Born in Barcelona but with Basque roots, Agus Villa has a degree in Technical Architecture. He has been part of the group promoting large projects, such as the W Hotel in Barcelona, ??and now works for a company that supplies specialized construction materials. Dedicated to management and advice in architecture, a year ago his love for photography awakened in him.
In his quest to find his niche in this hobby, he has joined, along with a group of more than 300 Barcelona photographers, @barcelona_photographers, who carry out many activities and outings to take photos, not only for the purpose of learning and enjoying their passion, but also as a moment of meeting and socialization among its members.
A photograph by Agus Villa was chosen among the three best in La Vanguardia’s Readers’ Photos for the month of March. He captured the sunrise in Barcelona with the Sagrada Familia and Torre Glòries together.
How do you define your style as a photographer?
I’ve been looking for it this year. I embark more on a sharp, low exposure portrait style. When I take photography, especially sports photography, I look for paralysis in the image and darker, more cinematic lighting. I want to seek more creativity and try doing street photography.
Why dark photography?
It is a film aesthetic, of cinema, that I like the most. This style is popular this season, maybe that’s why.
When you go out to take photos, what preparation do you do? How was the planning on the Sagrada Família and Torre Glòries sunrise photo?
It depends on the photo. In the winning photograph, I made a prior calculation to know the exact location of the sun, with the Photopills app, and what object was between the Sun and my position, which in this case was the Sagrada Familia and the Glòries Tower. It was 6 in the morning and there was absolutely no one at the viewpoint. The stability of the camera is important. And then it’s luck, because sometimes there are clouds that prevent you from taking the photo the way you wanted it.
In this case we were lucky. The Sun rises fast, but the Moon even faster. It is when you want to take a photo of the Moon that you realize that it disappears very quickly and you have to be very attentive and take many photos in a very short space of time. The Sun lets you repeat the same photo because it rises and sets for 4-5 days in the same location.
Can you tell us an anecdote that you experienced doing a photo shoot individually or with the @barcelona_phoptographers group?
In a photo session we did from the Collserola Tower I realized that my memory card was full. Luckily, I took as many photos as I could, even though the sky that day was cloudy. Mario, the group guide, is very joking and told me: “The beginner fails.” Everyone laughed a lot.
When I take photos alone I don’t have any anecdotes. The truth is, when I take a photo of someone, most of the time people thank me, they don’t give me a bad look. For example, I took a photo of a girl surfing on Bogatell beach in Barcelona. The girl, whose name is Blanca, contacted me on Instagram and asked me if she could send her the photo.
In the end, the funny thing about the photo was his participation and the way he was surfing, so I sent it to him and he was very excited. As I said before, most people thank me for taking their portraits. Sometimes you take some “stolen” photos, but you always try to go and tell the person if they allow you to take the photo and whether you can post it or not.
Do you have in mind to try another field of specialization apart from photography?
Now I have started doing photo editing with Lightroom and Photoshop and with fine art retouching, which makes the photo have an aesthetic similar to a canvas. I would like to do workshops to learn how to use Photoshop, without leaving aside architecture, animal and sports photography, obviously.
I really like animals and recording their movement without impacting their habitat. The workshops that I want to do are based precisely on the person being able to take a photo of the animal without affecting its environment. To take this type of portrait, lenses larger than 600 mm are needed, which are prohibitive, not only because of the price, but also because of their high specialization. In July of this year I plan to visit a natural park and, if I can, photograph the Iberian lynx and the golden eagle.
You are learning how to retouch photos, but do you prefer to keep the image in its original format or are you already in favor of editing?
I prefer to keep them in RAW format. Although it is true that, in calculation photos of the Sun and Moon and in sports photos, if you do not have the possibility of retouching the light or the colors, it is very difficult for the photo to be perfect.
Photoshop and AI are also very good for editing and retouching portraits, but when you want to publish a photo that has been edited, it should be mentioned and not mislead the reader. This is nothing new, it was already done with analog photography, when negatives were painted red.
Do you think that nowadays photos are edited too much?
They use a lot of filters, especially on Instagram, and they see very artificial photos. But there is also the eye of the people, which must discriminate what is real from what is not.
Therefore, is it more noticeable in sunrise and sunset photography?
Depending on the filter, the image is darkened and the silhouettes are lost. If you don’t have a tool that allows you to brighten a dark photo, the Sun or any powerful point of light will burn you out.
This retouching is necessary in this type of photography, because with RAW, the sunrise photos are beautiful because of the colors, but the silhouettes are blurred. The extremes are always discardable, neither not retouching because the photo is less professional and with graphic errors, nor retouching too much because it can become too artificial.
It is curious that, being an architect, you like nature photography more than urban portraiture. What has natural photography opened up to you that street photography doesn’t offer you?
I really like architecture: the works, the avant-garde buildings, heritage buildings, the Catalan Gothic… But I have always liked nature and animals. In fact, when he was little he dreamed of being a veterinarian. I would not discriminate one from the other, but the nature photo makes me disconnect from the routine, from work, on the other hand the urban photo makes me focus on my profession. We have wonderful places in Catalonia such as the Ebro Delta, the Costa Brava, Barcelona, ??Girona, the Pyrenees… to photograph. The photo of the natural environment also encourages the care of nature, since we become more aware of preserving the landscape.
There is a style of photography called architectural photography, which reinforces the link between your profession and the photographic art you are experiencing. Have you ever tried it?
It’s amazing, there are artists who take incredible photos. There are works that exude beauty in their natural state, but the photo enhances it more. Then there is also interior photography, with artists looking for surprising perspectives. You learn many curiosities from this type of portrait, such as that the camera is at 1.20 m, which is the image most accustomed to the human eye, and that it is level. There is a lot of creativity in architectural photography.
When you go on a trip, what can’t be missing in your photographer’s suitcase?
A Canon camera and small lenses, because they allow me to take photos in the afternoon and sunset light correctly. I never carry the tripod, since I never take landscape photos when I travel to cities. It’s not because I don’t want to, but because I don’t have time.
Speaking of landscape photography, you have done many in Catalonia, but do you plan to go to other parts of Spain, Europe or the world to take portraits?
I have not yet planned a vacation to do photography, since it has only been a year since I discovered this hobby, but it is a matter of time before I do.
What is the photo that has been the most challenging for you of all the ones you have captured? And what do you feel most satisfied with?
A photo taken from the Collserola Tower over the Sagrat Cor temple in Tibidabo. We entered the Collserola Tower with the Barcelona Photographers group to take a photo of the sunrise. But it was one of those days when the clouds covered everything. The temple was not visible, until some rays of the sun illuminated the figure of the Sagrat Cor and I quickly took the opportunity to take the photo. It was a challenge, but the end result was satisfactory.
The photos that are most difficult for me to take are photographs of static shots in moving portraits, whether of sports or the Moon. They carry more complexity. The one about animals too, especially due to the fact that they move and you have to capture them and that the movement of the animal is not blurred, like in a photo I took of a flying falcon. The technical difficulty is capturing the movement and freezing it.
In architecture you make calculations of buildings and in the photography of Sun and Moon a calculation of their position. But what is more complicated, managing the construction or the moment of taking a photo of stars?
Everything is related to experience. For now it is more difficult for me to take a photo of movement than to manage a work, but because I have been dedicating myself to architecture for almost 30 years. Taking a good photo with amateur photography equipment is difficult.
How did you discover the Readers’ Photos section of La Vanguardia? Do you like to participate?
I was a subscriber to La Vanguardia for many years, then I moved house and since I was always traveling, receiving it in different places was complicated, until I decided to switch to the digital edition. I always saw the Reader’s Photo section in the paper newspaper. On the website I follow the news with the app up to the minute, and I saw many people sending photos. At first, I thought they were professional photographers, and then I realized that they were amateurs and many of them were novices.
The truth is that I liked seeing it and when I read that I could participate, if I had a photo that seemed quite interesting to me, I sent it. I think that La Vanguardia does not have the aggressiveness of other media and is more impartial. Opinion has invaded information.
