- You were born in Chile and had your education there. Then you went to several places from United States to Afghanistan, India to Pakistan and you took unbelievably impressing photographs in those places. Now you live and work in India. Why did you chose that country? What's special in India for you?

It is not just india what attracted me, it is the whole region, and that attraction is mostly visual. Since my first time in Asia, I was completely astonished by color, by textures, by architecture, then the stories came, amazing subjects. I couldn't stop going there, so till now I have spent more than three years in South Asia. Now i recently came back to Chile, where i am based now, for a while.

- You worked for some companies including the prestigious Associated Press and you chose to work freelance in 2006. What kind of advantages and disadvantages of working freelance in photography field? What do you suggest the young photography students who read Bak to do while choosing their way to becoming professional?

Working for a big agency like the AP is a privilege. I worked for them for almost 4 years, and I quit twice. It is a huge network and sometimes millions of people get to see your images in newspapers. Working for a wire agency timing is an issue, you have to rush and file the photos. Is the way it is. Sometimes I like to have more time, time for me and time on my projects. Time to get to know the people better, time to have progress on your work, time to go back again and again to your subjects. It's a different way of working, and looking for that time is why i quit. Of my photographs I mostly keep next to me those stories that were a process, when i was learning, when i was looking for images and not just for illustrations for a certain publication. It is important to do both, or to be able to do both, but working on your own, with your own time and limitations is the best way to create images, images that can remain on time, that have a meaning.

I always suggest to young photographers who want to travel and do photography that taking the time for doing this is the most important thing, dont wait for an editor to ask you go and work on the subject that is the subject that you dream to do, just take your time and do it by yourself. Don't even think of making money out of it, that's another story, just make pictures of whatever you want, be a photographer.

- With the photo report, "Kabul: Leaving The Shadows" which you created in the year you spent in Afghanistan, you won the prestigious Leica Oskar Barnack Award. Would you please tell us about that beautiful serie, your experiences and what you feel when you accepted the award in France?

This is an essay I made while working for the AP in Kabul. It was a year when I was covering the news coming out of Afghanistan. But I didn't just wanted to show images of news, I wanted to talk about the Afghans, who are they, what are they struggling for. Everyday of that year if I had time I was just going around the city of Kabul, with not a clear idea on my mind, just walking, watching and sometimes talking to people. I was learning from that experience. My eyes were open. and slowly those images were on the AP wire, showing peaceful people, a distant land, humanity, it was them and it was us, we all have wars, this is their time of fighting, or struggling for life, for their families, for what they believe, each one of them.

It is important in the news to go into people, to create bridges, not just to document or make good interesting pictures but to bring understanding. There is always people who will see into that, come up with feelings. That is at least what I tried to do while reporting to the AP. The award came next, and it was great.

- Some of your stunning photographs look like oil paintings. Especially one of the pieces from Kandahar, in which one man is lying on the floor and another one is sitting with eyes shut, makes us feel like looking at a Caravaggio masterpiece. Are there any artists or art movements that inspired you much and if so, is the Renaissance era one of them?

Yes, painting is one of them. When I was a child I was for years looking, almost dreaming with paintings. I love it so much. Although never took a pen or a brush or a camera. But I always liked painters like Rembrandt, Caravaggio, Rubens, Goya, Durer, Degas, etc. Light is something that I don't understand but i follow. And is showing me a way.

- As a photographer, who travels a lot and take some outstanding portraits, you must have met so many people up to now. Maybe some of them didn't allow you to take their photographs and some hosted you very well, some of them were waiting for death while some were playing volleyball with the friends... What was the most interesting and most dangerous times of the first 10 years in your professional career?

It is hard to say but I think the most provocative time was when I started realizing how important the experience of taking pictures was for me. It was taking me to so many different realities. Into so many different lifes, into their stories. I started taking pictures and my whole curiosity kicked off. Suddenly I was sharing moments with strangers, playing with a camera with something that not late became serious, and that was observation, it was people, it was us making our own story. And later on i found myself covering a conflict or an earthquake or talking to peasant in a forgotten land. Discovering your roots can be as intense as taking photos in a disaster.

But to answer the question, there is not a more interesting and more dangerous experience, there are dangers, like seating in a car with a bad driver in a mountainous area, or carrying a turban in a place where you barely know how to tie a turban. What i am trying to say is that danger is not the most interesting thing, it doesn't make things interesting.

- In most of your photographs, the dominant feeling is sorrow which is a huge inspiration for all kinds of art. By going back in time to the photo shoots of yours and thinking of your experiences, how do you define sorrow and how does it effect your artistic creations?

It is for me the more intense and constant feeling when observing. Even color carries sorrow. Cannot define it.

- You are a real master for using the colors. Do you believe that colors have strong effects to people's lives? In that case, what can you say about "Red", the color of passion?

Colors can have a strong effect on perception, if you are willing to listen to them. You have to pay attention to what makes you feel something, to those whispers, and let them grow on you.
Red... Is just one color.

- Although we deeply suffered from many major human-made disasters in the history, like world wars, bombings and genocides, we are still fighting with each other and we couldn't find a way to live in peace. As an artist, whose eyes were contacted with so many people from all over the world, how do you evaluate the future of our miserable blue planet?

I am afraid, everything is dying around us. Wars and disasters never had the magnitude of what is going on now.

- Theme of the current issue of Bak Magazine is "Fear". What does this word mean to you?

Are we going to be able to survive us? What are we leaving behind us?