Igor Artetxe - Fashion Photographer
Talk a little bit about yourself
Well, I’m Igor Artetxe, fashion and advertising professional photographer based now in Barcelona, but born in the Basque Country.
I can define myself as an engineer who has always had great passion for photography. I have been working with photography for the last 8 years, and professionally since 2004.
I have always loved the vagaries of light. They are challenges that I love to face.
What tools do you use and why?
I really like many manufactures, Hasselblad, Phase one but my favourite camera remains the Canon 5D Mark II.
What kind of equipment do you use and what advantages it offers?
I use anything available in the moment to cover the needs of the project, but the Profoto products - reflectors like Giant, Beauty-dish, Magnum and packs like Accute600b or BatPac for location - are the best for me. They are fantastic lighting manufacturers with a lot of different accesories and extraordinary strength.
The most used by me is the Accute 600b portable flash, I can use it anywhere and control any point of light I need. It’s like I have the sun in my hands.
After shooting, I use Apple computers (MacPro and iMac for selection) for selecting and editing the final images.
Where do you get your inspiration for your fashion pictorials?
Oddly enough, most of the times, my inspiration comes from the music, few of my last used song has been “Au Dela” from Morcheeba and “Sandpaper Kisses” from Martina Topley. I love music and I am listening to it everytime. When I am listening to music, I am always thinking about new ideas and ligthing schemas for my fashion shootings.
I never forget another kind of inspiration I take it from the most creative fashion designers, most of them unknown, but they’re really creative people. For example Hanne Rützou (a beginner fashion designer in Barcelona), others known enough like John Galliano or Iceberg with their project with “La Chapelle”.
What websites do you use to promote your brand and why?
Usually I use 2 websites to promote my work: Behance.net and Nineteen74.com. I find them exceptional for creative people - like my friend David Delin, fantastic illustrator. I can make amazing professional contacts. I also use Facebook as one of the best social networks.
In which online fashion communities are you involved and how this beneffits you?
I use 3 different fashion communities to make contacts: modelmanagement.com, modelmayhem.com and Fotopunto.com. I use them because they link models, fashion designers, makeup artists, stylists.
What kind of software do you use to edit your photos and why?
After shooting, Adobe Lightroom is my first and most necessary tool. It is my key to the manage, edition and classification of the results of any campaign or shooting. I work there with the light and colour of the image because I can work on the raw image itself.
After that, I use of course, Adobe Photoshop for cleaning or retouching certain aspects of the photo before publishing or sending the final to the client.
What would be some tools that you would love to use but you’re currently not using?
Well, I think that the FULL HD video recording is growing very fast. Maybe the new features of the cameras and viewing tools are showing us their endless possibilities.
And that is the reason why I would like to investigate this field, and in fact I am doing it right now. I am mixing photography and video recording for fashion designers.
Designers are constantly looking for the best way to make you understand their style, intentions, tissues, finally the magic they bring to their garments. I think when I’m making a catalogue, including vertical video clips in my final product gives them the possibility of an art director can see these features in any of his devices and feel this designer intention. I think that the fashion designers, even more the beginners, need to explain more about them, and the photographers are the tool they need.
Is there anything else that you use to get your work done?
Constancy. I believe that many of fantastic creative photographers loose their inspiration or just stop doing creative projects, replacing them with more commercial work. I think this is absolutely necessary for survival, but not replacing! I think that you must never give up and find some of your time to pursue your creative side.
All photos are copyright Igor Artetxe
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