P. I imagine that in Soria, in San Esteban, he will be ‘the Chilean’ and in Chile he will act as a Sorian…
R. You are right. Sometimes I am known here as ‘the Chilean’ and in Chile as Spanish.
P. Who are you and what do you feel?
R. I think Spanish, clearly, but with a lot of knowledge and time in Chile. I am always Spanish, but spending so many years in a place makes you also part of a place. (When you are from San Esteban you are very from San Esteban. So?). I continue to maintain my connection with San Esteban, with family, friends… When I come I try to come within months. Now I’ve been here for seven months and the previous time I was here for a year. And that also marks you. These months make me have a good dose of San Esteban and Soria. What happens is that one has to admit that I left very young and a part of me is in Chile, clearly. It is a dilemma when I have to measure times: I have spent 25 years in Chile and another 25 in Spain. We can talk at this moment that half-half.
P. But where do you feel a part of?
R. I feel part of San Esteban and when I am in Chile and they ask me where I am from, clearly from Spain. ‘And are you coming back?’ Well I don’t know…
P. Tell me succinctly what the Interactive Museum of Light that you manage is.
R. It is a vehicle that I have converted, well, basically, I created, because I started from scratch, in a space linked to the world of light, to what is chemical photography and the camera obscura, which is a laboratory and also my home. For years I have been sharing this space, which is also my mode of transportation. I’ve been like this for ten years. Now there I have changed things a little, but I have been traveling for ten continuous years with that vehicle, like living in a camera, inside. It’s like a mobile home; I created it so that it could be used to work and as a home and a public space, so that you could invite people inside, either to do workshops or to learn about the camera obscura or work in a laboratory. It is a very small place, but multipurpose. It is a small house, but very comfortable. When you inhabit a place and create it for yourself, you end up making it very very comfortable.
P. Where has it taken you so far and I’m not talking about miles?
R. It has led me to know in much greater depth everything that has to do with the phenomena of image formation, of light… I have delved much deeper into all the things that have to do with the camera obscura. It has given me greater depth to know what is created around light, all the phenomena that are created inside; the possibility of getting closer to many people, which if it had not been for this space would have been impossible. A trip not from the tourist’s point of view, but in a deeper way. The fact of working with teaching has also made me know the spaces I have visited. And the possibility of understanding the camera obscura, which is within this experience.
P. Why do you look for such elaborate images when this century consumes images at lightning speed?
R. The photography that I have learned to do and that I have enjoyed doing is the one that uses chemicals… I like to do many things with my hands, photography taken to this field, the self-construction of cameras, even the separation of papers, processing, developing, even making inventions… it is a beautiful combination. Chemical photography and what has to do with self-construction give many moments of working with your hands – carpentry, metal – which I like. I find that in doing, physically it is a creation as well. You don’t create a photo, but you do create a device and that is also valuable. Chemical photography has a lot of links with water, space-time, movement, sounds, red light, observation. It is something very beautiful physically. This type of photography is rather done with your body, with your hands, with your concentration and we can say that it is part of a work.
P. Hey, this camera obscura you’re talking about sounds weird to me. Can you explain it to me?
R. It is a very unknown term for many people. Sometimes they confuse it with the dark room, which would be the laboratory. A camera obscura is a space that you can seal hermetically from light, so that there is no light at all. It has a perforation, or several, and through that perforation the image of the exterior is projected onto the interior. What you see inside when you are in that space is what is outside, in an inverted way, it is an image, it is a projection. Not the projection as bright as in a cinema, but a very clear projection, with color, with movement. The camera obscura is something that interests everyone, from a young person who can observe or play to an adult.
For me the camera obscura has been something very nice to show, to teach, and it is transversal. Everyone likes to understand how our eyes work, a camera, why light is projected… Everything that has to do with light is transversal. Everyone likes to see the rainbow and we get excited when we see it. With the camera obscura you feel something just as special, it is a contemplation that everyone likes. For me, showing that is always a motivation.
P. If we take the camera as your main working tool, what would it show us about Soria that we haven’t already seen?
R. I think about it quite a bit. I don’t work actively here, but I do work mentally, thinking about what I would do. Those vast landscapes, so many kilometers away, those skies that appear in the landscape with the horizon. The kilometer distance we have and the landscape with the sky seem very local to me, very special. Thinking of Chile as very highland, as if we were at an altitude of 2,000 or 4,000 meters. The skies here and the cuts of the landscape have something, a very special thing. Very special. The watchtowers and the castles, the points that connect. That also seems very special to me, visually too.
P. Why did you go to Chile with the land of light that is Soria in general and San Esteban in particular?
R. It was due to a series of coincidences that one does not clearly determine, especially at the age that I left. Deep down, photography is what has been pulling me and what has guided me. It has to do with photography that I first left San Esteban for Barcelona; It has to do with photography that I went from Barcelona to Valparaíso, which was the first city in Chile that I arrived at. And that is what I have been following; More than changing location it has been to delve deeper into what seems fundamental to me, which is photography and teaching. I don’t separate it: photography and teaching are the common thread. I came to Chile to create a photography school project, which has been the driving force of all these years. Just like the vehicle, leaving Valparaíso to pursue another project… And all that has pulled me. Now I’m closing the Interactive Museum of Light project and I’m going to see what happens next.
P. Okay, but I can’t believe he lives in a van.
R. Yes, yes. Ten continuous years in a vehicle, except for small moments when I came to Spain, three times, which were breaks. I have been able to have a freedom of time that I would not have had otherwise. It has been ten years and very comfortable.
P. He came to be born in lands that El Cid inhabited centuries ago. Where do you think your eyes would meet?
R. I imagine that our eyes would coincide on the horizon, on those journeys where you don’t know exactly how long it will take, or if you will arrive, or what will happen next. At that time we would think a lot about that, about the transit, about getting there. Or maybe arriving is what makes the least sense. Traveling is funny, there is anxiety about arriving and then you realize, over time, that it is something continuous and maybe it is better to enjoy that trip.
P. When did you know that photography was your thing?
R. That has to do with Soria. I was studying Electronics in Soria and by chance I took a photography course at the Red Cross. Everything about black and white – the laboratory, the enlarger, the development… – absorbed me. In fact I had very bad results with my formal Electronics notes. Then I continued alone with photography in San Esteban. For a teenager it is a motivation, it is interesting, a ground wire. Something that motivates you. For me it was very important.
P. The image is in the eyes. How would you photograph the overflowing water, the rain today…?
R. Right now (Thursday, February 5) it was raining with the sun very strong, shining, and these situations are very photographic. Your eyes are red and they see a very exciting, special reality and photography is other eyes. You don’t have to make photography do what your eyes see, but rather try to understand what photography can do. Another contrast, another light, another focus. And those situations are very photographic because they have light. Soria is very photographic, the skies of Soria, I would say.
P. Ready to capture the image of the eclipse in Soria?
R. I can’t stay. I also like eclipses a lot. I have been very lucky, because in Chile there have been three total eclipses in just a few years. And I took great advantage of them with the camera obscura, which in ancient times was used to observe eclipses. The other day I was at the Soria Art School and I showed some archive images to the students so that they could prepare something in August. Observing an eclipse in a camera obscura is something very beautiful, truly unique.
P. What does Soria have that he hasn’t found in long Chile?
R. One was born here. I don’t know, the Castilian landscape, which is very stark; This landscape clippings is very Soria and Castile. Its richness and depth is impressive as well. That doesn’t happen in all places. There are those in which you cannot look as far and distant as here in Soria. That depth that the territory has and the history behind it; the adobe, the stone… That is also very unique.
P. And vice versa, in addition to the population?
R. That’s easy. The coast, the sea. It happens to me that I haven’t seen the sea for a few months and it is very strong. The sea has a very special energy. You go from the interior to the coast and you feel your body change. It is one of the things I miss in this territory, the sea. The coast has a lot of strength.
P. What do you feel is left of Soriano?
R. Very, very much. The conversations, the people, the trust, the way of speaking. The codes of many things. I like the cold, this feeling of the seasons. I have a lot left.
P. Tell me, would you dare to put an image to any love poem by the Chilean Neruda?
R. I would put a piece of sea, a lot of rocks and waves hitting the rocks. Lots of whiteness, bubbles and foam. Yes, that.
date:2026-02-08 12:05:00