EGL Magazine

7 January 2012

Angel Maestre is a Spanish photographer working largely with landscape, music and fashion photography. She has done several fashion editorial shoots and has been working for many years with Spanish fashion house Sanctuary Dark Passion. She has photographed the Spanish 'Monegros Festival', and photographed DJs at local clubs including Carlos Hollers, acclaimed by several Spanish publications as Spain's best DJ.

How did you first get involved in photography?
I found photography by chance, as with many things in life. I had been working in several fields of art and culture, such as writing in magazines, having my own radio broadcast on a local station, playing music as a DJ, painting, or even trying to make my own music compositions. I have never been interested in the rules of any of these fields as something fixed.

My goal was just to satisfy my curiosity and learn new things. This is what took me into photography; wanting to start on a new path making original photographs.

Besides fashion shoots, what else do you photograph?
I´m also interested in urban and landscape photography, in particular beaches. I have done two exhibitions of my beach photography. In total I have done about 20 exhibitions and have been widely published in both print and online magazines.

What interests you about photography?
I´m absolutely in love with photography. In my opinion, photography must be an art and not a business. I admire a lot of photographers but I want to find my own style, so I try to give my photos my personal touch.

Photography is a good way to experiment, not having fear of the unknown but being sure that I will find new paths of expression. As an art, photography is a marvellous way to express feelings. It´s a wonderful world that allows you to study and learn something different every day. It´s also a complex matter that requires a lot of effort in order to achieve good photographs. But it's worth it.

The photographs featured here were taken in September 2011 at Modalena Fashion Weekend, which is one of the main fashion fairs in the Spanish region in which I live. The clothes were designed by Silvia Diez; who has her own brand called Sanctuary Dark Passion (www.sanctuary.es). I have been working with Sanctuary Dark Passion for four years and she is, in my opinion, one of the best gothic/industrial fashion designer.

This collection is based on steampunk with influences of Victorian and gothic styles. It plays with golden, copper and brown colours, always placed on top of black - which is the basic colour of her designs. The materials of her dresses are mainly leather and vinyl which are enriched with the addition of silk, satin, velvet and gauze.

Models featured (clockwise):
Patricia Gomez
Vicky Ripalda
Alba Ivars and Marino Macia
Tania Calvo
All photos: clothes by Sanctuary Dark Passion, hair and make-up by Ino Style