Andrea Galad is more than just a photographer. He is a total visionair, a real storyteller. With his serie “All Monsters are Human”, Andrea wanted to show what is hidding inside us: “We are monsters, all of us, and we cease to be so when we realize it.”
KALTBLUT: Hi Andrea, how did you start to do photography?
Andrea: I started a couple of years ago just to try. Since I was a child I always painted weird things, and when I grew up I just couldn’t stand the fact that I wasn’t able to paint things in the way I saw them in my mind…so I took a camera, my room as a studio, my window as a source of light and my friends as models.
KALTBLUT: There is a really special atmosphere in your pictures, what inspires you the most?
Andrea: My inspiration n°1 is the Human Heart; I see emotions and human feelings as a mysterious, hidden worlds, full of stories, full of ruins and full of love. Everyone is special and unique, so I just look into the eyes in front of me and start to create.
KALTBLUT: When you have an idea for shoot, how is your working process?
Andrea: When I’ve got something on my mind I always search the person that fits my idea perfectly. I search for the clothes and the accessories and then I do the make up.
My greatest ideas came out in the moment of shooting with the models energy. I’m always working with a good 50% of organized and precise ideas and 50% of complete improvisation. Creation is a fluid energy, so I need that empty moment during the shoot where I can change or transform everything.
KALTBLUT: Are you working with argentic or with digital? Why?
Andrea: I started working with digital without a real reason why, it was the only easy and direct way to make my visions concrete, but plan to experiment with argentic in the future.
KALTBLUT: Do you have any mentor, artist that inspires you?
Andrea: Yes, actually Roberto Ferri is one of my favorite artists, and from the past William Adolphe Bougureau, or Herbert Draper. The funny thing is that none of them are photographers. I always find inspirations watching the painters from the past; like Caravaggio until the Symbolism.
Talking about photography, one of my greatest passion is the Victorian Age, so i find very beautiful all that old, silent and dark photography of that age.
KALTBLUT: Regarding your series “All Monster are Human”, what is the main idea behind it?
Andrea: The project started when I realized that the most terrifying, cruel, and heartless creature in the world is the Human Being. Mostly when they play with other humans hearts.
It’s not the monster under my bed I fear, or the ghost in my grandmas room, but the people.
I find them fascinating but also scary because you never know what they might be hiding; they can love you completely but they can also destroy you, mutilate you, make your heart implode even without using knives or guns. We are monsters, all of us, and we cease to be so when we realize it. Each boys in the series are a storytellers, every body is an hybrid, pulsing flesh transfigurated as moths at the pursuing of light.
KALTBLUT: How important is the post production for you?
Andrea: It’s very important because when I have certain ideas in my mind that may be impossible or very difficult to re-create, I can do with photo manipulation. Making photographies is not my aim, create images, that’s my aim, and I’ll use everything I have to make them born as I imagined.
KALTBLUT: What are you working on at the moment?
Andrea: I told before that I’ve got this obsession with the Victorian Age, so I would like to create a new project with models having the features during this time period such as what has come back into fashion and pop culture. A fusion of Hipster and Victorian styling.
I’m plan to keep my weird and mysterious atmosphere re-creating easy but intense portraits . So if you have a dramatic heart, or narcissistic, dark soul, or just a beard, please contact me.
Interview by Nicolas Simoneau
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