Conceptual, Storytelling Surrealist, dreamy, oneiric, moody, cinematic photography!
Here are the things Cristina told me on a number of questions i made to her! :)
"My journey in photography began when I was around 18 years old by coming across some photo exhibitions and a spanish photo site called Ojodigital. I used to look mostly into landscape photography by then. I could watch and recreate myself in each of those amazing scenarios for 10 minutes not getting tired. So I decided I wanted to be able to create those frames myself. I saved money to buy my very first camera, a canon bridge that had manual mode, and I started learning the basics with online courses, photo fórums, etc..Before that photography worm bite me, I had been all my life drawing and painting. Then I started my bachelor degree in Fine Arts focusing mainly in painting, tending to the surrealism in a realistic style, and that, led me to the type of photography I work on nowadays. I realized I could get materialized concepts and ideas through photography and photoshop within 2 days while painting would take me weeks. "
"My edition is done mostly in photoshop. Sometimes I develope the raw several times and mask out per zones. I dont have a standard workflow, each picture needs difefrent things, but common steps i tend to do is once merged the base layer, I adjust the light, i play around a bit with curves, and do some Dodge and burn with different blending modes. And then comes the tone interpretation to match the idea in mind head. Coming from a Fine Arts background and being used to paint helps a lot when it comes to apply color theory tricks and unedrstanding color harmonies. I try to give athmosphere and depth to my pictures and this is can be done through saturation (the more saturation gives sensation of being close and the low, far), through colors (warm tones look closer and cold, far), you can create depht and mood by fading, fogg, mist and ¿blurriness?in the background against sharpen subject. And you can do it with light too( in a shaded picture, the light will appear to be closer to the viewer, and in a scene lit by the shy, what will be closer will be darker than what will be far, that will be lighter). These are basic things that help a lot creating mood. I hope this tips are usefull for the readers."
"The color pallete is based upon the feeling i want in the image. Misterous, tension, decay, nostalgia, etc. The warms for life, happiness, joyfull concepts. I dont have a preferred range or tendency by will, it depends on the idea and what you want the viewer to feel. I have notice thougt that even thought not planned, in down periods i tend to the cold ones."
"Im influenced and feel inspired by so many! Edward Hopper, Lucien Freud, Jenny Saville, John Singer Sargent, etc etc and in photo, Gregory Crewdson, Jan Kriwol, Julia Fullterton, Erwin Olaf, Eugenio Recuenco, Annie Leibowitz, Erik almas, etc etc et"
"Where I am now is a mixture of myself, influences, personal experiences, and taste. But I guess our work changes along with ourselves. I am not sure I have found the definitve one. I think It is a journey that constantly evolves, grows and go further."
"I would say that more than obstacles, there are challenges of finding solutions. The main one was the no access to good equipment. I Had not enough money for lighting tools, nor a full frame camera or proper lenses till a year ago, but thanks to this I learnt a lot of edititing as I aimed to achieve the look that a good equipment gives. Thats an obstacle that actually turned into a gain."
"Nowadays I use a Canon Eos 5d mark II, a 50mm f1.8, a 70-200 f2.8, an 85mm 1.8, 24-70 f2.8, a flash and some lighting stuff, and a velbon tripod. I still use sometimes my old adventures buddy, the canon eos 550d with a tokina 11-16. "
"I do use social media. I run a Facebook page, instagram, flickr and 500px. I think its very important to be out there. It conects you with people in a way and amount never posible in the past. Its a very powerfull tool that requires being constant. I have to recognize that I am a bit lazzy sometimes and dont upload everything everywhere, but yea, th I have to improve in as its massively helpfull."
"The easiest way is choosing through my website www.cristinaramosphotography.com and just shooting me an email through it. Or people can email me directly in cristinaramos.studio@gmail.com"
"I have thought so much about making videotutorials! Is on top of my to do lists definitely. I dont know anything about video editing, but Ill ge tinto it very soon. The same with workshop. You know theres always this fear of will someone attend it? I guess I have to break with those silly fears, and after pushing my media a bit more, start considering it!"
And about doing one in Greece..well that would be a dream came truth. Agapw tin Ellada toso polu!! I spent one of the best years of my life in a an Erasmus in Thessaloniki 6 years ago and I I go every year since then for holidays to a diferent island. I am sooo muuch in love with the country, its culture, its people(and my greek boyfriend :P), the frappedakis at the beach, the rakomelo, the pastitzio, the bougatsa(cheese one), Halkidiki, the tavernas,..well I need another page for this ;)
Euxaristw para polu and hope to see you sometime in a near future in a workshop in Greece!
PHOTO BY CRISTINA RAMOS TAKEN WITH HER PERMISSION