Photo by Antonella Moltini

The mind is a delicate memory box, always struggling with maintaining an exact picture of moments we hold dear. That’s why properly-treated rolls of film make it easier for you to remember with great detail: beautiful places you once visited, friends you no longer see or still see, loved ones and of course, those entertaining naked photos of yourself when you were young.

Martín Canova lives in Montevideo, Uruguay. He is a natural (not professional) photographer, a musician and journalist. The photographs he takes are all for his own pleasure and those of whom he captures (mostly of friends, sometimes cats, and at times his girlfriend) are neither willing nor unwilling. He captures them with as much care as the mind handles memories.

In these grainy, colour-spilled prints are ingrained moments and light as natural as the scenes his photographs depict.

Describe what you think is a beautiful photograph.

That’s a difficult question because aesthetics is not an exact science. You can’t say, “A beautiful picture has to achieve the following characteristics…” It doesn’t work like that. Very often I don’t know myself which pictures to choose to show in public because I don’t know if they are good or not. My opinion always changes with the time or my daily mood. So I have to trust in my instincts, as I always do.

What subject –a face, an object – immediately attracts your eye when you look through the lens? What sort of photographs do you notice you shoot more of?

In some way, when you take pictures you have to try to hunt the beauty of this world that we are living in. I don’t have go too far to do that because I can find that beauty in my everyday life, in every moment. So I take pictures of my friends, people that surround me, animals, places I go, funny or strange situations. But I don’t think too much about it. I just try to carry a camera with me and wait for the photo to appear in front of my eyes.

You’re also a musician. How does photography reflect onto your music or your song-writing and vice-versa?

I think they are related because I’m the same guy and I approach my creative activities with the same attitude and philosophy. That is related with my punk backgrounds; I prefer the passionate driven feeling rather than technique, and I like to try to be personal and original, a truly expression of myself and not trying to be another person (that was punk to me).

But there is something I have always noticed: my photos are in some way “prettier” than my music, which is sometimes very dark and uncomfortable. I mean I can take beautiful-pretty-nice pictures, but I can’t do nice pretty songs, and when I do some nice musical composition I always tend to dismiss it. I don’t know why.

How does film technique influence your photography?

I studied photography thinking of applying it to movie-making, and my beginning influences in photography were cinematographers, not photographers. So that influence is huge, although I am not very conscious of how it works. Sometimes people say that my pictures remind them of film frames, and I like that.

Where are some of your favourite places to shoot in Uruguay? What are some other places outside of Uruguay do you like to shoot?

Montevideo, my city, it’s a great place to take pictures but I can’t explain why. In some way, Uruguay is a European country inserted in South America and that makes an interesting mix. But I am not very keen on thinking of places to shoot or special locations, I just carry my camera wherever I go and that’s it. I think neither the place or the camera are important to take a great picture, you can take a great picture anywhere with a toy camera, it’s not important.

But last year I went to Europe, and I was fascinated with east European countries and there I took a lot of pictures that I like. I want to come back soon there and know more cities and countries of that part of the planet. And in Bolivia in South America it’s impossible not to take great pictures, give a monkey a camera to travel through Bolivia and for sure he is going take a lot of great pictures.

Your photos seem to capture the spirit of a moment: a tipsy grin, quiet joy, sudden laughter. What I mean is that it seems so easy to imagine the dialogue in them. Is it luck? How would you describe your technique?

I think that is like hunting, you are there waiting for the prey to appear. So maybe it’s a mix of luck and patience.

Out of curiosity, how did you feel when Peñarol lost to Santos in the Copa Libertadores final?

As a Peñarol fan I felt kinda sad that day but all the Peñarol season in this Copa Libertadores was great. Football has a mystical aura here and this year was very magical in that sense. Peñarol is the most popular team here and was the most winning team in the world on the XX Century according to FIFA. But the team was going to a crisis since the last two decades and it was the first Libertadores final in twenty-four years. The campaign was awesome! Peñarol was knocking out “superior” teams one by one always in very exciting and suffering matches that take your heart out. Every time Peñarol eliminated another team there was a great joy in the streets. In some way it was like a Lovecraft novel where the Old Gods of the past were menacing to come back to Earth to claim their world and everybody was scared about it. It was great.

- Martín Canova, photographer
Photo by Antonella Moltini

Read A Song & A Memory: Martín Canova