A few months ago, in an interview with Nancy Lehrer, we talked about the fact that as street photography (specifically in Cuba) becomes more widely practiced and shown, in order to take images that stand out, it becomes necessary to dig deep into the culture and get under the skin of a place.
That’s definitely one way to create a solid set of images, but as they say, there’s more than one way to skin a cat (ew). In his project “Cosmos,” Cristóbal Carretero takes another approach, which is to shoot images of a familiar place and turn it into something completely unfamiliar. Cristóbal has taken shots that most would categorize as minimalist or abstract and used them to tell a story – a real feat, achieving storytelling with abstract-style images, if you ask me. Notice the images he’s chosen, notice the short story that accompanies his work and especially notice the audio track that sets the stage in his Vimeo video. All of these elements combined turn Cristóbal’s work into more than just other-worldy images. It turns them into a solid photography project that makes its viewers blast off into the realm of imagination. Creativity level: Expert.
Keep an eye out for more from Cristóbal Carretero here in the magazine. He’s scheduled to be our featured photographer in the March 2019 issue.