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Guest Lecture - Miguel Gandert

Amber Leigh Ortiz

Today we experience the creativity of Miguel Gandert. Miguel is a photographer. Photography to him is memory, making sense of things, finding order, and telling a story. He enjoys working with film and specifically negatives because he believes in the “Magic” behind the exposure. He appears to idolize Cartier Brusson a frech photographyer who believed in created and capturing a moment.

Miguel's main stream of projects came from rituals within latin American and hispano communities. He enjoys photographing rituals and the people who are a part of and touched by them. I was confused by his use of black and white due to the rituals being so full of color and wondered if he ever felt he was missing something. I like his rules he has for himself to take the moment as it is and the picture as it is even with a digital camera, because it shows what he see and not what he wished to have seen. His passion for the task is clear and its truly amazing that the university is able to have a professor with such passion for his career.

3 Question I Could Ask

1. Have you ever wanted to move from NM (hispano/latin communities) with your photograph?
2. Are there any projects you would like to do not related to Hispanic/latin communites?
3. Why are feast days/rituals so important to you?

3 Ideas To Take His Research:

1. I would like to see a study of photography outside his community comfort zone.
2. I would like to see a study of how his photography changes with a subject matter that in not known to him.
3. A study of rituals from communities very different from his own.