Carla Fernández Andrade is a 31 year old photographer from Spain. Working with analog camera, Carla began taking beautiful pictures 5 years ago in order to record her experiences and observations during her travels. She’s taken all sorts of pictures, but its her enchanting landscapes that drew our attention with their vast scale and stillness with a tiny and solitary human figures in most of them. Such landscapes always emphasize the relationship of mankind with our nature and surroundings. Keeping her photos in muted tones and bleached colouring make them dated and nostalgic with their distraction-free minimalistic composition. Graduated with a degree in Audiovisual Communications, Carla shares with us facts about herself and her photography in the interview below:

Please tell us about yourself:

I was born in Vigo, a city from the region of Galicia, in the northwest of Spain and very close to Portugal. In the last 10 years I was living in many different places of Spain and also abroad. Now I’ve just come from Nepal and I’m spending the summertime in my hometown before I go to Chile. I studied Audio-visual Communication and Philosophy. I was always very interested in the aesthetic experience as a transformer of conscience. Also, I’ve always been very interested in the world of ideas and in how to give shape them, whether it is in a material or immaterial way.

When did you start taking pictures, Carla?

I started to take pictures in a serious way quite late, like 5 years ago. The images, as containers of abstract language which is based on analogy, have attracted me since childhood when, through the family album, I could know my roots, those that I could not understand through linguistic expression. I’m very interested in the image as a syncretism in relation to the word. So I started to build my own language-reality through photographs. But I am interested in all forms of visual communication.

What does photography mean to you?

Photography is for me a way of adaptation to reality in a world I don’t understand anything. I take pictures to know myself and the world around me. Form is very important in my work as well as aesthetic experience, concept that I understand as a generator of thought. Even, as Oteiza said; “as transformative and transcendent reality”, which makes it the main purpose of art. It is about creating, through the aesthetic language, a code of ontological existence. To do this, in my work, it is important to reach a certain formal beauty, understanding beauty as no limits… However, despite this interest in form, in which content is also important, I do not give too much importance to technical perfection.

Tell us about the equipment you use in your photography:

I work in analogue. But as I told in the last question, I don’t care a lot about technician aspects. The most important machine is the eye and the mind. Anyway I use a Pentax K 1000 with a 50mm lens. Sometimes I scan negatives and I edit them with Photoshop CS4, and sometimes I make the process in the lab.

Share with your you reasons for shooting with film:

I use film Photography because I like the solemnity that the moment of shoot has. Also the materiality and the weight of film interested me a lot. And of course, the results, the errors that films gives are closer to reality than the perfection of digital photography, also they are a way to add subjectivity to the image.

Tell us about your professional achievements and clients, if any:

I don’t use to work with clients, by the moment I can survive with my personal work and my clients are galleries or private people. And I don’t have very big achievements. I am happy just with try that every project is a little better that the one before.

Tell us about your creative methods and approaches into photography:

I usually work on what I am. That is, I don’t seek issues to investigate, but spontaneously, I go in depth on topics that, for various reasons, have been presented to me and I’m interested in. In my recent work, I focus on seeking nothing, all phenomena are empty. I am interested in the elimination and denial. And, increasingly, in the intuitive exploration and immediate catch of reality; to experiment with an unexamined life.

What do you think about contemporary photography? How different do you find your work from others’?

I think we are living a very rich moment in Contemporary Photography. Classical definition of Photography has completely changed. Now a photo is not only visual information and documentation of reality. It’s also a matter, an object in itself. Nowadays photographers can make photos or not… And about me, I don’t know what is different in my work, but I just try to be honest with it.

Tell us about your region and location of your photos:

I’m from Galicia, a region in the northwest of Spain and very close to Portugal, so they both share many things. It was considered the end of the world during the Roman period, so this envelops it in an aura of mystery that it is very present. Galicia is the place where time and eternity live together. Magic and extra-sensory things, like life after death for example, are also very important and characteristic for our culture. Galicia has a strong oceanic feeling, but you can also find mountains and fields. Weather here is very changeable and it is marked by rain and fog but you can find also strong sun and always a great light.

What are your future plans and projects?

In January of 2015 I will travel to Chile to do my next project in Atacama Desert, I am very excited with this. I will continue working with the concept of vacuum as in my last works. I can go there because I got a grant from Gas Natural Fenosa, so after that I will present my work in Macuf Museum in Spain. Also this year I have some exhibitions in Spain and now I’m going to start working in a short film with all the material I have from Nepal, where I was living this year.

How do you keep inspired and motivated?

I keep me motivated being curious about everything that happens around me, also living intensely. My inspirations not only came from photographers, cinema is very important for me, specially structural and experimental cinema. But also I get strong references from sculpture, painting, literature and philosophy.

Say something to our readers:

Be honest, work hard, enjoy every moment.

Carla Fernández Andrade links: Website | Vimeo | Tumblr | Flickr | Facebook

Note: All images used with permission. Please do not copy or distribute without the approval of the photographer.