CubaPLUS Magazine

With a decade dedicated to the art of the snapshot, photographer Sonia Teresa Almaguer Darna (Cuba, 1971) has been working since the start in several genres at the same time, looking for her best artistic profile; this is how documentary photography and portrait photography became among her favorites, and perhaps her best.

"Since those first photos I dared to show, and despite the recognition they received from knowledgeable people in the field, I feel I have surpassed those images technically and my work has become personalized to reflect my interests and, especially, way of seeing the world," said this outstanding lens artist to CubaPLUS Magazine.

The imagination of the creator is fundamental, and about this, Sonia pointed out: "Imagination is the capacity we human beings have to recreate or invent with stories or objects, which we use to transmit feelings and ideas, and in art it is a quality inherent to the artist.

Photography has always been perceived as art intended to record reality; thanks to the imagination of its makers, there is artistic and conceptual photography, able to communicate states of mind or reveal dramatic or poetic scenes.”

"I think,” she added, “that without that ability to imagine in documentary or street photography itself, a photographer could not convey any message or story connected with how he wants to make a difference in the world."

She has mainly worked in three genres, documentary photography, portrait and theater photography, and while they seem to be independent, they mix together in her work, as the creator explains: "My constant search is for feelings, stories that you only find in the expression and postures of my portraits or their own interaction with the environment in which they move. Choosing the right shot, the framing, the light, leads you to find a poetry in life, of action, of facts."

Documentary photography attracted her from the first moment: "With this kind of photos you feel the need to communicate what is happening around you, somehow a trained eye sees a little beyond what an ordinary citizen sees. A documentary photographer becomes a silent witness of his time, and with that you assume a lot of responsibility.”

"That's how series like Pasaporte Santiago have been appearing in my portfolio, dedicated to recording the artistic cultural diversity brought together by an important cultural event, the Caribbean Festival; Ocho km de historias, which brings us episodes of life of those who visit or use the famous Havana Malecon; or Como antes, which is nothing more than a warning, a call for the recovery of childhood, socialization and recognition of human values.”

The artistic snapshot in Cuba is having a good period, according to her criteria, mainly in the hands of young people with bold discourse and increasingly closer to the teaching of the academies or photography departments in our country. “This makes me think that they are much more confident in finding their references and their own aesthetics."

The difference between one photographer and another lies in the style and the way of expressing oneself through the lens. A person with a critical eye can tell, by certain signs, who the creator of an image is. This is what usually happens to Sonia with theatre, a genre to which she has dedicated a lot of time and with which she identifies the most. "One imagines this type of photography to be more faithful to the theatrical event, documenting the piece; for me it is the opposite, taking these photos allows me to borrow all its artistic values and create new work, decontextualize them from their original stage and get other stories; this is the case of the series ¿Y esa foto de Esperanza?, portraits in black and white, giving them symbolic and dramatic weight from another artistic interpretation.”

It’s always good to experiment with new esthetic languages, and her latest series is an example of that, La Habana que me han dao, La Habana que te dejo, in collaboration with the visual artist Denys San Jorge. Architectural photography is the main feature of the series, using mixed techniques such as collage and painting, which allows for abstract recreation of the most symbolic buildings of this city.

The artist also has a message for young photographers: "The key may be to find the niche where you can turn your shot from a simple photo into a work of art, full of feelings, imagination and poetry."

Contact

+53 5357 2709
salmaguer@cubarte.cult.cu
Instagram: @photosoniaalmaguer
Facebook: FotoSoniaAlmaguer