Christina de Middel
‘It is only after joining Magnum in 2017 and being exposed to the most recent history of photography in a much more direct way, that I had to admit how important some of these big names in photography and some of their most iconic images had been in the path to becoming the photographer I am today.
‘In my own process, the dogs of Elliott Erwitt and the legendary bicycle bell he used to break the usually solemn photographic act, were a confirmation of how a sense of humour could also trigger a certain deep understanding of human nature. In this image, the coincidence in the textures of the furs and the two levels of action, at the bottom of the image, the dog world, and at the top the ladies’ world, makes you want to spend more and more time hunting for coincidences and layers that, after all, explain the world of competition...for dogs and for ladies.
‘For me street photography follows the logic of the lottery: the more time you spend out there with your camera, the more tickets you are buying to get the big prize, but like in any game, intuition plays an important role too. Identifying and encapsulating the human condition and the very elaborated relationships, habits and norms we have built in our culture, in a single photograph is a talent that only the irreverent ones know how to perform at its best.’
Christina de Middel is a Spanish photographer who became a Magnum nominee in 2017. Her work fuses together documentary and conceptual photographic practices. www.lademiddel.com.