gaze
Jesús Fernández Jiménez – Mollet del Vallès, 1977
I am a documentary photographer focused on developing human-scale projects, either as personal work or as visual essays. My practice explores themes that invite reflection through emotion and connection, using narrative as a bridge that goes beyond a single photograph. At the centre of most of my images lies the person and their reality — what truly moves me.
Whenever possible, I work on social issues such as exclusion, identity, and the right to housing, always from a local perspective and with a strong commitment to the social reality that surrounds me every day, in my city and along my daily path to work. I find no better subject, alongside social and event photography, that aligns more closely with my way of seeing and working.
Among my recent projects are my collaboration in the making of Visibles, the ongoing project Esencias, and the exhibition Raíces, which I invite you to visit in my project gallery.
I am continuously training and currently specialising through the Master’s programme in “Creació i Reflexió” at the Institut d’Estudis Fotogràfics de Catalunya (IEFC), with great enthusiasm for having Àlex Llovet as a narrative and aesthetic reference. I have completed the Ágora Personal Project Programme and the Street Photography course with Carlos Permuy, as well as participating in workshops with photographers such as Paula Anta, Bego Antón, Rita Puig-Serra, Ricardo Cases and Joan Roig.
“We usually take photos thinking that we are doing something very important, when for now the important thing is that it matters to you.”
Paraphrase of Ricardo Cases, from one of his talks.
Origin analog
Everything started 30 years ago with the understanding and also the misunderstanding of what it meant to make a photograph: its materiality and mechanics (support and camera), immateriality (soul and essence) and its chemistry (development process), in short (photography).
I was marked by the fact of capturing a moment that could not be seen for weeks, months or years, until it was developed in the laboratory andn contrast with the current immediacy. Then photography was past, compared to the use of the image nowadays, a continuous present.
In my beginnings and in my travels I took photography as a self-assignment and I would return loaded with rolls. I selected with contact sheets and looked for that photo that I had in my head since the shot. Weeks or months would pass to be able to see it for the first time in my hand... These were the beginnings.
© jesús fernández jiménez