Photographers, a mentor and some referents

This is a list of the photographers that I have felt closest to my own concept of street photography and that have served as a reference or affirmation of what I wanted to express through my photographs and how to do it.

Daido Moriyama (1938)
If instead of a short list, I had to give the name of a single photographer whose influence has been of greatest importance to me, I would certainly say: Daido Moriyama. Actually, discovering Moriyama was a kind of liberation. I felt liberated from the tyranny of the big, always state-of-the-art camera, the perfect, crystal-clear focus and the clean photo, without grain or noise. Freeing myself from all those constraints that one is constantly exposed to from the very moment one begins to enter the world of photography, allowed me to focus on what really matters: capturing and processing vivid images. To snatch from the god of oblivion some precious and unrepeatable moments of surrounding reality.

Katsumi Watanabe (1941-2006)
Master Moriyama said of him: “There is only one photographer who has captured Shinjuku as the stadium of desire, the great wilderness that it actually is: Katsumi Watanabe”. I can add little more. I can only encourage those who do not know his work to discover Shinjuku from the 60s to the year 2000 through Katsumi Watanabe's camera.

Joan Colom (1921-2017)
Probably the Spanish photographer I feel closest to. For the subject matter of his work and for his style and photographic technique. A pioneer without a doubt.

Miguel Oriola (1943-2020)
Another Spanish photographer with whom I feel fully identified. Especially with his "PROVOKE" period. Transgressor and rebel. Always nonconformist and with the spirit to provoke.

William Klein (1926-2022)
Pioneer of street photography. Master of urban and fashion photography. Daido Moriyama himself considers him his reference. Probably with him it all began. He revolutionized photography and laid the foundations of a modern aesthetic that is still current. The Japanese photographers around PROVOKE magazine took over with their "are, bure, bokeh" and created a photographic movement that spread around the world like a wonderful virus.

Leon Levinstein (1910-1988)
I have the feeling that his work is not known and recognized as it deserves. A thoroughbred, persistent, no-nonsense street photographer.

And since I seem to be adding to the list photographers in pairs according to their nationality, I would like to finish the list, which will always be incomplete, with two Swedish photographers: Christer Strömholm (1918-202) and Anders Petersen (1944).