Basically, this whole body of work happened by accident. I was looking through some files that I had shot. It was actually a landscape photo, and I cropped it into a portrait of one person who was in the photo. Because it was so far away, when I zoomed in, I saw something there and I was like, “Okay, well, how did this happen?” So I tried to recreate the whole thing again. To make to that mistake again, let’s say.

It took me about one and a half years of practice to get to it again. I had to work with different systems, like different lighting setups and it was a bit of a mission to understand how the whole process happened.

Before that, I used to do more full bodies, people interacting. It was a bit different, the work. Before, I had some other influences, some references of what I wanted to do. But this, because it happened by accident, it was just like, aha! There was no inspiration behind it. It was just an error. And I was like, “Oh my God, I have something here.”

In photography terms, I flag the model. So I do basically like a black box where you can only see the silhouette. The background has a color, and between the person and the camera there are fabrics that I use as filters. Then I have custom-made filters on the camera that are glass.

When I take the photo, I’m actually making a negative of the photo. The blacks become white. It’s like the color wheel, so everything is the opposite. If I want to shoot something lighter, then I have to make it darker. It’s very tricky.

I have a process. It varies a lot because, again, we have to work in reverse. Right now, I do everything digitally with a medium-format camera, and I’m connected to a computer. I take the photo, and then this program on my computer inverts everything automatically. I can play with the inversion: how much do I want inverted? How much do I want it to look like originally? I also play a lot with the color balance.

I would say 90% is done analog, 10% is done digitally. The 10% is more like tweaking the colors a little bit, tweaking the white balance, potentially cropping. I base all my work on Fibonacci sequences and the golden ratio. So everything has to be done in a specific way so they all match in a way.

The blurriness of the photos is done through my lens. I focus the lens in a way where it’s between the fabrics, the filters, and the subject. There are three different variations of the focus that I use to create this, let’s say, aura effect.

Before I started this series, the whole idea had to do with the ego, with layers of the ego. What does it mean to have an ego in this day and age? It could be a race ego, it could be nationality, it could even be gender. There are so many things that we put in front of us to create who we are these days.

This is why I started shooting through these layers, through these fabrics. What these fabrics represented were the layers of the ego, and once you go through all of that, you reach, let’s say, the soul. And at soul level, we’re all the same.

That was a little bit of the concept behind it. But then what happened was that these fabrics generated the error. It kind of happened in this way.

I do think the ego plays a role. It can play a very big role. As an artist, for sure, there’s the artist ego, which I have. I try not to have it, but then it comes back. I’m talking like there’s no ego, but it’s always there, for sure. I think that’s the beauty, realizing it and being like, “Okay, it’s this thing. What are you gonna do so it’s not affecting you?”

You compare yourself with other friends, with artist friends. “I did this and you didn’t,” or, “They are doing better than I am. I want to do better now.” So for sure, there is all of this. I think there are healthy ways around it, but the most important thing is just to be very aware of it, and then how you act upon it.

Sometimes your ego can actually make you have the confidence to achieve things. So there are also healthy ways for it. I can talk more confidently about something, and things can go better, for sure.

You gotta play with that. It could be something a bit cocky, but it could also be something that is funny, and then it can take you places.

I grew up quite religious as a kid. We’re from Venezuela, and my background in Venezuela was a lot of Catholicism. Virgin Mary, all these things, praying, rosary. So there was always this part within me.

I spent most of my life in Australia, since I was like 17, 18, around that time. I moved to a place called Byron Bay. It’s a very hippie town. When I moved there, there was all this very hippie, spiritual culture, very open-minded. I learned there through someone, this elder who taught me how to meditate. I did a lot of work with her regarding psychic abilities.

We developed psychic abilities for many years. She taught me meditations, mantras, inner work. For me, she was like a spiritual mentor. I was quite young. Of course, the work has lots to do with her teaching.

So it comes from both sides. I would say growing up and then also this whole hippie culture, Byron Bay spirituality.

I hate to say it, but it sounds so cheesy. I think spirituality and all these things have changed so much, especially with social media, the way that we see things. Now, if you talk about these things, the first thing people would think is, like, “Oh, you just went to Burning Man and smoked DMT.” You know what I mean? It’s so cringey and cliché.

So again, this is ego. I’m like, “Oh my God, these people don’t know anything.” You know what I mean? What am I debating here?

If I’m going to debate that, then yes, it’s an ego thing. So it goes back again to the work. This is all about the ego at the end of the day.

How do you become a person who is expansive, and you’re drawing people towards you? I think that’s the key. If we’re really talking about attraction, like romantic attraction, I think looks matter to an extent, for sure, but the core of attraction will be that aura that people have. And you see it everywhere. There’s this magnetic pull from people, but I think that’s something that we can all cultivate.

Especially if you see it in a dating or romantic context, people use social media as Tinder. And if you don’t have a social media presence, then who are you? You’re just a weird guy, or like, “Oh, he doesn’t have social media? He’s weird.” Or, “He has many followers? Oh, that’s weird. Red flag.”

Unfortunately, yes, social media, I’m a victim of it. It’s a double-edged sword because you’re presenting yourself in this way through social media, but then actually, are you leaving your truth behind?