Paz Diaz Rey
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Which stories from Rubros inspired you?
All the encounters were unexpected.
Whether it was a five-minute conversation or a much longer one, I realized that every encounter was going to leave something with me. This includes both the people who simply answered what had happened and that was our only interaction, as well as those who stopped to talk with me for a while. I was surprised by how easily people open up once you give them the space to talk about their lives.
The series includes many older people. I am deeply interested in listening to adults who feel passion for their work and who tell me how they arrived where they are today. This project gave me many stories—for example, the series with the water jugs, where I photographed a young man who may not have fully realized he was part of a project, but who agreed simply because he wanted to help.
In the photograph taken at the toy store, I met the owner, who was there with her daughter, who wasn’t feeling well, and she couldn’t afford to take a day off work. I found it very beautiful to see a child accompanying her mother in a toy store, it was a family business. That also helps you imagine the stories that come after: perhaps one day that shop will belong to that girl. I also wanted to include all kinds of trades both street-based and commercial. One very interesting encounter was with a man who sold magazines on the street. He told me about his job before he ended up selling magazines and how excited he was that I wanted to photograph him. It was a way of saying, “I see you, and I want to listen to you.”
It’s true that in the city of Buenos Aires everything moves very fast. I believe that observing allows you to discover a story. It doesn’t matter whether you speak with the person you are photographing or not; what matters is crossing a certain boundary and I feel I was able to cross it. Playing with the limit between what I observe and what a person has to tell me.
A clear example was a pasta shop with a huge glass window facing the street. Many people don’t realize it, but stopping to observe opens up a great deal of imagination. And sometimes it surprises me, because we think we are observing one thing and suddenly we encounter something very different.
What I take with me most is the pause, the act of listening, and the ability to observe. Every person I photographed, whether they spoke a lot or very little, had something to tell. And the places they inhabit also speak volumes about them; the space is wrapped around who they are.
How do you experience your artistic projects from the position of a young artist?
I experience them as something that evolves every day. Whether it’s what I like to photograph, the camera I use, or the process itself, I feel that everything is constantly scaling and growing. Each day I discover the technique I enjoy the most, the way I want to tell a story, everything becomes a learning experience.
We gradually find our style, and we also make choices along the way. Something I deeply value is understanding trial and error: everything is a lesson, and every day I find new ways to tell stories. For this series, I wanted to create something that echoed a vintage aesthetic, and I’ve realized that analog photography is something that really interests me and that I want to continue learning about. Everything is a possibility; it’s about realizing where you want to go. There will always be frustrations and uncertainties, but everything is part of growing. What matters most is staying in motion.
What emotions and sensations did you experience when photographing the unknown?
This was the first project in which I dared
to establish a dialogue with the subject.
I’ve always been a big fan of street photography, but I usually stayed at a distance focusingon landscapes, the city,
and characters far away. For this project,
I challenged myself to step out of my
comfort zone and force myself to engage
in conversation with the person.
I wanted the subject to look directly at the camera and become the protagonist of their
own story.
It was very difficult for me. Dialoguing with another person is not easy, but it enriches you immensely. The series consists of ten photographs, but there were many more and also all those people who said no when I asked if
I could photograph them. Little by little, I began to understand the process of opening up in conversation with others. It was also interesting to learn how to read the other person and understand from which place the conversation was happening.
This was one of the projects that helped me grow the most and gave me tools to develop future projects. Much later, I printed the photographs and gave them to the people I had photographed. Taking the time to return the images was very meaningful, seeing their reactions when they looked at the photos. I didn’t know them and had no further contact, so the experience was very powerful. I saw surprise and laughter; some didn’t remember
me and barely recognized me.
What does Rubros mean to you?
This entire series was born from the fact that, to get to university, I had a two-hour commute during which all I did was look out the window. From that came the desire to photograph and make visible all this movement of labor that I observed in the mornings. When you frequent the same places, you encounter the same stories.
The project emerged from a desire to give visibility to the lives of people who work every day, whether in a shop or without one, happy or sad, and to the passion they bring to what they do. It comes from a deep curiosity and a need to give protagonism to those who work with both their bodies and souls. While making the series, I confirmed this again and again: people who have worked in the same place for fifty years, who, despite economic instability and the country’s uncertainties, continue to bet on what they do.
This project gave me the opportunity to grow, both on my own and alongside others, all those people who asked me what I wanted to do with my life and allowed themselves to be shaped by my growth as a photographer. I learned how to direct them, how to explain what it means to stand in front of a camera. I felt deeply accompanied and privileged to have met all these people.
Did anything change in the places you revisited?
Everything remained the same. I was open to whatever I may encounter. I had a feeling that one of the women I had photographed from behind was no longer working there, and indeed, she wasn’t. It was about returning and finding places that were both intact and changed at the same time.
The toy store was closed, but I still wanted to leave the photographs. I wrote a letter on the back of the prints, left my contact information, and slipped the photograph under the door. It was very moving when she later wrote to thank me.
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