The important moments of small events

My father is the main figure of this event. Because of his illness and its consequences in my family, small events became important moments.

The people depicted in this series are my relatives and live on another continent. Though I went to live far away, I returned—everything forms part of this loop. I am part of this family but also an observer. There is a distance between them and me in the scene. But I interject the lens and enter again, because there was a need to "be there". My camera helped me endure it. I had to turn that encounter into an actual event and capture it aesthetically, otherwise I would have "unrooted" myself as a witness.

There is a physical and emotional distance between every person in this series. Like palm lines, geographical spaces sketch out a map. The forests, trees, train tracks and highways are signs. Everything is concentrated for a moment in the vortex—the instant when one realizes and assimilates the fact that one exists.

The photographs' format expands physically like the span of one's life. A repetitive loop, because the mind does not seek to change its habits, but to reestablish what it has lived. At the intersection of every photographic series, time stands still, becomes frozen, concentrating ecstatic meaning. When the family tree itself shows nothing but an emergence of possibilities, isolated pictures appear—a déjà vu of the inevitable death that each leaf on the tree can expect.

Courbevoie, France, 1958. Studied photography and film in Paris. He has worked as a photographer for various news agencies in Europe and as a freelance advertising and fashion photographer in Mexico, New York, Paris and Madrid. His work has been featured in group and solo shows in Mexico, the United States, France, Russia, Singapore and Malaysia. He has received numerous awards, including the Premio de Fotografía Contemporánea de México 2012 and the Inter-American Development Bank Cultural Center award in 2010. In 2012 his work was exhibited at the XIV Bienal de Fotografía in Mexico. His work has been published in the books About Change (The World Bank, 2012), The Worldwide Photography Gala Awards (The Book Portraits & People, 2011), ABCDF (Conaculta, 2001) and in the magazines Rizoma, Foto Forum and Avenirs, among others. His work is in the collection of the World Bank, IDB Art Collection and numerous private collections. He is a member of the Fonca's Sistema Nacional de Creadores (2012-14).

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