When I was younger and had my first interest in doing photography I did it because of a movie scene I was watching when I was maybe 5 or 6 years old unfortunately though, I can’t remember what movie it was, but the sequence showed a couple flirting with each other as the guy brought up a classic Instant Polaroid, you know, the white one with a rainbow stripe up in the middle. I was intrigued and asked my mom what that thing was and if I could have one. Sadly, she said no. 

Imagine a 15-year-old me surfing the net for all the high-quality images that legendary photographer Tony Duran did alongside Jennifer Lopez, my favorite celebrity at the time. I was very proud to know how to access ‘high quality’ pictures back when most of everybody’s monitor screen resolutions were only 1024 x 768 pixels. The photoshoots they came up with were outstanding. The overall look was eye-catching. They worked together on different projects; magazines, cover stories, album bootleg art shots, etc. I loved the early 2000s aesthetic; bold, high contrasty, and as colorful as it was, one could tell everything rendered harmony. I’m not sure if they were trying to mimic the top clothing brands such as Versace, Gucci, or Balmain, but I certainly think it was the most iconic era for advertising, the peak of inspiration. There was only hope one day I could work in that industry.

It wasn’t until I bought my first-ever issue of Mexican Vogue that I took my career to its first step and finally shaped a path for me to follow; I had to invest in a studio, get some gear and some gray seamless background cycloramas and do some casting and et voilà! my first practices.

The formula was simple; the less saturated and the less ‘happy’ it meant the most aspirational, upper level and unreachable it was. I look at these photographs with a lot of nostalgia because I didn’t enough resources to achieve what I was looking for, a high-end finish.