Dare to make the straight line perfect - Paloma Rincón

0:06I always try to do the best project I can, but then I also have to understand what they are really expecting from me and how much freedom I'm going to be able to have, how much of my personal universe and voice they want to hear, and how aligned they are with my previous work or with that work. that they are referencing. So it's all about understanding what's the scope of the project and what's rolling it. And understanding that, I always try to do the best project I can with what I have and with what they want from me.

0:54Welcome to Daring Forever, a podcast about being human, wired for wonder, capable of courage, perpetually becoming. It's about the waves that look us under and the strange stubborn grace with which we surface. My name is Radim Malinic. I'm an author, creative and an eternally curious human being on a mission to speak to incredible people whom I call forever daring humans. Those in pursuit of an extraordinary life. Every week I share an interview that is packed with amazing stories, value and I can only ask you How Will You Dare Forever? This podcast is inspired by my upcoming book titled Daring Forever, which is now available for pre-order out in October.

1:43My guest today grew up surrounded by color, texture and handcraft in Mexico City, inspiring her to turn curiosity into a professional career built entirely around image making. Paloma Rincon is a visual artist, a photographer, known for bold graphic photography that juxtaposes the everyday into something entirely new. In this conversation, we traced her journey from Mexico to Madrid, we talked about many happy accidents and why she believes that taste will always be the key to great work. This is an honest and colourful look at what it means to death forever.

2:23Hey Paloma, welcome to Daring Forever. How are you doing today? Thank you for having me here. I'm doing great and I'm really looking forward to this conversation. I absolutely adore what you do. When I mean adore, I'm like fan number one or two. Because World of Colours, your expression, what you do, how you do it, I think makes the world a better place. You're a visual storyteller and it makes me so excited and I'm so happy that you're here because I want to get to trace your story, how you do this stuff, all of it. As you know, from my format, I normally say, for those who have not heard of Paloma Rincon, how would you introduce yourself?

2:58Well, I'm Paloma Rincon. I'm a visual artist working mainly with my camera. I do photographic stills and also moving image projects, combining techniques. And I like to play with challenge perspective, let's say, and play with what we see, juxtaposing elements, redefining their meaning. everything in a very colorful and bold and graphic and very happy style. That's a perfect summary of exactly what you do, because I like when you said that you'd like to challenge the perspective. I know from your story that you projected your future at a very young age, because for those who don't know, you were born in Mexico and you were surrounded by color.

3:45How did it come about that you started drawing your first still life photography and almost like visualize, manifest your future career at a very early age? Now that I see in hindsight where I am, I can see many of my interests and many of the things I already liked as a child being something that I do now. I was very interested in design. I had an uncle that was a graphic designer. I was interested in film. I was interested in the arts in general. I always like to do stuff with my hands. And I have this big influence of having been raised in Mexico with all the color and all the tactile and materiality from what you see around all the tropical elements, the bright lights, the gastronomy.

4:35astronomy. So all this has been a great influence in my work. And now that I see what I do, it all makes sense. All the different faces and the different interests that I have paid attention to. I think we got a great chance to put Mexico in the spotlight right now because I only got a very small experience of Mexico and it's a place I cannot wait to go back. It's incredible in a way of, as you said, the tactile nature, color, the signage, the typography. Yeah, it's a place like nowhere else, in my opinion. And I want to know what it was like to be a child in Mexico surrounded by film and arts and hands-on approach and having a graphic designer uncle that has potentially influenced what you do.

5:18So what I want to know, what was it like to be surrounded and what did it make you feel like? Did you absorb it? Did you expect it as a reality or did you feel it was something special? I lived it as something natural, of course. I realized afterwards that it was not how everybody in every place in the world was raised. And it had a big influence on me. Most of it, the handcraft tradition. I think that was something that's really all around. Whenever you have a workshop as a child or everything, we were always doing hands and crafts and all this tradition that you can see everywhere and that you find normal going to different areas of the country and looking at a different style of handcrafts, how people develop their own styles and how there's this artistic dimension everywhere in a very fit to the ground way.

6:13How did you see that the differences between different parts of Mexico, how did they differ? Because I'm curious. I was born in Mexico City and it's a very centralized country. So you could get a little bit of the taste of everywhere in Mexico City. But at the same time, I used to travel with my parents when I was a child. We camped, we had a ban, and every time we had a long weekend or a bigger holiday, we went around the country. We went to many places where we were really close to the little towns and communities. So you saw around all the people that were developing their hand fret. And this is something I really remember from when I was a child.

6:57I'm really curious. I wish I knew a little bit more about it, but maybe you can help me with this. The use of color throughout most things that Mexico does is vivid. It's alive. It's, I don't know, I'm trying to find a word for the biggest connection ever because it just makes you feel alive. How did you perceive the color and how did it make you feel of your surroundings? At that time, I perceived it like something natural. It was more like a contrast when I came to live to Spain, where I saw everything was monochrome, much flat, and I saw red brick everywhere, not having this variety of color, not just color, also materials, different materials.

7:38And a very free way to use them without having much shame about the combination, without thinking too much about it. So it's very spontaneous. I have to say. That's interesting talking about the contrast because, yeah, we take for granted, sometimes unknowingly take for granted what's around us only to maybe change the scenery to realise, oh, that was special and I didn't potentially know it. But from your early explorations with the opening box of crayons and creating still life imagery, where did that curiosity come from? Was it based on your surrounding or would you say you found something within you that was waiting to be discovered creatively?

8:18I think that I always found pleasure and the ability to focus. And when I was engaging in something creative, whether it was painting, I also used to build stuff with paper, houses. And I was more interested when I was a child in building the space where my dolls will be living than to play with them. so it's always been more about creating something in the physical space painting it so this is something that i was able to put in my work i think we are tracing the early creative and designer early play being interested more in the doll's houses than in actual dolls i like that where did you find the next step towards the creativity that you do today because i'm sensing a lot of wonder, a lot of curiosity in your life, in your creativity as a child.

9:15But how did you get on to to make the next step to become who you are today? I had a chance to start to learn photography when I was still in Mexico in high school. And I remember that I completely fell in love with that magic that happened in the darkroom. That was when everything was analog and you had to get into a dark room with a very dim red light and see if whatever you shot was going to come out or not and what shape it was going to take. So that felt really special because it also involved this thing about mixing the chemicals and getting the paper and developing and the surprise effect.

9:55So it was not just about taking pictures, it was also the process of developing them and making the prints and all that was involved with that. So that was my second crush with the creative side. Do you remember the first time when you saw a photograph come alive in a way? Do you remember that feeling when you said you were mesmerized with the darkroom? Do you remember that feeling when you saw that happen for the first time? Because that only happened once and you're like, oh, I need more of this. Yeah, I do. I remember we had to do our first, to shoot our first role. It was at school. So I photographed a stack of chairs that was to a wall.

10:36So it was something that was very geometric, very architectural at the same time. It was a lot of straight line, something that has been following me, the straight lines. and I remember going into the darkroom and seeing how those lines started to show before you would even start to understand the image that was coming from it. I remember it felt special. You said straight lines follow you, but I look at your work and I can't see any straight line. It's really interesting. What do you mean with straight lines? Whenever there's something that is geometric and straight, it really has to be straight and this is something I think that's kind of tension that I think that you can find in my work there's something that's like a geometric component that has to be very sleek and perfect and then there is this other side which is organic and fluid and more as you can find it in nature let's say love that and now I can see it now if you say what that means I can actually see it because yeah I think there is something about I would say that's a sort of design in nature also that if something should be straight and you can make it perfectly straight there's no excuse of not making it straight i think that grounds the image and every time i see someone taking pictures like titanic slightly in an angle i'm like what are you doing why don't do that please but that might be just my backbearer maybe yours too so the dark room do you feel with the experience of dark room that with the advent of digital photography that immediacy of oh is this a good photo or not.

12:10Do you feel that potentially people who come through that don't have the experience or might not even have the experience of darkroom, do you feel like it's giving you better understanding and better appreciation of the craft that people today might be missing? I do think that having learned photography in the analog era has brought me a deeper technical understanding, but not just about the darkroom, because I have to confess that I haven't been inside a darkroom for ages. It's also about all the rest of the physical dimension that photography has. The camera is a black box. We have a lens. We have light coming through it.

12:49And we have all this game. This thing about light shaping or kind of sculpting the elements that you have in front of the camera. So this is all a physical dimension. And when you have to learn deeply, having to think a lot about the different outcomes that one decision or the other, I think that you learn in a different way. I do think that you can develop that now with this trial and error and immediate feedback that you have with digital. But it's just that before you really had to, there was no option. I think there's an element of depth when you potentially when you shoot I'm going from my sort of rudimentary experience of the craft right but I feel when you know more about behind the scenes and how it used to be done it makes you think maybe about a composition about the way you take a photograph makes you think differently because as you said with digital it's a trial and error you can try 15 different settings and shoot something and one of them might be right but that was my question how do you see it because as you said you don't have to be in a dark room forever anymore but I feel it's giving you something as almost like that extra level of knowledge or extra level of ammunition that could be interesting and important to some of the creatives or some of the photographers now.

14:06What I want to do now is to find out how did you get yourself from a lot of colorful streets of Mexico City to Madrid where you find things a little bit more grayscale and different. What was the jump for you? How did your career grow from college dark rooms into the streets of Madrid? I finished high school in Mexico. I applied for a scholarship to come to study at university in Madrid. I got the scholarship, so I moved. I was really young. I crossed the ocean. I had family here. My parents both are Spanish, although they were raised in Mexico and in Colombia, respectively. And I started to study audiovisual communication at a university in Madrid and then I stayed.

14:52Yeah, that's a good story. Out of all places, was Madrid an easy choice, a safe choice, or was it a choice that you was filled with uncertainty? I think that it was a safe choice in one hand because I had family here. It's not that I was moving somewhere too far away from anything that we knew. I had close contact with the Spanish culture. It was the same language, and I also have the possibility to have this scholarship that was direct to children from immigrants that had left the country years ago to be able to come back to study here. I'm always trying to trace back people's feelings and experiences when they move from the place of home and they move to somewhere new.

15:39What was your feelings like? Did it feel like an eternal holiday at first? Did it feel like, oh my God, what am I doing? Because everything's slightly more darker and greyer. I'm going to say darker, but less colourful. What did it feel like for you? What was that change of scenery? It was a difficult change. I was very young. I thought that it was going to be an eternal holiday, and it wasn't at the beginning. I did have to get used to a different culture. Even if I grew up in a Spanish family, I grew up in a different country. My family was also a blend of Mexican and Spanish ways of living.

16:15So I didn't have my loved ones like my closer loved ones, my parents, my brother and my close friends. So I was away from everything that was known to me. And that, I think, made me grow up really fast. I had to face many situations that many people don't face, from paperwork to banks to stuff that you don't have to solve everything at once. That was a little bit overwhelming. I also think that that taught me and gave me a great dose of discipline and, I'd say, self-control. But it's not just control. It's knowing how to deal with your own time, with your given resources and do the best that you can with what you have.

17:00I think that was helpful. It's been in the rest of my life where I've always been a freelancer and I've never had a payroll. Knowing from an early age how to deal with all my stuff. My parents came frequently. They stayed here in Spain with me for four or five months initially, but there was a big part of the year that I had to deal with all my stuff. I'm glad you're open about it being difficult because as you said you can expect it to be an eternal holiday but the reality as you said made you grow up faster but I feel that there's some self-determination that pushes you to make something a little bit faster and further and stronger than the people from that native place of the same age because you could be more sense of urgency obviously you've got more paperwork and bureaucracy to deal with and having had a similar experience myself moving from one country to england was the fact that i believe it made me even more determined to make something happen with my life and i think that was in my opinion like the first sort of element of daring forever it's just how do you go somewhere with a half a plan a pinch of plan and then color in the rest and keep coloring it and just finding out what that would be because there is something about that shake-up i think being comfortable of course I'm not saying that this is the only way to make your life move somewhere else be uncomfortable see what happens if it doesn't work I can always go home as some of us suggest but if it doesn't work out then you've got a fallback but I think a lot of people try really hard in these situations not to use the fallback because you've got that chance to really build something as meaningful and stronger and faster than potentially put it as a local so we've done university studies and to the change of scenery where did you find yourself next like how did you start developing who you are today obviously photography is your tool of love but where do we get that connection with the visual storytelling that is so unique to what you do and where you do it feeling you brought mexico with you in terms of color and shapes how do we start shaping your signature style from that point onwards?

19:15I think it was something that happened small steps at a time. I remember having my first photography courses when I was studying at university and building my own little works, even if it was for a depth of field exercise. Somehow like to have certain doses of control and working with small elements in a very controlled setup as it is when you work with still life. I think that those were my first steps. Then I started to work at a photography studio. I started to have available all this gear and equipment. I started to do closer collaborations with friends. As I started with Sergio, we started together at the university and we started to do stuff together with him, with other friends, many designers.

20:12So little by little, I explored many different kinds of photography at the same time. And I guess that my style started to shape, yeah, little by little. You said, I like a little bit of vision, a little bit of control, and then collaborate. Because I think what you and Sergio and the serial cut created at that time, in the heyday of serial cut. It was like nothing else. Literally, it was like nothing else. There was this shining star of that universe that you guys were building together. And I've been a bigger fan. I've got somebody to donut book because I was at that time trying to do similar thing in Photoshop or trying to build things with photography or illustration and kind of stuff because there was something beautifully escapism and surreal in the world.

20:58every time something you guys did i can't believe that's what happened because we can see especially at that time 15 years ago things were stylistically predictable so you would know that certain studio would do this and the next piece would be a follow-on whereas what was coming out of zero at that time when you guys were doing i couldn't believe where you were going with all of this different materials different textures some of the stuff was part 3d part photography and i'm like this is just unbelievably never-ending train of beautiful collaboration and beautifully soulful storytelling that surprised more than anything surprised at every single time obviously it's the colors the shapes textures the surrealism how do they go to time how do they come together how do they do it so i really want to touch on the collaboration at that time because i think there was such a pivotal body of work for the time not just for serial cut by actually influencing so much and beyond.

21:54So what was that like to work with Sergio and nurturing these collaborations that launched all of your careers? Well, it was great fun. It was very explorative. It was very open. It was very playful. We did a lot of personal projects together. From those personal projects, some other commercial projects came. This is something that has always happened. And it was a great time. the very beginning, I was working at this rental studio where photographers from different disciplines came to shoot. And whenever it was not hired, I could use all the stuff they had. So that was amazing because having elements to do a serious production, playing with lights, playing with materials, playing with surfaces, playing in a big style.

22:44But other times, when I wasn't working at that studio anymore. Some of the projects were happening at my living room. You can't see that because then the result was really sleek and polished and well-lead. But some of these were happening at my living room. Then I had a little studio and we worked in many different circumstances. And it was a great time. Yeah, it definitely looked that way. And I think what I really want to know, because when I see your photography and it takes me back to what you said about you're building your own dolls houses rather than playing with the dolls where does the element of vision for a photographer come from because some people are good portraiture photographers some people are good shooting just a product your depth of work and the intricacy of the image it seems so thought out you've got a signature style that's undoubtedly but how do you take this from an idea for example what you used to do with all the others but now how do you shape idea that goes into production that you've got set design you've obviously helped with stylists and that kind of stuff but like how much as a photographer do you have to see everything from start to the finish and how much of it just becomes halfway and an accident and happy coincidence well it depends on the kind of project many of my personal projects i do them by myself i also do some collaborations but i do enjoy doing some personal projects that are very personal.

24:15And this is that I don't have the influence of anything else. And it's also where I can have an internal dialogue and see how I flow through the creative process. I usually sketch a little bit and I try to plan a little bit ahead, especially because what I do is so built. So you need to have a specific background. You need to have stuff to develop it. And it's not a great idea to stop a shoot to go get some stuff. So I try to gather everything that I think I will need. And then from that starting point, from that ground, I start to grow the project. But then there's these happy accidents that happen and then these back and forth with the composition that makes the project's role and even some unexpected directions that can happen, especially if it's a personal project.

25:12If it's commercial stuff, that's a whole different story because it all has to happen in your head before so you can put it into a document so you can have an approval so things can move to the next phase. We'll be back after a quick break. This episode is brought to you by Lux Coffee Co. The first creative speciality coffee company building a platform to shine the light on emerging global talent with a mission to make a positive impact on a creative industry and beyond. Lux Coffee Co. offers exceptional coffee sourced from around the world through ethical and sustainable practices and you can discover the current range of signature blends and single origins coffee hardware and accessories along with exceptional apparel at laxcoffee.co.uk.

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26:15This is what I wanted to know is how do you work? Do you have an idea what you want to make or do Do you work on certain narratives? Do you write your expressions and then you try to work on it? Or is it just literally a sort of moment of inspiration going, I'm going to make that? Of course, first thing is the idea. But this idea could be something very loose and doesn't necessarily have to be close to the earth. And this is the most exciting part, I have to say. When you have this initial idea and you go, wow. Then you start to try to shape it and to make it and define it into more specific things.

26:52How is it going to look? How is it going to come together? You start to ask all these questions that have to have an answer before you even start to build it. What's the scale? How is it going to be lit? How things are going to hold? How I'm going to build this? And this is the phase that comes with a little bit more of anxiety because you have a lot of questions. You still don't have the answers. And once you start to have the answers, you start to feel a little bit more relief. And this idea can combine with some other ideas that come across in the process. And you go through this look again, this little anxiety of more questions to be asked until you have everything more defined.

27:36And you probably have the set elements that you need or you have a plan on how you're going to build them. or you even made some tests about how this or that could work or not work. So yeah, this is basically what happens inside my head when I have an idea. You mentioned about a juxtaposition earlier and your work is full of absolute beautiful extra meanings, the ice cream with a cactus leaves and more and more and more. Wherever you look, there's something that's got this edge. Where does this come from? Is it humor? Is it your creative philosophy? Or is it to make people think about stuff? Is it social commentary?

28:17How would you define that use of juxtaposition? I think it's a bit of humor and an unexpected way to look at something. I'm a very visual person, so it's easy for me to see things in other things, to connect shapes or to connect a functionality. I often go to places when I'm sourcing stuff for my shoots. I often go to a store and ask for something that looks, and I describe a look. What do you want it for? Don't worry. I just need it to be photographed. So I just ask for things that look as other things or that I imagine taking them away from their initial function. I have a lot of fun in these do-it-yourself places where you can find whatever things for construction or for painting.

29:09I love seeing what's available there. I like when you said, search for something and people say, what do you want it for? You say, don't ask. stop the question, sell the stuff, let me have it. Because sometimes it's almost impossible when you try to explain to people what you're going to do with something. Because I find personally almost a little bit soul-crushing when you tell someone about an idea that's so obvious to you. I'm going to do this with that because of this. And they go, that's amazing. And you're thinking, oh, I wish you had a sense of wonder like this too. Because it almost seems too natural that that's how you see the world.

29:41You expect other people to see the world that way, only to realize they definitely don't. and I say it would be beautiful if we had a world full with artists we wouldn't potentially have as much carbon pollution we would go somewhere further it would take a lot longer to get anywhere in the world but I think that sense of wonder I think it's a gift that I personally feel that as creative people we should have a deep sense of gratitude that we were born that way it comes obviously with all the other troubles like the insecurity anxieties all the ambition kind of thing like it it plays into your mind.

30:13I mean, I wish that was easier because the people making trains and whatever they are, definitely not doubting themselves if they're showing up as their authentic selves to decide a span of the train carriage. I don't know where I'm going with this, but I'm trying to say we are different people, but I love that moment when you almost make someone today or make them think differently when you're just sourcing something or you're describing your project you're working on, and they go, oh my gosh, I wish that was my idea maybe. The moment of discovery I understand that you sometimes have a plan and half a plan, but I guess sometimes you come home with things that are totally unexpected.

30:48Yeah, for sure. The watermelon in the disco melon crystals, that was something that was completely unexpected. I was working in this series, the heatwave series, that initially was these images that were like more composed still lifes with more elements. and it was a bit of a more classical approach, although they were shot in direct sunlight with no artificial light. I also wanted to shoot at the side of a swimming pool because it was in the middle of the summer in Madrid. It was really warm and I wanted to see the water and the freshness of the water and also to be able to jump into the pool once in a while.

31:27But these more simple images, the one that juxtaposed two elements like the pineapple, the cactus with the ice cream cone, and those just came from working. I was there by myself just putting together stuff and suddenly I had this piece of a disco ball that my neighbor had gave me and I just took it. It was crystals. I love all things reflective and refractive and playing with these very photogenic things. So I just got that disco ball because I was also playing with metallic stuff. And then I had a disco melon so I saw them together and I was, whoa, these two belong together. So the half Disco Melon I had was empty, so I had to paste every single little crystal into the Disco Melon.

32:15And that was the first of those images when then I started to pair the ice cream cone I had with the cactus, like all by shape. And this is where the second part of the series started somehow by accident, by being in the creative flow completely. I was letting me go. I have my box. I was thinking inside this box of working with natural light, glass at the side of a pool and with metal. But all the rest happened just accidentally, let's say. I think the happy accidents are brilliant because we spent parts of our careers not knowing what we're doing. We are happy to tell everyone we don't know what we're doing.