September 16, 2019

Meet Sandra Selva

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Sandra Selva.

Sandra, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I was born in Argentina in 1989. Seems long ago but it’s just enough to say I’ve learn something about photography. Photography came to me as a gift. Since I remember my father was always taking photos with an old 35mm camera. My mum is a painter so she also added some pepper to the pot. They both have inspired me enough to study history of photography in my first years at University.

In 2013, I got a degree in Communications & Scientific Research in Social Science, but I chose photography as my main source of expression. I bought my first DSLR camera and immediately after my graduation, I moved to live in a Favela in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. I wanted to master the Portuguese language, to learn about the way of living in the communities of one of the most beautiful and danger cities of South America. I also wanted to surf and, of course, to try some street photography, why not?

I been lucky enough, that same year, an international project called Playing for Change saw my just born work and called me to collaborate. (I was freaked out because I always been such a fan of that project!) I went on tour with the band around Brazil and Europe and after that they helped me to get an artist visa to come to the US and keep photographing musicians from all sources around many countries and states.

By 2015 I was where I always wanted to be, California. So I made my way into new projects like Turnaround Arts, a program created by former First Lady Michele Obama in 2011, to support art and music education in public schools across the United States. I had the pleasure to travel and to meet and work with the most incredible people ever! One thing you do brings you to the next thing you’ll do, and based on this I hold tide to my camera and kept on dreaming that people will call me to photograph and to create with them. Because of universal magic, that’s all that been happening the last five years of my life. I collaborate with many artists, bands, musicians, models, actors, magazines, social projects, non-profit organizations and people and projects that make me feel alive. In my searching I’ve traveled to remote communities and villages, I lived with them, eat their food, learned their languages, took some photos and left a couple of polaroid pictures and a piece of my heart in every place I’ve been.

The camera reminds me that I have a powerful tool and an art machine that combined can take you to incredible places and people and to create memories for many generations. Photography it’s a way of living and I like to think that it made me better along the way. Around these days, I remind a freelance photographer/videographer, a traveler and an artists and children supporter. I like to think that my creative work makes me free and, not just inspires but empowers people to work for others, to look and to care after others and our world. My work belongs to the people, to humanity, it’s not mine but yours.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
It never is such a thing. The road is as hard or smooth as your mind makes it. But takes time to understand it. If you think life is hard, it will always be, if you think life is beautiful then you’ll find beauty in most situations. I learned this not long ago so yes, I’ve been struggling for long time. And so I still do sometimes. The difference now is that I learned to embrace my struggles. I think that struggling it’s actually like being present, it’s happening now, the only way out of it is to go through all the way, and when you get in the rhythm of letting go more often, you’ll feel more light.

It’s been just one year after I started studying and practicing Buddhism (this everyday practice of chanting and sitting in silence at least 10 minutes right after waking up and before bed it has been healing me). Just 10 minutes a day, is the cheapest bill I ever paid, is the shortest time I’ve ever work and still, is the best thing I ever done, meditating, breathing, visualizing and focusing not in how but in what I wanted to achieve. I used to struggle because I wanted to avoid suffering and of course the only thing I found was suffering and pain. I changed my mindset and I started to think that everything that is happening right now is worth it, it’s convenient, to change and grow, to learn and to evolve. Impermanence is all we have, nothing is forever, we can’t hold on forever, we have to let it go.

After some time I feel that the road isn’t more smooth but that my shoes are better, and that I can use my wings when there isn’t a road. Something like that, I don’t know if you get these ideas, but if you think about it often you’ll get it. It’s always hard in the beginning. Inside every one of us there is an infinite power and all the answers of the universe so you can overcome every situation that is presented to you, otherwise will never happen to you.

I feel I can give a classes about life’s struggles but who am I to say I’ve struggled when I know other people ‘s struggles? All struggles are related. Some people struggles in castles some others in their tent outside your sidewalk, you and I struggle, but as long as we use creativity we’ll overcome the struggles.

Sandra Selva Photography – what should we know? What do you do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
I think my company it’s me doing something everybody would like to have a good picture or a collection of good images, eventually videos too. My business is to understand what the client is looking for and try to materialize it with my camera. When a photo has the right amount of light and shadows, a nice moment, a story to tell, a message, it’s decently framed and it has at least an honest focus then, I know it went the right way. There are many things that have to come together to get a nice photo and it takes time. It’s about timing, patience to wait for the right moment, it’s a combination of many things coming together at the same part of a second, and there is only one finger that can do that, a click away of a good moment and you are on trail. It comes along. It’s actually very easy to know when somebody likes them images, then their faces shines! Believe it or not people can’t hide when they really like a picture of themselves or not.

And so that’s all I want to feel, I keep working until I feel it and then the feedback starts and everything changes again. I go a lot by feeling, I can almost test myself based on the clients reactions to their final images, is fun and feels good to do something that makes peoples smile, that’s also why I keep my images close to what it comes trough the lenses at first, I don’t like too much retouching or editing, but if somebody wants it, then I also create space for the creators that are specialized on it and so begins a net of people working together. I specialize in humans. I started as a street photographer, then I also photographed shows and concerts. I always loved to photograph moments, people, situations, I like to make people smile and like themselves, I like to show them how beautiful they are for real, that they don’t need all kind of expensive retouching and photoshop, that they are beautiful as they are, so I did a lot of photoshoots for all kind of artists too. But in my bones I’ve always been a street photographer and a traveler, a landscapes finder, I love to photograph people, portraits are my favorite shoots. I know I have the capacity to adapt to what is needed it. I don’t feel I just do my thing and that’s it, I feel like I give a peace of me every time I deliver images and so I put my whole heart on it.

What is “success” or “successful” for you?
The first person that ever believe in me to be a photographer, that told me I was a photographer before I even consider myself one, that gave me my first professional camera, that told me that the world was a much better place because of my images, that person is one of my favorite creators of all times, that same person also told me that we meet success through perseverance. It took me a long time to understand it but it lives in my heart forever now.

I believe I’ve succeed just because I can hold a camera to go to work and create something that also helps others and make them happy. Still a long way to where I’m going, but I will persevere because I think success is like happiness, it’s a journey full of obstacles but beautiful if you love what you do. I used to worry too much, now if I get a smile back I know I’ve succeed. (By the way, I smile to stranger people in the street all the time, if I get a smile back I also succeed, but I don’t go around counting the smiles I got back, I just keep on going and so on. I think is worth it to calculate success trough smiles back.) I learned also that success comes for been resilience. The capacity to keep going with patience, to back up and wait when all falls apart in front of your eyes. When you breakdown, nothing is more powerful than seeing how pieces come together back again. You know is not a stop but a pause, then you pick up the pieces and you rebuild everything back up again, always looks better after the storm if the storm didn’t kill you.

I’m not looking for markers yet, but I would like to have an agent to help me out in getting more gigs as photojournalist. To get to the National Geographic it’s a dream for me. I got a lot people telling me my work looks like some of my favorite photographers of all times. I think they inspired me to do my work in that way so yes, I will love to travel the world as I do somehow now but I’ll like to do it full time photographing for magazines and organizations or artists. I will also love to have some people that understand the market better, I’m good taking the photos, sometimes editing them but I have so much material I will love to put it out there. Big part of my work still sleeping on my hard drives. I tried to be a social media manager for myself but I never get there, work still coming and the wheel keeps on moving so by the time I have to think in all those other little details of posting I’m already to tired or organizing the next photoshoot… A freelance photographer career is not an easy journey, demands a lot of work and effort for a solo creative person. I’m confident all pieces will fall into place, I like to think I am becoming.

Contact Info:

Website: www.sandraselva.com
Phone: 4242997540
Email: sandraselva10@gmail.com
Instagram: sandraselva_photography
Facebook: Sandra Selva Photography

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