Conchi Martínez came to photography with a mathematician’s discipline and a lifelong fascination with images. Before becoming a full-time photographer, she studied mathematics and taught in secondary school. Her later work—editorial assignments, travel photography and long-term personal projects—retains something systematic without losing imagination.
The beginning she describes is wonderfully tactile: films, postcards and the discovery of photographic development. From there, our conversation opens into questions of daily life, identity, memory, alternative processes and patience. Conchi does not photograph merely to produce another image; she wants a reason, an idea and enough time for both to mature.
Find Conchi Martínez online
- conchimartinez.com
- conchi@conchimartinez.com
- twitter.com/Conchi_Martinez
- linkedin.com/in/conchi-martínez-jiménez
- facebook.com/conchi.martinezjimenez
The interview
Hi Conchi, how long have you been working as a photographer now?
Hi Jernej! It's nice to meet you.
I always say I started taking photography seriously in 2000. At that time, I attended my first important course in a photo school while I was teaching math in a secondary school, but it was not until 2004 that I made my first exhibition.
What inspired you to become a photographer? What were your first steps?
I've always loved images. I started watching all kinds of movies when I was a child, and I keep doing it. Of course I’m interested in the plot, but also in their soundtracks and photography. I became a compulsive postcard collector when I was a teenager. I enjoyed looking at the images and transporting myself to the places that appeared in the photographs. One day I decided I had to try doing it by myself, and I took a brief photo course about the developing process. The magic I discovered there hasn’t abandoned me yet.
Are you a professional or an amateur photographer?
I've been professional since 2013.
What is your favorite subject to photograph?
I’m interested in daily matters, identity, the trace of time, and trips. I like to photograph my day-to-day life and the things that surround me.
What kit do you shoot with?
I have always used a Canon camera, both analog when I began with photography and digital some years ago. My current kit consists of a Canon 5D Mark III with several lenses (my favorites are a 24mm, a 50mm, and a 90mm macro) and a mirrorless Fuji X-t100 to travel lighter.
How would you define your photographic style?
I work mainly in the editorial field, especially in travel photography, but I also enjoy developing my personal projects about different subjects and experimenting with old and alternative processes to emphasize the ideas I want to transmit.
Which editing software do you usually use?
I always use Photoshop.
John Wanamaker said: Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I do not know which half. Do you gain your clients by advertising or in another way?
I don’t usually advertise myself; I contact the clients I'm interested in directly.
How does your typical working day look like? What do you do when you are not working? How many hours/days per week are you working? What do you do in your free time?
I usually work 5 days per week, spending lots of hours in front of the computer (normally around 8 each day) when I’m not taking photos, which is most of the time. Take into consideration that I mainly work in stock photography. When I’m not working, I love spending my time with my family and friends, traveling, and, of course, going to the cinema or visiting some interesting exhibitions.
What would you do differently if you would start again?
I’m quite satisfied with my current life and the decisions I’ve made. I think I’d not change anything.
A professional photographer is also an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs have many things in common. They read a lot. What about you? What are your favorite books?
I’m not an enthusiastic book reader; I prefer to read articles or take a look at interesting photo books. I personally recommend you read an excellent book about photography: La Vision Fotográfica by Eduardo Momee. The problem is that it’s in Spanish, and I don’t know if its English translation also exists.
What was the best advice you have ever received as a photographer? Do you have any advice for other photographers?
We have to be patient. Don’t be in a hurry to arrive wherever you want to. Photography is a long-distance race.
Top 3 mobile apps on your smartphone?
I don’t have a smartphone!
Top 3 websites?
I enjoyed a lot having a look at these:
- Magnumphotos
- Fotocolectania
- Peterfetterman
Your last vacation?
It was a marvelous road trip through the Midwest of the USA.
Conchi's work
Diagonal-Cornellà
For several months, I took photographs of the journey from home to work and from work to home, which I always did by metro in Barcelona. The main objective of the work was to return prominence to the anonymous characters with whom we share trips every day but who go so unnoticed that, when we arrive at our destination, we can hardly remember an insignificant detail related to their appearance. To do this, I came back to photography's origins and the magic of the unpredictable results that a pinhole camera provides.
Interiors
I have always been interested in human behavior. I thought photographing ordinary drawers without manipulating them was a good way to come closer to the daily life of the owner.
Interiors is a work about identity that gives free rein to the voyeuristic instinct that everybody carries inside themselves and satisfies our human curiosity about others through the physical description of the drawers' content and the owner's behavior by means of the objects he has and the way he arranges them.
Hortus Botanicus
In nature, we find lines that we unconsciously relate to the ones that we find in our bodies. Melting together the body lines with the ones suggested by the branches and trunks of the trees, our mind tries to look for continuity, imagining a real unity in each of the images created for this imaginative vegetal universe called Hortus botanicus.
Landscapes of My Memory
Intimate approach to some of the most emblematic places in Soria, my hometown. It's universally known that our mind modifies memories without our consent. It's sometimes a self-defense mechanism that helps us partially forget what hurts us, or simply an effect caused by the passing of time. Memory is subject to disruptions and amnesias that lead to information gaps. This makes us lose a part of our vital experience, but it also enriches it, making it unique and personal.
What stayed with me
Conchi’s comparison of photography to a long-distance race gives this interview its natural conclusion. Projects need time to reveal their real subject, and a photographer needs time to understand why certain places, traces and recurring details continue to matter.
Her scientific background and artistic practice are not opposites. Method gives the idea structure; experimentation keeps the structure alive. I leave the conversation with a useful reminder: being deliberate is not the same as being slow, and patience is not a lack of ambition.