Photobird.com - Interview with Rafa Torcida

Interview by Ed Krimen, August 2004

Rafa Torcida is not new to photography, but his fantastic work has largely been a secret until recently. In July 2004, his photos of Greece began getting a lot of attention -- especially winning some notable international awards.

Rafa, which is short for "Rafael", graciously took time out of his busy schedule to share with us some insight into his tools, his methods, and his inspirations for taking beautiful photos.

Much to our surprise, Rafa does not consider himself a "professional photographer". He is a software developer, and hopes to one day make a living from his photographs. Rafa resides in Madrid, Spain.

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Rafa, how long have you been doing photography?

Photography has been a part of me since I was an infant. I remember my father with his Minolta Hi-Matic: it was magic when you looked through the viewfinder. From time to time, I was allowed to take a snapshot. What a feeling!

But I didn't start doing photography seriously until eight years ago, when I had the money to buy my own camera. I had absolutely no idea what I wanted. At first, I thought I wanted an advanced point-and-shoot camera, but someone I really love advised me to buy an SLR (single-lens reflex) camera.

Then it all started. I shot tons of film in my first days with the camera. I remember one of my first rolls: when I got my prints from a nice minilab, I found an amazing shot of a flower, with a beautiful blurred background. There was terrific definition in the flower. It was a great feeling for such a simple subject!

What do you like most about photography?

There are many kinds of photography and each one has its own purpose. Some photographs let you capture a moment in time and make it forever. It's almost magic. Photography, as any art form, allows you to express your feelings, opinions, and thoughts. This is what I like about photography. Expression. And sometimes photography lets you tell stories -- something I've always liked to do.

What inspires you to take such great photographs?

That's a complex question. So many things inspire me. When I'm shooting alone, I wear my MP3 player. I'm a great music fan. Music has been around me since I was a child. I used to play piano and listen to music all the time. Music has the power to make me express my feelings. Some of my best photographs were taken while I was listening to music.

Sometimes I'm just walking and I'll see a great shot. If I'm lucky and I have my camera, then great! I think I've lost lots of good photographs just because I didn't have my camera.

And finally sometimes you feel good or bad. I think bad feelings are much better to take the best photographs. Those feelings help you take your best photos.

Honestly, I don't think too much when I shoot. My eyes and my mind see the photograph, and I press the shutter. But everything going on around me, I suppose, has an influence in what I shoot.

And of course, looking at tons of photographs from other people (masters, professionals and fellow amateurs) also creates a pattern in your mind of your particular tastes and styles when you shoot.

What do you think are the top 4 most important things about getting good photos?

1. Patience. Lots of patience. When your eyes and your mind tells you that there is a photo opportunity somewhere, stay quiet and still, and wait for the moment.

2. Stay alert. Sometimes the photograph pops in your eye and you only have a second to fire. So, have your camera prepared always and stay alert while walking, or having a coffee or whatever you may be doing.

3. Open your mind. Sometimes the photo is there, but it's not the usual one we're all tired of seeing in magazines, postals, newspapers.

4. Technique. To get good photographs, one has to master the basics of light. Aperture, speed, focal length, and their interactions are all very important.

What kind of cameras do you use?

This is a long story. I started with SLRs. I think they give you the opportunity to learn the basics about light. I think it is very important to know how photography works. This lets you control what you want to get out of your photography shoot. If possible, I think everyone should start with a manual SLR. Modern digital cameras are really powerful, but only if you know what the cameras are doing.

From SLRs, I moved to digital cameras, which are my basic tools nowadays. I'll even shoot a roll of film from time to time, just for the pleasure of hearing a real shutter moving.

Why did I go digital? Three reasons:

1. Size. I got many of my shots just popping my camera in the most strange moments and places. So, having a small camera you can wear all the time is nice. Most digital cameras are really small.

2. Post-processing control. In Spain, it is really difficult to find a place where your film is developed well and printed well. Really hard. I have some scary stories about negatives being destroyed, and prints completely washed out. With film cameras, you don't have control of the post-processing unless you spend a lot of money to scan your negatives or slides. And if you do that, you basically have a pseudo-digital camera, so it's better to have a digital camera from the start.

3. Price. Nowadays, digital cameras are powerful tools (if you master them) with attractive prices.

I found a lot of improvement in my shots when I started controlling the post-processing: balancing colors, cropping, and so on.

But I would like to say that I would only recommend digital cameras to people that have experienced the analog way. People that have learned how light is controlled in a camera and its effects on composition will have more success with their photos from their digital cameras because they understand the fundamentals of photography.

In the future, I would like to try a digital SLR. The problem is money. They're still quite expensive (at least for my budget).

But today, you don't have to invest lots of money to get wonderful photographs. I've seen terrific photographs taken with a consumer 3-megapixel digital camera. It's all in the eye of the photographer.

What camera do you use mostly now?

In the last month, I've been using a Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W1. When I read about it, I knew it was going to be the perfect camera for me. I bought one of the first units in Spain. The Sony W1 is perfect for me for these reasons:

- It is small and really cute. The most beautiful digital camera I've ever seen in the last five years.

- It has a Carl Zeiss lens. I've always wanted a "first-class" lens. Of course, this is not a first-class Carl Zeiss lens. It's just a consumer lens, but I think that if the Carl Zeiss brand lets its name appear in a lens, then it must be not quite bad. I'm really proud of having a Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar lens.

- It uses standard AA batteries. It's great to be able to pay just 10 euros for a replacement. And they last almost the same as proprietary batteries.

- This reason is very, very important to me: It has manual control. Although it's a rather limited control, I can tell the camera to use big apertures, or fast shutter speeds the way I strictly want. The aperture setting doesn't make a big difference in 80% of the situations because of the CCD sensor size, but it's great to feel you have the control of the camera.

- The LCD display. The real viewfinder in these cameras is very useless in terms of composition (unless you crop afterwards), so one quickly gets used to the LCD for composition. Having a large 2.5-inch LCD to look at is wonderful.

That's it. I use the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W1 digital camera about 80% of the time, but I still enjoy using my Nikon F80 from time to time. The Nikon feels quite different than using digital cameras, and the results are also very different. Having so many possibilities with the depth-of-field control let's you create compositions of another kind. I will probably end up using digital SLRs in the (not so) near future.

Do you do any post-processing?

Yes, most of my photographs are post-processed. This is a very general term. It's very difficult to get the camera to get exactly the colors you want for your photographs. Most of my post-processing is just color balancing to get what I had in mind when I shot, and some unsharpening mask to focus the image. And sometimes, I need to slightly rotate my photographs because of errors when taking the photograph.

Cropping: a lot of people think this is cheating. I don't think so. Photography starts in the moment you see a possible photograph, and ends in the eye of the person viewing your photograph. Everything in between is valid, as photography is just a form of art, a way to express a feeling, an opinion, a moment in time. So, sometimes I crop my shots. There's a limit for cropping though. I like to maintain lots of pixels for my shots to be able to print enlargements up to A4 size (approximately 8.5 inches x 11 inches). So that's the limit for cropping. Cropping is the only reason I've found to have 5 megapixels in a digital camera.

And finally, sometimes I like to go creative. I don't like to add or remove anything in my shots, but I like to play with colors, creating duotones, or getting weird with them.

What are some good tools for post-processing?

I only use two kind of tools: An application that lets you modify the histogram levels of your photograph, and the color balance is a must. It should include a sharpening tool because scanners and digital cameras tend to produce images that are not very focused. (I don't know about digital SLRs). And using a digital noise removal tool is also important if you want to use the high ISOs of most digital cameras.

I don't care too much about all those digital filters to emulate paintings, charcoals, and neons. I find them very artificial and too straightforward.

Having the possibility of playing with layers and blendings also gives you extra power to go creative in your shots.

For image processing, Photoshop is the king. But it's an expensive tool. Quite expensive. Photoshop Elements is free with lots of digital cameras and it's very cheap. It's full of possibilities and almost all my post-processing can be done with this tool. I haven't used Paint Shop Pro but I think it's also a very capable application to do my kind of post-processing.

For noise removal, I use an old version of NeatImage. It's a little bit slow, but it works and it's free. (New versions of NeatImage are much faster.) Ninja Noise is another good tool.

Do you have a favorite time of the day that you like to shoot photos?

Not really. I go for the opportunity and it can appear at any time of the day. But I think that sunsets and dawns are magical moments for landscape photography. And I really love available light in interiors for portraits -- a kind of photography I would like to develop in the future.

Do you go out and shoot by yourself, or do you try to take quick shots while your friends are patient and wait?

Both things. Sometimes I have to travel for business reasons, and then I shoot alone (with my MP3 player most of the time).

On vacations and weekends, I go with my partner and friends. They're very kind and patient most of time. I would like to thank them for this. I can be really boring sometimes.

What kind of music do you like to listen to when you're shooting?

I listen to a very wide range of artists. The music I like to listen to while shooting ranges from classical to electronic ambient music, to jazz, world music, some light pop, and even some dance tracks.

Some artists that usually end up in my MP3 player when I go out could be any impressionist (specially Faure and Satié), sir Edward Elgar and his brilliant Enigma Variations (one of my favorites), contemporaries like Michael Nyman (I used to listen his Wonderland soundtrack, it's very inspiring), Wim Mertens or Karl Jenkins.

Some new age classics like George Winston or Liz Story (another of my favorites), Nightnoise, one of the best newage/folk/contemporary groups I've ever listened. Some singers like Karen Matheson (from Capercaillie, the Scottish group), Mary Black, Cara Dillon, Loreena McKennitt, Ive Mendes, Maria Bethania.

Some nice popstars like Sarah McLachlan (wonderful latest CD) or Sade. And some great electronic musicians. Bliss has been rounding my player for the whole year. The Apollo album by Brian Eno is amazing and inspiring work. The British group Bent. Jazz musicians like the great Brad Meldhau are great for the night.

And of course, my loved Pat Metheny. Some of his albums are very very inspiring, like Secret Story or Beyond the Missouri Sky. Some selected works by Mike Oldfield (VERY selected). And lots more. I change music quite frequently.

If any of them reads this, I would like to say to them, thanks for inspiring me!

For a particular photo, how many shots would you take before you feel like you have a good one?

<Laughs> I'm far away of being a master. Most of my landscapes and still shots take me two or three different shots to get the one I love. But sometimes there's no possibility to repeat shots (like in my Athens Underground shot). Every element is in the place you like and then you shoot. There's only one opportunity.

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Only two or three shots to get the one you love?! Sounds like a great percentage to me! I think most people would be happy to get a good shot out of every 20 or 30 shots. But then again, your beautiful work is a true reflection of your expertise.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts and inspirations with us, Rafa.

Rafa's blog is located at adigitaleye.blogspot.com.

Ed Krimen is an accomplished photographer who has taken thousands of digital photos. As co-founder and CEO of Photobird.com, Ed wants to make it truly easy for you to create attractive online photo albums to share your photos with your friends and family.

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