Portraits in harmony with nature by John Bautista

In order to create expressive photos it is important to look for inspiration. Online journal Fotar interviewed portrait photographer from Ecuador named John Bautista (John Bautista). He spoke about his work and the difficulties faced by the photographer, living in the southern country.

My name is John Bautista (John Bautista). I was born in Ecuador, in the small town of Otavalo, and to this day I live there.

For me, shooting is always a difficult task, because here, in Ecuador, the sunlight is very strong, and very rarely you can find the soft light in comparison with Russia. Light is very different depending on geographic location. But there are many types of natural light that will allow to obtain very good results.

Photography was a hobby until I decided to delve more deeply into this world. I've always liked photography, but I took just for fun. Five years ago my pictures began to attract people's attention, and I realized that I have the potential. I could not be resolved to devote himself entirely to photography, but still did this exactly a year ago.

Photography is a form of expression, I always thought that with the help of photography I can create and open state of mind, whether my mood or the mood of the person I'm going to take a picture. And always your photos I'm trying to evoke emotion from the audience. And I think in the second place I put photography as a profession, as stated in sentence (if you're good at something, don't do this for free).

My biggest source of inspiration is the movies and TV shows, I like to watch the picture and color palettes, and I love music. I listen to movie soundtracks. I also believe that you need to fill your imagination to good books, good music, good films, and especially travel. The knowledge of new places, new conditions, new atmosphere provides an incredible experience.

Most of my photographs are dedicated to how the person is in harmony with nature. I use girls from indigenous peoples. I do this in order to create a new feelings and emotions, and to break down some of the stereotypes and show that native girl in traditional dress may evoke the sea of feelings.

In every photo I try to convey a sentimental burden of peace and nostalgia of a person in the midst of nature. It's about all of us. For editing I use mainly Photoshop and Lightroom rarely.

I open a photo in Camera Raw and make the basic settings of light, shadows, sharpness, then I open the picture in Photoshop and start with frequency separation and working on plasticity, volume, remove stray colors, changing the contrast and the main thing to try to strengthen the emotional pictures and create an atmosphere that adds fog or glare light.

I work with Canon 6D + Canon 24–105mm f4 + Canon 50mm f1.4 + Sigma 35mm f1.4 ART. I still have no favorite lens, but I like all my existing lenses. Each of them gives me his style.

For shooting, I always prepare in advance. About a week I think through the place, looking for model and choose any day, clothes and accessories. A shot I usually get within one or two hours, it depends on the sun. In my possession is not much time when the light is perfect.

When I face loss of inspiration, I just leave the camera aside and take refuge in music. I totally forget about the pics, take his violin and change their environment. It really helps me to avoid cluttering my mind with negative things.

Obviously, in the art are also negative things that will not allow you to move forward, but you need to take a break and escape to a different world of art, such as music or painting, to read a good book, listen to music or watch movies, spend time with family, go out with friends and have fun.

Not worth wasting all your energy thinking about how you can be more creative rather, you need to spend some time to fill your creativity with new ideas and emotions, so that when I lose inspiration when creating something new, I put everything aside and spend time for fun and fill your mind with other forms of art, and therefore occur spontaneously new ideas.

Try to do things professionally, I try to make my photos had a high level of retouch and composition, and passed on to the emotions to the people who look at my photos, I can see and feel the mood of my photos. I think I'm most focused on the fact that my photos have emotional charge and a good composition, and a high level of retouching.

The advice I can give to you do a lot of pictures, no matter what kind of mistakes you are going to learn, you will have good pictures and bad pictures in the end you all will instinctively to improve, just don't stop to take pictures.

Travel, explore new places, new people, new culture, because your mind has the ability to retain all you've seen, and this will be reflected in your photos.