Interviewed by Mobiography

L
uis Rodriguez aka @luison is an architect and prolific iPhone photographer from Madrid,
Spain. In view of his profession, it’s no surprise that architecture is a common theme in
his photographic work. Luis is influenced and inspired by the beauty of the buildings that
surround him, as well as reflections and the characters in the streets that he walks. These are
his subjects which he captures in a beautifully colorful and sometimes surreal way.
I wanted to find out more about Luis and his approach to the photos
he takes, in particular his puddlegrams which play a big part in his
compositions. This is what he had to say.
By Andy Butler
with Luis Rodriguez
Architecture & Puddlegrams
S H A R E T H I S

Tell us a little about your photographic journey
and how you were first introduced to iPhone
photography.
It was all a coincidence. I’m an architect and this world-wide crisis hit
me hard about eight years ago. In 2010 I bought my first iPhone 3GS,
and Instagram showed up a few months later. Instead of using my
energy to look for a job, I started taking pictures with my iPhone and
sharing them on Instagram. I soon got a big following and I was easily
hooked on mobile photography.
I think that architecture and photography are intimately related.
Both are about light, space, proportions and human scale. Being an
architect helped me to immediately fall in love with photography. I
discovered that I could take a picture, edit it, and share it on social
networks, all from the same device… and this device weighed very
little – it was the one I was carrying around in my pocket. I not
only fell in love with photography, but I fell in love with mobile
photography – in my case, iPhoneography.

There’s a very clear style to your photography
which can be grouped into architecture,
puddlegrams/reflections, and street photography.
What is it that inspires you about these three
subjects?
Well, as I said before, being an
architect made it easy for me. I
started taking pictures of buildings
and streets, paying special
attention to perspectives, lines and
proportions. At the beginning, people
used to tell me they could easily see
the architect behind my pictures.
One day, while wandering around
my place, I looked down at the
pavement and discovered the
reflection of a well-known hotel in
Madrid trapped in a puddle. At that
moment I learnt that you can watch
the world in a very different way from
how we always see it. From that day
on, I always find the world reflected
in puddles, on glass façades, and on
cars and bus windows. Very often I
find this way of watching the world
much more interesting than the
direct and straight way our eyes
usually see it.
However, my interests developed
into street photography. One of
the good things about Instagram
is that you get to know very interesting people and even become
friends with them. I started following people whose street work is
really amazing, and the architect that started taking pictures of urban
settings with his iPhone became slowly but surely more interested in
the human beings that live in those places. I started taking pictures
of people. Each time I did so, I became bolder and got closer to the
people. This initial interest in people has become a real and intimate
passion for street photography. Old people, wrinkles, glances, hands,
kisses, etc. are the main things that inspire me and what make me
wander with my eyes wide open, ready to shoot.

What’s your
favorite subject to
photograph and
why?
Nowadays, what I like
most is to capture people
– the closer the better.
But I don’t photograph
random people. I only
capture people that catch
my eye – people that in
less than a second, when
I see them approaching,
turn on a light inside of
me for any particular
reason. And above all, I
love old people. I rarely
take pictures of teenagers
or cool people.
Old people awaken in me
a feeling of deep respect,
of tenderness. I consider
old people as survivors.
They’re heroes to me.
They’re much wiser than
me, braver than me,
they’ve all lived a much
longer life than mine. I
know I focus too much on old people, but I can’t help it. I find them
much more interesting than any cool and hot woman, or a teenager
listening to music, or a working man wearing a suit.
So is including a human element in your photos,
particularly your puddle shots, an essential
consideration for you?
I hardly ever take any picture without a human element in it. I’m an
architect and, as an architect, I consider the human being the main
reason for my work. Architects build houses for people to live in,
hospitals for people to be healed in, concert halls for people to listen
to music in, museums for people to see the artists’ work in. I could go
on forever…

When I come to talk about photography, or mobile photography in
my case, the same thing happens to me. People are what interest me
most. For me, a picture without a human element is an empty picture.
Besides, the human element always introduces a sense of scale in a
photograph. We can understand how big, or how small, how far or
how close things are if there’s a human element, a person, standing
by it.
So, when I take puddle shots, I always wait for someone to pass
by and shoot. The same puddle shot, with a person in it, is much
more interesting than the same shot without it. The human element
completes the scene that I’ve chosen to photograph.

What apps do you use and is there a process or
methodology that you apply to your post-production
editing?
I have different approaches for my reflection shots and my street
shots. Reflections are always taken with the iPhone’s native camera.
The editing process is usually very simple. I always use Snapseed to
adjust the main parameters: light, ambiance, contrast, and sometimes
shadows and saturation. That’s all. I’m not interested in hard editing. I
never, or almost never, make double exposures or introduce elements
that were not in the original picture. Hard editing, to me, is like using
make up to turn something ugly into something beautiful, and I don’t
like that.
When it comes to my street photography, I normally use Hipstamatic
because I prefer to shoot in black and white. I usually use the
combination of Jane lens and BlacKey SuperGrain film when there’s
not much light and shadow in the scene – that is to say, not much
contrast. And I use JohnS lens and BlacKey SuperGrain film when
there’s a lot of contrast. I then use Snapseed to crop the frame, which
is something I don’t like very much.

Whenever the picture has distorted lines, or vertical lines that aren’t
parallel, I use FrontView to correct them. Most people don’t find this
an issue, but I do – it makes me nervous. I think this is because of my
profession.
How do you approach the composition of your
photos? Are there any conscious decisions that you
make in the planning of a photo?
Well, it’s difficult
to explain. I learnt
about the rule of
thirds, so that’s
something I always
try to respect in my
pictures. But there’s
something a bit more
ambiguous, it’s more
a feeling rather than
a rule, and that’s the
balance between
void and not void,
between heaviness
and lightness. I
sometimes crop a bit
of my picture when
I feel that there’s
too much space on
one side. Lines have
to be straight, the
horizon has to be
horizontal. Again,
these things, which
may seem silly to
other photographers,
are very important to
me.
I must say that these
corrections, when it
comes to my street
photography, come
later when I post-
process the picture.

When I shoot, I always pretend to look somewhere else. I look at the
screen very quickly, frame the scene I want to shoot, and then turn
my eyes away, so the pictures often don’t come out exactly as I’d
imagined them. They need some correction.
When I shoot reflections, I have enough time to compose the
pictures. Fortunately, reflections don’t go away or get mad at me if I
capture them, so I take my time to compose the picture just the way I
want it to be.
What advice would you give people who are looking
to photograph architecture and puddlegrams?
A good picture,
whether it’s about
architecture or any
other theme, should
always touch and
move the spectator.
Any building is like
a person – it has a
good side and a bad
side, light can make
it more beautiful or
uglier, depending on
the time of the day
and the way you look
at it. There are so
many architectural
photographs that my
advice would be to
look for new angles,
new perspectives,
news ways to
photograph what has
been photographed
hundreds of times
before. Try to
understand what
the building’s author
wanted to express
when designing the
building, and then
make it yours.

When it comes to puddlegrams, that’s very ambiguous to express. I
always let people understand it is a reflection – that is to say, I don’t
focus only on the reflected image, but also frame it in such a way that
you can see the pavement, the edges of the puddle. Water, under
certain conditions of light and cleanliness, is like a mirror. People
shouldn’t shoot in a hurry. Don’t worry, a reflection will never go
away. Instead, it will remain for a long time. You will see that just by
moving your phone a little bit, the picture may change totally. Take
your time. This isn’t street photography, where just a second will
make the picture vary a lot. Move your phone, always look at the
screen so that you can see the final picture and, above all, take lots
of them. The best picture may not be the first, but the last one you
shoot.

I believe you’re planning to work on a photographic
project with your friend @daniparra_photo.Tell us
about this project.
When you turn a reflection-on-water picture upside down, everything
in it stands vertically, like in the real world. But, when the water’s
edges and the pavement start playing a main role in the picture, then
you enter into a new dimension. It’s like magic. The sky suddenly
turns into a stone sky, a tile sky. People aren’t completely seen
because their bodies are cut off by the water’s edges, and so on.
I met Dani thanks
to Instagram. He’s
a professional
photographer who
now shoots with
his mobile phone.
Like me, he loves
puddlegrams and,
above all, he loves
to turn puddlegrams
upside down. A
reflection-on-water
picture turned upside
down has nothing
to do with the same
original photo.
This small gesture
completely changes
the perception of the
reflection.
I haven’t held an exhibition for the past two years, and I must say I
really feel like having a new one right now. So when Dani proposed
we join forces and organize an exhibition together, only about
puddlegrams, I immediately said yes. The idea is to show Madrid
through upside down reflections on water. There’s a famous quote
in Spain, “From Madrid to Heaven.” This gave us the idea for the
exhibition’s title: “From Madrid to the Ground.”
It’s just an idea for the moment. We’re currently looking for the
proper place to exhibit our work. We’ve slightly announced it on
Instagram but, as there’s no date or place, we don’t have much to say
yet.

What’s the greatest lesson you’ve learnt on your
photographic journey?
Well, I think the greatest lesson is that there’s always something new
to learn, no matter how skilled you are, and that your best picture
is always to be shot. This may seem obvious, but it’s the truth. I’m
always learning new things, not only about photography or mobile
photography, but
also about my own
photography. It’s
interesting to see how
my tastes vary, how
what I liked some time
ago I don’t like any
more. I’ve learnt to
be humble, to accept
criticism.
Photography, and
mobile photography
in my case, is art.
Photography makes
eternal the beauty
of one moment,
something that will
never be repeated
again. If I want to make
art, I have to fall and
stand up hundreds of
times. Practice makes
us better, so practice
and shoot as much as
you can.
Connect with Luis Rodriguez
www.luisonrh.com | Instagram - luison | Instagram - luison_street
Flickr | 500PX | Twitter | Facebook | Vimeo
S H A R E T H I S

The Story Behind My
Favorite Photos...
This is one of my favorite pictures. It’s very dear to me. This is a reflection of the “Royal
Academy of History” building, which stands about 20 meters from where I live in Madrid. It
was shot at the beginning of 2012, with my old iPhone 4 or 4S (I can’t remember well). It’s
an imperfect picture to me. Nowadays I wouldn’t saturate it that much, and I would probably
straighten it a bit. But at that time I didn’t know that much, and this is just how it came out.
Well, this picture was chosen by 500PX’s editors and can be seen among incredibly awesome
pictures shot by the most expensive cameras and edited by the most complex software. It has
been favorited over 1900 times and it has over 400 comments. Just a reflection picture shot
on a mobile device… It was awarded with an Honourable Mention in the Mobile Photography
Awards 2012.

This photo doesn’t represent my photography. It was shot in El Bierzo, a beautiful region in
the north of Spain, during a blog trip I was invited to. I’ve chosen it because of what could
have been, but never was… A couple of months before Apple launched its #ShotOniPhone6
campaign, I was contacted by an agency based in London representing Apple. I had to sign
a “confidential contract” before I was told what it was about. Once I did so, I was told this
image was in the selection process by Apple to be included in the upcoming worldwide
#ShotOniPhone6 campaign.
During the process, I was sent lots of questions to answer, and one of these questions was
if I used other devices or cameras for my photography. Trying to be honest, I replied I had
sometimes used the Samsung Galaxy Camera which Samsung gave me for a collaboration
on a former campaign a couple of years before Apple’s campaign. Well, I mentioned
Samsung and that was the end of it. You can’t imagine how often I’ve regretted being honest.
If I’d thought about it for a second and never mentioned Samsung, my image would have
probably been part of Apple’s campaign, I would have been given recognition, and I probably
would have also been featured on the #ShotOniPhone6S campaign. Sigh…

This street photo could perfectly represent what street photography means to me, and how
close I get to people to get a good shot with my iPhone. As usual, it’s a very quick shot I
took while going to school to pick up my daughters. I saw this couple kissing, took out my
iPhone, turned on the camera, crossed the road, approached, framed, shot and got away as
quickly as I could – all in a matter of seconds. This photo was awarded at the FIPA (Florence
International Photography Awards), organized by N.E.M. (New Era Museum) and was
exhibited in Florence.

Video Placeholder
Internet Connection Required
In this short video Luis Rodriguez answers the question, “What does your work say about mobile
photography?” which was posed by TheAppWhisperer. Here, Luis talks about his views on
mobile photography and shares some useful tips for capturing photos with your smartphone.
What DoesYour Work Say
About Mobile Photography?
Luis Rodriguez
S H A R E T H I S

Interviewed by Mobiography

More Related Content

Viewers also liked

More from Luis Rodríguez

Interviewed by Mobiography