Is an image price a thousand phrases? Pedro Armestre invitations you to think about the story behind every {photograph} | Culture | EUROtoday

Stop, look and look once more. The exhibition Impacts/contact, by environmental photojournalist Pedro Armestre (A Rasela, Ourense. 53 years previous), proposes to think about and create the informative context that the picture just isn’t able to offering; the story behind every {photograph}. The FUJIFILM House of Photography in Barcelona hosts the Armestre exhibition till March 21, 2026.

The social and environmental photojournalist has greater than three a long time of expertise, highlighting his time on the France Presse company for 12 years. He has obtained, amongst different recognitions, the King of Spain Award for Photojournalism, Pictures of the Year International POYi and the 2014 Ortega y Gasset Award. With his lengthy expertise, Armestre has hundreds of images in his archive. Only a number of have been used for the timing of every information occasion. After going forwards and backwards to his archive, Armestre manages to provide form to all these discards. He has chosen these photographs that had been neither so informative nor so apparent to pose a sport with the customer to the exhibition: what is that this photograph about?

The customer receives directions previous to viewing the exhibition to carry out this “show in the room,” within the phrases of Armestre. The viewer should keep behind a crimson line that, two meters, separates them from the massive format photos. Initially and from that distance and ignorance of what the picture represents, the customer observes the pictures taken in social, environmental and human conflicts. And he builds his personal thought.

Armestre denies {that a} {photograph} is able to absolutely providing the knowledge we require, to have the ability to body the chosen second within the time or house of every picture. “My goal is to turn this phrase around and encourage people to play in this fast-paced life,” says the photographer.

Without data or captions, this primary part consists of a “photographic reading of slow discovery, creation and imagination. A journey that invites you to imagine and dream. They are visually complex images to understand, you have to think hard,” he continues. Each particular person thus establishes a special relationship with the picture in keeping with their notion, prior information, social context or frame of mind. “Give a twist to what we think… It could be anything and anywhere,” he insists.

After ending trying on the images with none context, the customer goes past two meters to discover a descriptive textual content, accompanied by the photographs of the report within the type of contact sheets. Armestre permits us to enter into the place and the occasion of every {photograph}, into the sequences, the doubts and the discards that led to selecting a picture as an alternative of the photograph now chosen for the exhibition. The picture now has all the knowledge vital to know it. The texts, contact sheets and discards supply the context that the primary part hid.

The photojournalist creates a rigidity between a gradual second of remark and reflection and the large circulation of photos. The exhibition acts as a mirrored image of mass consumption during which the topic is accountable for his personal choices: keep behind the crimson line or method the knowledge, selecting to replicate whether or not or not a picture is price a thousand phrases.

This informative piece lacks captions, in order to not intrude with the writer’s inventive discourse or the reader’s notion. So that, within the phrases of Pedro Armestre, “people imagine, dream and play” when viewing every {photograph}.