I was sent to Kabul to cover the war in Afghanistan for The Associated Press, the agency whose photographic staff has been part of it since 2003. One day, walking through the center of the city, discovered the old local office of the kamra-e-faoree (instant camera). Enchanted with a traditional technology that I did not know, I decided to buy a camera from one of the photographers and learn how to use it.

At that time, the camera ceased to be an object of historical fetish, of intrigue and curiosity, to become a tool of encounter with the other.

The subject must remain motionless for several seconds, since the more subtle movement deflects the point focused by the photographer. Apprehension and silence seem to gain form during those moments in which subject and lens confront each other. This is the space that makes the difference – what happens in those few moments when the photographer prepares the negative paper and blocks the passage of light again. Surprisingly, already in the middle of the second decade of the 21st century, this chemical discovery continues to produce smiles and astonishment.

Mechanical time propitiates the time to see the other, not just to look at it as a necessary source of media record.

This exhibition brings together a selection of portraits produced between 2006 and 2017 in Peru, Guatemala, Afghanistan and Mexico.

I was sent to Kabul to cover the war in Afghanistan for The Associated Press, the agency whose photographic staff has been part of it since 2003. One day, walking through the center of the city, discovered the old local office of the kamra-e-faoree (instant camera). Enchanted with a traditional technology that I did not know, I decided to buy a camera from one of the photographers and learn how to use it.

At that time, the camera ceased to be an object of historical fetish, of intrigue and curiosity, to become a tool of encounter with the other.

The subject must remain motionless for several seconds, since the more subtle movement deflects the point focused by the photographer. Apprehension and silence seem to gain form during those moments in which subject and lens confront each other. This is the space that makes the difference – what happens in those few moments when the photographer prepares the negative paper and blocks the passage of light again. Surprisingly, already in the middle of the second decade of the 21st century, this chemical discovery continues to produce smiles and astonishment.

Mechanical time propitiates the time to see the other, not just to look at it as a necessary source of media record.

This exhibition brings together a selection of portraits produced between 2006 and 2017 in Peru, Guatemala, Afghanistan and Mexico.