We know that you started taking photographs with a camera belonged to your father. It looks like that your family encouraged you for being a photographer. How did your childhood affect your artistic skills?

No, I really started to use my father’s camera because it was the main camera in our house, and in that age, the photographic cameras wasn’t so cheap as today for the middle-class working family were I’m from. My parents never encourage me to be photographer or creative in any kind, but the only thing I can say is that they never tried to convince me otherwise, a many difficult thing in that historical period in Spain.
Furthermore, once I have decided my way of life, his support was unconditional. I think in that sense, they deserve 10 points.

You received a Golden Lion award in Cannes in 2005 with your outstanding photograph of an old woman which you had taken for TBWA's Playstation 2 advertisement. It is a dreamy shot again and the dramatic lighting gives us the perfect feeling of renaissance paintings. Can we say that the renaissance era is a certain inspiration for your works?

I use many things as inspiration, one of them are the classical paintings. They are dramatic, histrionic, and all the volumes they get with the use of the lighting. A light that is so far of the modern sophistications of the photographic studios. If you analyze carefully that paintings, the light is so simply, but perfect at the same time.

You were specialised in painting at the university. Does your painting ability help you while retouching your photographs?

At the starting I retouch myself the pictures with my wife, that studied Arts too. Of course my studies were very important for the style of my pictures retouch. Specially the anatomy lessons that I learn in the faculty. There are people that erase people's defects in the retouching process, to the limit to change into another ones, and specially as well the colour treatment. We work the colour like a painter do, and that sensibility is getting from the art school.

Your wife is also a talented artist like you and she is the creative behind the post-production of your photographs. Would you please introduce her to us?

As I said is the person who entrusts my post-production work. We meet to decide what I want to get and she starts to work in it. Many times she offers me wonderful proposals and solutions that improve my pictures.

It´s very important to trust unconditionally in a person, because it allows you more flexibility to start working in another project. I like to be present in all my pictures phases, but not all the hours in each phase. I think her work has a very solid presence in my pictures. She´s wonderful.

Can you please tell us about your working habits?

I like to plainly my works obtaining information about I want to get. Then, at the moment to explain and sharing the information with my team, I’m a little lazy and give the information incomplete. I think that with this, I give him the freedom to think and work in other options to propose me. I fit the things they show me in the general idea that I have of the stage, and if it fit well, I seize it.
Finally, all this preparation will serve to have a referent in the head. We forget all details of the script and concentrate in enjoying the pictures with a high dose of improvisation.

We know that you are interested in cinema. What kind of movies do you like and which film directors do you find closer to yourself in terms of visual comprehension?

I like all kinds of good cinema. “Good cinema” means for me the one who provides me something good. Attending to the filmmakers I feel nearly, I’m working in a film that I feel between Tarantino and Wong Kar Wai, but I like David Lynch's visual strength without artifices.

You are also very much interested in filmmaking. Your 30 second long Nina Ricci perfume film is so beautiful. Have you ever dreamt about making a feature film? Do you have scripts for such projects?

Yes, as I said, I’m working on a story that is in working progress. I don’t know where it end. I’m also interest in the rights of a Japanese book, but I think it’s a loosed battle, because I had no name or reference works in the world of filmmaking. I think in four years I will get it, but I think too that it will be outside my country. Here we do a lot of junk produced throw contacts, and I don’t want anyone. Only who trust in me and my work, but only this. In publicity, I did a 30s spot, a 45, and a little documentary of 2 minutes. I did them, to know how this (for me) new world works. And nothing better to learn.

We are all working for clients. When we read the brief, we have a first impression. Sometimes we say "Great! This is just for me" or "Oh my god, it's a terrible idea!". Which one do you say most and in what kind of work do you say the second?

With the first ones I get excited. Next days, I think about so many little things that could be done for the project, and keep exciting. With the second ones I directly don’t accept the work. Next days, I think about something totally different, and I try to propose it to the client. Some of them accept, and someone doesn’t . If they do so, I make the choice or take the next one.

You are mostly responsible for the set design in your projects. No doubt, this is a great advantage which gives the artist much more freedom. Imagine that you will open your new exhibition and you have limitless budget. You can choose a country, a city, a hall or you can even create your own building for exhibiting your photographs. What kind of organization would it be?

An exhibition with photography and an installation, in a beach in Ireland or Scotland. The theme: Titanic.

The installation will be constituted for metallic boxes grounded in the sand, with square nautical windows where we can see the machinery room, the cabin, and the staterooms. The pictures will be photographic portraits of the Titanic´s passengers, at the time of the sinking. The opening day would be a stormy one, with wind and so many clouds.

Theme of the 9th issue of Bak Magazine is "Night". What does this word mean to you? What comes to your mind when you think about darkness?

I feel darkness more attractive than night. For darkness I understand craziness not detectable at first sight.

Darkness is like sex with the lights on and pimples on the back.