KEBA: Where are you from?
Angeles Peña: I’m from Bariloche, its located in southern Argentina, in Patagonia.
K:I'm guessing from your pictures that you travel - Where have you traveled to and where has been your favorite place and why?
AP: I do travel, but most of my pictures are from where I live, and places nearby that I go with my friends. Bariloche - it’s a small city surrounded by lakes, rivers, fields and mountains. My favorite places are the ones that are far away from big cities.
K:How did you get into taking pictures?
AP: Since I was little I always liked to take pictures just for fun, I never
really knew what I was doing. I got my first snapshot camera when I was seven. I was always wishing that my dad would lend me his reflex camera, but he never did until I got older. I became more serious with photography when I turned eighteen, and I realized that it was something that I wanted to know more about. So I started studying and learning what it was all about.
K: What do you think makes a good picture?
AP: I don’t know if there’s a recipe of what makes a good picture. I guess a good picture narrates something and it makes you feel it. It takes you to where the scene took place.
K: Do you see yourself as more of a documenter of things or someone who has specific ideas that they want to project through pictures?
AP: I have both. I document things for my personal work; this is what I enjoy most. The documenting of my surroundings, life and friends is permanent. But I also have specific ideas for projects that have a beginning and end.
K: What's your preferred format?
AP: I prefer film!!! I love film. But I do take digital too.
K: What do you want to capture with your work?
AP: I’m interested in the relationship between the subject and space; how big this world is and how tiny we are. And I like to take pictures of how these subjects live, and the different stories they tell. In my personal work I like to capture my own story.
K: How do you interact with your subjects? Are you a fly on a wall or do you give direction?
AP: I’m more like a fly on the wall, a spy. I like to hide so that people
can’t tell I’m there. But sometimes I do tell them to stand somewhere, or
to do something (in my personal work). In projects it depends on what the
idea is, and what the best way to develop it is. If I work with models I always give direction
AP: I’ve never taken pictures of the moon, and I usually I don’t like them very much when I see them. But a few days ago I saw a huge orange full moon at sunset that was stunning and I wished I had my camera.
K: What is it about a landscape that attracts you?
AP: The power and strength they have, and how tiny we are upon them. The way they always change, and turn into another shape.
K: How does being a photographer affect the way you see the world?
AP: Now I pay more attention on little things that before taking pictures I didn’t see. I find beautiful things in moments that were previously meaningless, normal and usual.
