I recently interviewed local artist and photographer Nicole Rubio. I discovered not only why she chose photography as her medium of choice, but why she chooses her particualr subject matter as well. Her photographey explores the rich tapestry of world culture and the human connection we share in our shrinking world. For more on Nicole or to see examples of her work from "Images of India" visit here.  

Interview:

1. Why did you choose photography as your primary art medium?

The camera helps me capture an idea quickly, as I am thinking.  Being an introvert, it helps me focus outward into the world and gives me a tool or a role to face life, to grab it my way, and show people my way of seeing things.

2. What inspires you or what aspects of a scene motivate you to photograph?

Just walking to BART I probably wouldn’t see anything special.  I have to be looking for a good photograph first.  It takes shifting into the right side of my brain.  When I first arrive in a place, I can’t make any visual sense out of it.  It takes me four or five days to start getting my own reactions to it and identify themes that stand out for me.  Spending time looking for photos, I get deeper and deeper into the seeing mode, and my best photos are taken towards the end of my trip because by then I have a point of view about it. 

3. What message are you conveying with your photographs?  Can you give an example?

I want to show the specialness of ordinary things caught in small, secret, fleeting glimpses.  The reflections in a puddle, the real emotions crossing someone’s face as they feel them (like the Two Women Suddenly Turning), the patterns in the shadow cast under a glass doorknob.

4. How do you compose a photograph?  What methodology do you follow?  What type of camera do you shoot with?  Do you use any special filters or lenses?

I choose only the part that first caught my attention.  I use a macro/zoom lens that allows me to be far away.  I do this so people don’t know I am invading the private thoughts on their faces.  It also allows me to get details of architecture that are way out my reach.  I blur the background so only the important part of the subject is in focus.   There is a better chance of getting a compelling photo with less clutter in the frame.   When I had a film camera, I used an amber or pale pink filter to give the scene warmth.  With my new digital camera, a 12-megapixel Olympus 620-E SLR, well, I’m still learning its multitude of settings.  If you want an interesting photograph, you have to take it off automatic.   An Olympus is lighter than a Nikon to carry around and suits a woman’s smaller hands better. 

5. What culture would you like to visit and photograph next?  Why?

As of last night, I have successfully prodded my husband into going to Havana, Cuba with me.  It took a few months of subtle push/pull and careful timing.  But why Cuba?  Because I heard it hasn’t changed much since the 1950s.  I love the curvy cars from that era.  Plus it  has Spanish colonial architecture which I also love.  Plus the music.  Buena Vista Social Club did so much for re-awakening people’s interest in Havana, myself included.  I want to see and feel the street musicians and dancers in ruffled skirts and bandanas.  Now, before it gets too touristy.

6. Your photography and philosophy are travel and culture based.  Can you tell us something about how culture influences your photography?

I was a small child in the 1950s.  My dad was an exporter and thrived on travel to the Caribbean.  I absorbed some of his sense of excitement about airports.  My mother never went with him because she was scared of bugs, but she also had a wonder for “far away places.”  When she died I found a small box labeled “Foreign Coins” in her fireproof box.  My dad probably brought them back as change from his trips, like pennies and dimes.  But to her, because they were from far away, they were a treasure.  As a child you absorb these feelings.  My grandmother lived with us and made wedding gowns for a living.  She made me many princess dresses with hoop skirts and miniature copies for my dolls.  

Loving costumes, I was also heavily influenced by the early Hollywood movies.  Especially movies that portrayed different cultures, like Arabian princes with turbans and pointed slippers and exotic women with veils.  The different flavors between the cultures were so clearly portrayed. My five-year-old mind put together these factors as far away travel, plus costume, equals magic. I still go places looking for those images.  I went to Paris looking for bohemians in black and white striped boatnecks and blue cobblestone streets.  I went to Turkey looking for spiral domes and belly dancers.  I went to Buenos Aires to find 1920s tango.  When I get there I find only small pieces remaining of what I’m looking for.  I’m indifferent to current modernized life and it takes me a while to find other interesting qualities of the place.

7. Besides the different locale and the colors and light associated with different cultures, what do you learn personally from photographing other cultures?

I learn there are ways to create beauty that I have never thought of and never would think of that other cultures have thought of.  The table butter was sculpted into swirls in France and that made eating it a richer experience.  The creamy consistency of an Italian cappuccino consumed in Rome was so different from the percolated version back home.  That in a culture with only brown eyes and black hair, a blue-eyed blonde is a cause for wonder.  That people with little money seem happier than us because they enjoy each other’s company and value the family.  That singing and dancing and making crafts lift their spirits and helps them rise above survival problems.  That European people have social manners that I crave.  We Americans don’t know it all.

8. How does this affect you as an artist?

It makes me feel that the more I learn about other cultures the better I will understand my own life, what is important:  doing what gives you joy and valuing your friends and family.

9. Any plans for a future show?

India.  Although I went there last January, all of a sudden in October I sent 25 photos to the printer to enlarge.  I waited until I got the urge.  I want to complete that trip before going on the next one, when I’ll come back with a whole new set of photographs.

To view Nicole's images visit Fingado Art Gallery online.