THE GREAT ESCAPE
BY RICARDO DOMINGUEZ ALCARAZ
My work is focused in my physical environment, whatever be urban or natural. It is essential for me to be able to investigate this environment because I consider it a key for know better ourselves as society and, thus, myself.
I think it is important to know where you move daily and why your surroundings are like that and what kind of importance have them for your own life, your social relationships, your way of thinking or for your own identity. For all this reasons I’m interested in our environment, I’m interested in the way it affects us and in the way it marks us. I’m interested in the way it is used, for what and why, whatever be seen in a public point of view or in a private point of view. I believe that the environment determine us, but we are who build it, who decides to use it in a certain way or who leaves ourselves in what these environment propose. Our near and quotidian surroundings are both built and imposed.
For these reasons I believe in the importance of investigate our surroundings. They are a reflection of us, as individuals and as society. And, thus it, is how ourselves can be seen, how we can see our fears, actions or uses. I think is the best way to know better ourselves: through our track into our own territory, whatever it be physical or cultural or emotional.
My work method always begins with a key question: “why”. Through it, is developed all the investigation of the photographic subject, as well in the conceptual way and in the visual way. This question is complemented with another of how, for what, in what sense, why this way, … so I can get a complete vision of the environment that I’m working.
After that I have to feel this environment in first person, which cost some time, but it is essential in order to get of them all what can be give. The method is simple: walk, walk and walk. I think is the best way of realise how is the environment and appreciate it, so you can talk about the atmosphere, of what is heard, how it smells and, then, you can feel more intensely what you could see. For me, walking through these places is essential in order to talk properly of them through images.
On the other side, being a graduate in History of Art helps me to ask the point question, helps me in the search of a new points of view and helps me to appreciate the pictures can be done. The Photography, in addition, works for me not only as a language or as a tool, but as a way of being, of life and to see the world. For me it is not a job, it is my way of life, my way of being. I can’t understand the world without a camera, without being able to take photos. Even, it is therapeutic for me, because through the pictures I can understand better our environment, our society and myself as a human being.
Ricardo Dominguez Alcaraz
sinopsys
the Great Escape talks about you, about me, about us as a human beings. Talks about our past, present and future. Talks about our fears and hopes, about the absences, about the melancholy, about your life and what to do with it. Talks about the need of find a way, about the need of find the serenity.
They are pictures of yourself in front the need to be yourself. They are pictures of questions that require an answer. They are pictures of your own life, of your own soul.
They are pictures where you, simply, are.