He is a lomographer in a parallel world filled with imagination, a lomoarch playing with tangible but distant realities. His gallery, with rich variety of styles, reveals a great power of versatility and an adaptation to different scenarios outward in each frame. I’m glad to present our next exclusive LomoArch: xaviru!
Photo by xaviru
Xaviru interests are about arts in general and the word creativity gets immediately his attention. With interesting journeys in his bag, an exquisite view of architectureis spontaneously spotted among exotic views; a set of crossing perspectives creating distorted plans and disturbing realities. Another dimension where each color, line, and form, intersect in a way that only he sees.
Surrounded by creative activities, such as origami, this LomoArch sensibly approaches impertinent themes. His interest about social changes makes him believe that the answer lies on children. Finding solutions for social problems can be inspired by young and well-educated minds. In his philosophy, architecture is somewhere and somehow between society and creativity. Architecture is intended to serve man and his necessities. He uses Lomography to express his architecture, with a specific camera for a specific context. This LomoArch’s path aims to pass through some particular buildings by several well known architects.
What -alia- likes the most: the odd results of ordinary building intersections.
To browse this gallery please read this post on our website
Enough from me; after this point it’s all about this groovy LomoArch.
Name: Xavier Ruiz y Garcia
LomoHome: xaviru
Location: Barcelona
Lomographer since: 2005, but reborn in 2010
Architect since: On final project
Can you make a short resume of yourself as a lomographer as well as an architect?
I’m curious and creative, interested also in the social changes that are happening right now. I believe that this can be applied both in architecture and lomography.
Why are you in this LomoWorld, you being an architect?
Since I was a child I played a lot with building games, like Lego or K’Nex. I’ve always loved to make handcrafts and I was making “creative things” (my home is full of these “creative things”), and I’m still making them: origami, knitting, and other DIY projects.
On the other side, I have dedicated so many years on an “esplai”, a non-profit voluntary association, working on free time educating children. I think through children we can change this society and create a better world.
For me architecture is in the middle of these concepts: creativity and society. I think architecture needs to be useful and beautiful (for beautiful I don’t mean spectacular or expensive). Architecture is around us, it can offer new spaces, environments and interactive meeting places and we need to join and benefit of them. We have to be comfortable in architecture. It must seem obvious, but some architects often forget it.
How do you see Lomography and Architecture bonded?
Photography can be used to photograph buildings. Lomography has given me the tools and attitude to create new architectures. Each double exposure photo is a new architecture that didn’t exist. I think Lomography could be associated with any artist’s process.
To browse this gallery please read this post on our website
Which camera and film best portrays your Architecture visions? Why?
Not an easy answer… every situation requires a different camera, so I think that the same happens in architecture.
I love to photograph the city with the Spinner 360. In the middle of a square to have a good view of all the buildings that surround it and everything that people is doing, or in a demonstration to see how people occupy the city.
With the Diana F+ I like to make double exposure squares, as I said before, for creating new architectures; also, Dianaramas for those imprecise panoramas; or single exposure for capturing the details of the city.
Now I want to learn how to photograph the city in a more simple way with the Horizon Perfekt.
To end, simple questions demand simple answers. Which architect and building did/would you prefer to take lomographs of?
Sometimes I prefer to say that I admire specific buildings of an architect and not all of his work. To say one: the Sendai Mediatheque in Japan, by Toyo Ito.
I would also like to take pictures of buildings by Rem Koolhaas. What I like about him is his essays… and I want to know if he is talking serious or just laughing at us.
And nearer home, I would also like to lomograph many buildings by Álvaro Siza and Rafael Moneo.
To browse this gallery please read this post on our website
Liliana de Sousa- is living as a foreigner around the world since 2004 but is originally from Portugal. She’s an architect with the will of sharing present architecture through lomographers’ eyes. Read more about Just Another Lomoarch series here.