The artist who photographs the 'Paseantes' of Seville
Four nuns walk, among the crowd, down a narrow street in Seville. Suddenly the sidewalk becomes smaller, almost minuscule, and they have no choice but to stand in single file. For a tenth of a second the planets align: the sea of people disappears, the back wall is just right, no car spoils the moment, and chas!, a photographer manages to immortalize the image with his camera.
The subject in question is Jose Bull , art teacher in a high school and photography lover for many, many years. So much so that his passion has led him to play with images throughout his life in multiple ways, including exhibiting his creativity in galleries on numerous occasions. Precisely in the Atín Aya room in the Andalusian capital shows, until the end of October, his latest work: walkers . An ode to the art of walking in all trims. Yes indeed: of hispalenses ways.
Toro says that the idea came to him about 7 or 8 years ago. And it is that the street, the urban , he had always been present in each of his projects. Perhaps, yes, not acquiring such a palpable role. But then he thought that he wanted to put his feet on the ground, wander conscientiously and capture those anonymous characters, giving the deserved place not only to his fortuitous presence: also to a unique city that, in each picture, oozes south in abundance.
And there he came into play Instagram, a key piece of this puzzle . The social network became ideal platform to get your work out to the world . And by the world, we mean every corner of the planet: between 90 thousand followers of his account are people from the most remote places. “Before trying Instagram, I saw it as something that I was never going to use. They told me about him and I said, well, I'm going to upload a photo to see what happens, ”he says. The first was published in 2014, and from then on the likes and followers multiplied at the speed of light. The demo? Some of his photos reach more than 900 thousand "likes" . “This is how you realize the breadth of this social network, the connections,” he says. A unique showcase in which to “walk” hand in hand with its protagonists.
Because that's what it's all about walkers : in a collection of snapshots taken by himself throughout his city, Seville; a job to which he has dedicated hours and hours of his life. And each and every one of those images conveys something: Through the environment, the person photographed, his gesture, posture, clothing... we imagine his story . A story that does not have to correspond to reality, but that is what this game consists of.
We ask Toro about his modus operandi and he tells us the keys: when he goes out to take photos, he makes it absolutely concentrated . His regularity already depends on the workload each week, which makes him dedicate more or fewer days to it. Each outing extends over several hours in which he does not stop moving. “ The funniest thing for me is when I bump into someone just at the right time. Sometimes I see him coming, and maybe I only have 10 meters to react, balance, marry the space and take the photo. I have to do it fast, play with time, but when he works out it's most rewarding,” he says.
About anecdotes, he says he has many, although normally, and despite carrying a reflex camera and if he doesn't hide when working, he goes quite unnoticed. "The people I usually photograph are usually so absorbed in their own thing, they don't even see me," he says. They hardly notice that, on the other side of the street, someone has noticed his presence, he has been able to see the beauty of everyday life and, much further, capture it forever.
Or so it was, at least, until the arrival of the pandemic. “Now, however, people are much more attentive to the environment and there are many fewer people on the streets ”. Hence one of the last photos of him that he uploaded to his Instagram account, in which a nun points her finger at him as a reprimand . "I was very hesitant to upload this photo, but I finally did it to somehow reflect what is happening now," he says.
There have been many times that those who have recognized themselves in his photographs have contacted him to thank him. Although the protagonists of it are the most diverse. Toro jokes as he acknowledges having a special radar for religious sisters, but his camera has also immortalized prints as unique as that of a suit jacket with legs walking between booths at the Seville fair, a man walking under the skirts of a young woman in a large advertisement , that of a man who wears a good piece of meat on his head or that of a Sevillian woman dressed in a mantilla in front of a facade full of graffiti. She loves to play with shadows, with colors and backgrounds. In short, with the moments. And she never, ever prepares anything: everything is the result of chance, of the spontaneous and of the eye of the photographer. “ Everyone who is on the street has a good photo, but maybe not at that moment ”, she states.
What he is clear about is each one of the thousands of images that are part of walkers —Those that are exposed and those that make up his immense archive—, also constitute his own history. “When I look at the photos I am seeing my life through them. They are people, but I remember when I took it, my state of mind at that time... They tell me how my life has been through the lives of other people ”. Can there be anything more beautiful?
And the story goes further. It's been a while since the walkers of Jose Bull They took on a life of their own. And it was so to the point that the photographer began to receive similar snapshots from his followers from all over the world. That was when he decided to shape his “little son”: José Toro Walkers. a hashtag, #josetorowalkers, with more than 40 thousand tagged photographs and its own Instagram account in which the protagonists were, in this case, the walkers portrayed by the followers . In fact, the last of the three floors that its current exhibition occupies is dedicated to them: more than two thousand photographs decorate an immense world map with which to travel to places as remote as Zanzibar, Abu Dhabi, Rio de Janeiro, Bangladesh or Melbourne . There is also a video projection in which moving images give a new twist to history.
about the future of walkers , José is clear: “For me the walk is very important: when I refer to going out to photograph, I am talking about walking, so I think that As long as I keep walking, there will be Walkers”.
And we, wherever we are, will continue walking with them.