As Part of The LGBTQ+ Community, I Always Try to Contribute
Featuring Iñigo Awewave Words by Nastasia Khmelnitski
Instagram Website
Playful, always positive, young, and innovative is the body of work Iñigo offers. The focus is on presenting male models in a new way while providing more opportunities to speak about male fashion and individual beauty. This doesn’t mean Iñigo doesn’t work with female models, his work is diverse, even when the agenda is preserved and advocated for. At times a theatrical perspective is shown, and each fashion editorial is an inspiration and a unique glance at a world created.
Iñigo Awewave is a Barcelona-based photographer. He has started his career as a graphic designer soon to realize that photography is his passion. He explains that each step in the development of himself as a professional photographer was crucial and influences his decisions to reach the results until today.
We speak with Iñigo about his experience as a graphic designer, the decision to change the path to photography, his travel to China, and the redefinition of the masculine in fashion photography. We touch upon important subjects as the involvement in the LGBTQ+ community, extending fashion editorials to speak about subjects of interest, and the upcoming projects.
‘I did some work as a graphic designer in Barcelona for a couple of years, and now I see it as a necessary step I had to do to find my passion’
Hi Iñigo, how is it going? What are your plans for this week?
Hi :) I am flying to London at the beginning of the week. We are doing an advertorial for the next issue of Sorbet Magazine, and for the weekend we will be flying back to Barcelona for a brand campaign. I'm happy to answer the questions this week, and not 4 weeks ago because my professional life wouldn't have sounded as interesting as it sounds during this one, haha.
You’re a photographer and a graphic designer. Tell about your career and how does one skill influence the work you do in another sphere?
Even though I studied graphic design, I don't see myself as a graphic designer. I think that it's important to differentiate between my academic path and my professional career. I did some work as a graphic designer in Barcelona for a couple of years, and now I see it as a necessary step I had to do to find my passion. In that process, I found that photography lets me express my artistic vision with versatile freedom that was unapproachable with graphic design.
‘My visit to China was one of the greatest experiences of my life, not only as a personal experience but also as a professional one’
How would you describe your aesthetic as a graphic designer? What do you like the most about this profession?
As I was telling you, I'm not working as a graphic designer anymore, and I'm completely focused on photography right now. However, graphic design has influenced my artistic journey and my work as a photographer. The graphic design showed me that composition and harmony are essential in creating high-quality content. Also, my passion for editorial design (creating the layout, typographic research...) has influenced my projects. As you could see in my work, I usually use graphs (or graphic elements) to complete the image I want to create.
You have a series of photographs called Journal which cover your impressions from visiting cities around the world. The emphasis is usually on people or on the small elements in the city and urban environment. What is one the most captivating visits to another country you had? What made it special?
My visit to China was one of the greatest experiences of my life, not only as a personal experience but also as a professional one. One of my good friends from Barcelona, Chang Liu, who is also a photographer, invited me to her hometown, Chengdu (Sichuan). The ambivalence between the communist environment and the traditional architecture has its own expression in the autochthonous people. That contradiction and the significant difference between our cultures is always inspirational and makes you open your mind and be able to take new risks as an artist.
‘We have to give a voice to the ones that were not heard and an image to the ones that were not seen. That's where fashion and photography get a real relevance and where they take the artistic intention to a more ambitious and interesting level’
Male fashion photography is not approached enough. Despite that you work a lot with male models presenting a beautiful perspective in aesthetics of fashion. Why do you think most of the fashion world is still pretty much preoccupied with women models?
Fashion is constantly changing, as it happens with our culture and the world. Nowadays, traditional masculinity is in crisis, and men are looking for a new identity. In my opinion, fashion can be used to express that crisis but also to create new versions of how men can express their new identities.
Sometimes fashion can be seen as something cold or frivolous (also for me), but I believe that people working in fashion have the opportunity and responsibility of creating new paths to help people (and for me, men in particular) reinvent themselves and find new ways of expressing their identities; we have to give a voice to the ones that were not heard and an image to the ones that were not seen. That's where fashion and photography get a real relevance and where they take the artistic intention to a more ambitious and interesting level.
‘I really admire people like Isaac Flores, who are definitely doing a big thing to document LGBTQ+ realities.’
What was the most challenging set, from the technical perspective, or the most complicated one as a result of the amount of people on set, you worked on during 2019? How did you manage to make the day work?
The last two years have been very challenging for me. I would say that the most complicated set for me has been working and dealing with real people. lol. I really think that I've learned more about empathy, patience, and personality in this period than during my whole life. I've also learned about myself.
You really have to flow and be flexible if you don't want shooting to flop, and it's important to pay attention to everyone's opinion and the way the team is feeling.
123
One of the topics you touch is the male representation and the Queer community. How do you think a photographer can become a change-meker and influence public openness to diversity?
I believe in the potential of photography is to influence people. And myself, as part of the LGBTQ+ community, I always try to contribute even if it's in a minuscule way. But, I really admire people like Isaac Flores, who are definitely doing a big thing to document LGBTQ+ realities. Isaac is a photographer from Barcelona who is documenting the queer and drag scene in the city. I really love his work!
But to me, it's important, even more in editorials, to talk about fantasies, insecurities, philias, and phobias... I believe that everyone who has gone through something that makes them feel different or excluded from the norm needs to express, show, and materialize their reality.
What would be some of the tips to the emerging photographers to make the right connections to get commissioned work and develop their skills?
It's not an easy way, but I would say that passion and hard work are essential. It's so important to believe in yourself and your vision if you really want to develop yourself as an artist and if you really want to do something authentic. I think everything flows when you find something that you are passionate about. But it's always about patience and hard work.
What contributes to the feeling of happiness, or what makes you happy?
A lot of things make me happy. But regarding myself as a photographer, I really think I'm so lucky for being able to work in something I love. I just hope I can keep pushing hard and develop my artistic view.
What’s next?
More work and development. In a week I´ll be in New York City with my good friend and best stylist Ana Floubet. We are working on different projects, but I can't tell more for the moment :P I cannot wait!
