I’m Eugenio Pastor Benjumeda. Photography has been part of my life for many years and has gradually become a way of observing the world. I hold a degree in Chemistry, a field to which I devoted my entire professional career as a teacher of Physics and Chemistry. Alongside teaching, photography has always been a constant presence in my life, and has become a way of paying attention to the spaces, forms, light and everything that happens around me.
In some way, the coexistence of a way of looking shaped by science and another, more contemplative in nature, has come to define how I observe. Both complement each other: one seeks to understand; the other, to pause and admire.
Photography keeps me attentive to what happens around me. Many of these images emerge precisely from that quiet search for atmospheres, landscapes and places that, for some reason, deserve to be observed.
Background. Between 2008 and 2010, several of my photographs were finalists in different national competitions, including the Caja España Photography Prize for Black and White Photography, the Biennial of Landscape Photography Ciudad de Alcalá de Guadaíra, and the international Euromed Heritage competition.
In 2010, I received the thematic award “Natural Spaces, Future Spaces” at the XXIX World Environment Day Photography Competition organised by the Government of Andalusia, for the work Kayaks bailando con la luna. That same year, I presented the individual exhibition “El mundo es fascinante, solo hay que detenerse a mirar” at the Casa de la Cultura in Alcalá de Guadaíra.
Photography, science and education. During my teaching career, I discovered that photography could also become a way of teaching how to observe. Science and photography share something essential: both begin with an attentive gaze.
A conversation about photography, science and education. In 2015, I was invited by the Regional Ministry of Education of the Government of Andalusia to take part in an interview about the relationship between photography, teaching and the way we observe the world. Although it took place some years ago, many of the ideas expressed in it still define the way I understand photography.
A broader selection of my work can be viewed on 1x.com