombia. For 6 years he combined photography with the advertising work as a graphic designer in different advertising agencies, where he got a whole dimension of the particular needs of advertising and it gave him a complementary view. In 2012 he moved to Panama where he lived and enjoyed developing editorial and advertising work for major local and international brands. Meanwhile he works on his personal projects (like the one talked about and shown below), trying to contribute to this world where his kids are growing up. Brocos has achieved many great things in his personal work that not only have pleased him but also many others too. He has won various spots for articles and images to be presented in magazines, he has been asked to do many commercials, and has been asked by many important photographers to meet and bounce ideas off of each other.
2. Style:
Esteban Brocos has an interesting style. It is sort of like something that I have never seen but then at times depending on the image I can see some similarities with other photographers' styles too. Some of the unique and interesting styles that I notice as a pattern in the majority of Brocos's images is lifestyle photography and by this I mean that he has this inspirational way of looking at things for the better outcome and staying positive. He does this with what is more commonly known as photojournalism, where he tries to document the bad in the world in order to inform the public and initiate a reaction that is most likely some form of taking action to help to stop it. Brocos is also that rare and one of a kind photographer that redefines good with their work and seems to never give up on their vision and follow a project all the way through to the end even if it becomes very difficult throughout. Brocos also has that style of searching for the good moments but also setting the scene to tell a story. The fact that models play a big role in Brocos's career and his images makes me think of him as sort of having a little bit of portraiture as a style that he uses too.
3. Philosophy:
When Esteban got the crazy idea to dress a woman with 300 bulbs and more than 2,020 watts of power, not many joined him. It was an idea with high possibilities of a big failure. Making the dress was a big challenge and the only person that Esteban could truly count on was his friend and talented fashion designer, Norberto Rojas, he told him about the project and without any doubt they started to work. It took about 3 months to know how to build the structure, they needed to make it all work and be safe for the model so they asked a lot of experts how to manage those 300 light bulbs safely. Shootings that begun at 2:30 a.m. and nights without moon in the middle of nowhere, no one but Angie Keith could fit perfect for that mission. To find the perfect location Esteban and his team traveled through Panama searching for those places, abandoned but with an interesting story. They cross the whole country and found some planes seized by drug traffic at the Albrook airport. Then an awesome hotel abandoned since the 70s in Contadora island that was property of a drugs cartel Chief, a boat, a dry forest dying because of the eternal summer and a desert that every time ceases to be. He wanted and found real places with real and very sad stories. Basically Brocos's work was personal for him but also very social because it connected to a lot of other people. Overall what Brocos was trying to say with his images was that we as people are destroying the one , beautiful place that we have to live instead of savoring and protecting it and we need to do something about that before there is nothing left.
4. Influences:
Esteban Brocos has greatly influenced me in my work as a photographer. I love how when he shared his vision and idea of his "Lights Out Collection" that everyone turned their backs on him and thought he was crazy and absolutely believed that it wasn't going to work but he didn't listen to them and kept on doing his work. He kept on doing what he loved despite all of the bad judgement. I aspire to be like that because I easily get discouraged in my work as a photographer. I also am very influenced by his love for light and how he captures it in his images, he does this mostly by providing a slightly dark background but not too much of a dark background that you cant see any other part of the image, to really make sure that the light stands out. I also aspire to have his attention to detail and to have that urging need to capture every part of the image like he does, for example, he makes sure that every lightbulb on that dress is easily visible and is pleasing and identifiable to every human eye. Brocos also has a deep passion to have a powerful meaning to all of his work, in particular he is talking about how we are running out of natural light and hurting the environment but no one seems to notice or care all that too often. He tries to send a message to the public and I want my work to have a great meaning like his does and to inspire others to do good too.
5. Sources:
Esteban Brocos Originals:
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My Remakes:What Little Light We Have Left
Natural Light Has Faded
Electricity Glows
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6. Compare and Contrast:
My images were not nearly as professional and inspirational as Brocos's are but I do feel that I was able to use the skills that I learned throughout this class to capture the best possible images that I could. Brocos did a better job then me when it came to the lights on the dress being the focal point and being distinctively clear, while my pictures are a little fuzzy and could use some more focusing practice. Although the images do appear to have the correct amount of lighting when it came to having one image be lighter or darker than the other. The second images appear to be the most similar to me because I was able to get the lighting to be some what the same, I was able to get my model to be in the same pose as Brocos's model, I used the most similar Christmas lights that I had to match the light bulbs in Brocos's image, I had my model do their hair and makeup like Brocos's model did, and I had my model where a similar gown except mine happened to be wearing a black dress while Brocos's wore a white one. My first image was a little blurry compared to Brocos but I think that the position and angle of the picture was similar to Brocos's. In my third image I think I struggled with how far away I should have been but on top of that I think that the position of the models and the pose are the same, although the lighting could be a bit more lighter in my image.
7. Personal Artist Statement:
I personally struggled in taking many of my pictures for this project, especially the ones that called for there to be a dark background where I had to turn the lights off but still be able to capture the person (the focal point) and their facial features too. My images tell the story that we treat our environment so bad that eventually when the time nears we will have nothing left of the privileges (in this case the sunlight/natural light) that we so carelessly take advantage of. In doing this my background was plain to focus on the light, the majority of my images were asymmetrical, and there was not a clear foreground, middle ground or background. Although I did crop all three of my images, my viewpoint was completely straight on but one image was taken at a slight angle from the ground upwards, I tried to create depth with the shadows and the reflections that the lights created on the walls, and framed the image so that the model and the lighted dress were the focal points. The story I am conveying with my images is an important topic and the images are supposed to get the people in this dying world to think about the degrading that they have contributed to and how they are going to take action to help and save what little we have left.
Resources:
1. http://theinspirationgrid.com/lights-out-photography-by-esteban-brocos/
2. https://photogrist.com/lights-esteban-brocos/
3. https://www.dodho.com/lights-esteban-brocos/
2. https://photogrist.com/lights-esteban-brocos/
3. https://www.dodho.com/lights-esteban-brocos/