Who are you?

Ohhh what a question! I’m just a little girl from Montevideo, Uruguay. Another little country lost in this huge world. I travel a lot and every-time I get the same question: where is Uruguay? Well it’s between Brasil and Argentina. We are 3 million people trying to fight with the major countries. Living here is not easy. I feel lucky to travel as much as I do.

How long have you been taking photos for?

Well photos for me started when I was little. My parents traveled a lot, so I always liked to take photos with old cameras. I always liked it. So when I turned 17 I did a short 3 month course on analog photography and I fell in love with it. At that time I made artistic photography most of the time. I stopped for a while and now I have been shooting as a job for one year.

What equipment do you use?

Mmm, different kinds. For digital work I have a Canon 5d, but I love Polaroid. So I have a bunch of old cameras, like S70X, 600, and a viva Polaroid. Also, my old Zenit TTL and I want to get the canon A1 not long from now. I just haven’t found the right one yet I guess. I never use flash; I try to avoid it. I love natural light and exterior shoots.

What made you start shooting?

Well, ever since I was very little I was always concerned with aesthetics. I studied ballet since I was 4 years old, then piano from 8 years old. I almost become a major ballerina. When I realised I couldn’t do both and I had to get only one straight, I left piano by the side and made ballet my life. I moved to Chile to the municipal theater of Santiago de Chile and danced for the company and the opera for two years. I also started working as a model there. That was what started, I think, the interest in fashion photography. When I came back to Uruguay I studied graphic design and I started shooting for musicians and friends that asked me. I kept on becoming more and more obsessed about it. At the start I made a lot of self-portaits since I didn’t have a lot of models. But for a year now I’ve been shooting fashion and editorials. In November I launched my own magazine, Flur Magazine, which fuses all I like as design, arts, music, and photography and I’m really happy with it. I love helping young and talented people to show their work as I love to shoot whatever I like and not feel the pressure of doing what somebody wants me to do.

Who influences you?

I love female force. I’m influenced by light and dark. I always have dark on me, a lot in my daily life, but I do try to represent light, as in my pictures. I’m very influenced by my surroundings and people. What I like most is to integrate the person to the atmosphere for the best. I like to take the world as it comes.

I watch a lot of films to get inspiration and I was very influenced by Simone de Beauvoir in my past with her existential books like ‘She Came To Stay’. My favorite book, along side the ‘Clockwork Orange’ . I love french films too.

What are your ambitions for the future?

I would like to live in Europe for a time. I went last year and felt I left something behind. I would love to experience London or Berlin again, with a different approach and work with talented designers there. I would also like for my magazine Flur, in the coming years to become print as well as online, and launch it in a great city like Los Angeles or London. I’m starting to do some exhibitions with groups of artists in Punta del Este. My dream is to have a gallery there and get artists from all around the world to show their works.

Anything else?

Well, I should invite you all to my exibition in New York. We are doing the opening on the 5th of January in Chelsea and it’s going to run until the end of the month. I’m very excited about this and I’m spending New Years Eve in New York too. So, please, all interested people feel free to contact me for invites to that and we can meet in New York.

Also looking for interesting things to do on New Years Eve.

http://www.flurmagazine.com/

This entry was tagged as Gabriela Rouiller, photochat, photography..