Valejo

Valejo is not what it seems to be. I love macrophotography. One day I was making some pics on the forest near my house with my macro lenses and, in a blink, I noted how the tree´s barks , when viewed through the magnifying macro lenses, looks like huge mountains and valleys. Immediately came the idea to create a savage, isolated world, where rough stones and mountains arise from the land on a powerful way. That day I returned to my house with dozens of macro pics of those trees and a full concept in my mind... Then, the next part. Digitally, I mixed bark macros with selected pics of clouds and tree leafs, blending 2 ou 3 photos in each scene to create an strong and dramatic atmosphere. At the end, my own planet was created: Valejo! The conceptual idea behind this work shined in my mind when I took the first photos. I wanted to show how much we lose when we don´t pay attention to little things, and also how sometimes we lose our precious time giving attention to things that do not matter so much, while important details just go away. Well, if even tiny ditches and reliefs of trees can be turned into great sceneries, imagine then those little things of our daily life that we do not give enough attention to... The name "Valejo" is an little homage to the Chilean painter Boris Vallejo, one of my graphical heroes. The shadows, mountains and colors of the resulting scenes bring a strong resemblance to the canvas backgrounds of this incredible artist.