By: Ryan Cindric
Born in
Spain in 1975, Cristina de Middel made her way to the US where she received her MA in
photography from the University of Oklahoma. Returning to
Europe, she earned a Fine Arts degree in Photojournalism. She describes how she blended these two disciplines,
"The magic of the darkroom really seduced me at the beginning. Later when I finished my studies in fine arts, I didn't feel I had much in common with contemporary art practice. I felt the message was too encoded and too far away from the audience, so I decided to make a more practical use of what I had learned."
From: Afronauts
By developing
interesting visual stories within documentary form, Middel created her own photographic language. Afronauts, describes Zambian science teacher, Edward Makuka, who decided to train
the first African crew to travel to the moon in 1964. Middel gives viewers actual document facsimiles accompanied by fantastical narrative photographs and
through her unique interpretation of the story reinterprets an historical event. She explains,
"I
wanted to try and tell interesting stories with an interesting language
within photography, but still within a documentary practice."
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| From: Afronauts |
I am
truly envious of Middel's ability to create a project knowing exactly what she wants to achieve and executing it clearly. Middel's success is based high level of visual skill, book design and editing, no
matter what project is she is working on. Middle stuns
viewers with unexpected concepts and execution.
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| From: This is What Hatred Did |
much improved, but you didn't see I had 2 typos in my edit! You could add screen shot ofher website home page cuz it's so great. Besides being envious (aren't we all!), what have you learned from her for your own work.
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