Could you share a bit about yourself and what made you fall in love with photography?
Hi! My name is Alba, from Menorca and living in Girona. I love the nature, the sea, the soft light of the golden hour and travelling. But I also like to chill with friends around, to read good books in the sun and pizza. I love the smell of coffee in the mornings, and in the afternoons, and in the evenings and above all, I love that my life has a BSO, a different, a different one at each moment or for each stage.
I am a family doctor by profession, and actually I am lucky enough to work in a rural area, surrounded by the nature and close to the sea. As for photography, I think it has always been with me, since I was a little girl, at home my parents used to take a their camera everywhere and we have lots of albums with all of them.
With the advent of social networks, I became interested in this world again, but it wasn't until the pandemic three years ago now,that I didn't get much more serious about photography and creating my own personal style. At that time photography became my escape route to disconnect from everything that was going on and to be able to express myself, keep learning everyday and grow professionally and personally And enjoying it more and more every day.
Congrats on winning the contest! How did you react when you found out?
As soon as I received in the mail announcing that I won one of the 5 places to be part of the tell your story program, I wasn’t unsure that this was real. I read the mail so many times being sure that it wasn't’ some kind of spam and that it was real.
It is the first time that I’ve been elected for something that big and I’m so excited and happy to be part of it! Moreover, when I reached out who will be my mentor, and I find out that it will be Julia I was even happier because I admire her work and she have a great way to create stories through photography in natural places so I thought that It cannot be anyone else!
I will try to take this opportunity to do my best and try to grow and learn as much as I can to develop my project.
Can you explain us a little bit about the content creation project you are going to work on with OM SYSTEM?
As I have told you before, all my life have I’ve been in places surrounded by the nature and mainly by the sea and the ocean. I love to travel to other places with breathtaking views and landscapes, where there are huge mountains, amazing lakes or insane forests. Still, I would like to take this opportunity to create a more personal and intimate project related to the things and the kind of nature I have close to me that maybe is not as spectacular as other places, landscapes but it has a lot of nice and interesting stories to be told.
So, my project will have the nature and mainly the sea as the common thread. I will be looking for people, mainly women, that are inspired by the sea and their lives are vinculated with it. Through photography and storytelling I will try to transmit their conection and feelings with the sea and the nature. The project will be focused in 3 or 4 main stories that will be revealed in September and which whom my blog entry will be based. During the rest of the summer I will be sharing the behind of scenes of this project and also other little stories of people related with the sea (Sailors, surfers, fishermen and fisherwomen…). I will keep developing the idea and all the things related to the project to make it as consistent and easy to follow as I can, creating templates for stories in Instagram and following a similar storytelling line in all of them.
Which equipment are you going to use? Are you enjoying it so far?
I will be using the OM-5 with the M.Zuiko 12-40mm 2.8; M.Zuiko Digital ED 45mm 1.8 and M.Zuiko Digital ED 40-150mm f.4. Moreover, I will be using a water-house from seafrogs to get some water shots with a quite different point of view. And finally I will also use some promist filters as I want to create a cinematic environment in my pictures.
I’ve been testing the OM-5 with the different lenses for some days now. I have to say that I’m quite surprise with it, is not a professional camera but it has amazing features and you can use it in many different situations. One of the main things that I love from this camera is that is super small and light what makes it super easy to carry everywhere.
Looking ahead, what are your goals and dreams as a photographer?
Dreaming big, I would like to create my own photobook where I can share my photographies and my stories in a printed way, not only in social media or webpages. I also would like my photos to have soul, to be able to transmit different feelings thorugh them and that people that look at them feel something to and recognise them as mine. Finally I would like to have the chance to be woriking as a photographer with other photographers and videographers that I admire in projects related with nature and storitelling arround the world!
