We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Natalia Ormeño. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Natalia below.

Natalia, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

I think what makes projects meaningful to me is being able to work with people and to connect with them, and to hopefully gain their trust and empower them. A project that holds a special place, would be my first monograph “Enlaces”, and it all started with an invitation to Marilu’s home in Cajamarca, Peru. She was my nana, the person who was in charge of looking after me during my childhood. Where I was raised in Lima, the Peruvian capital. Being able to reconnect with her and recall our time together gave me a warm feeling of gratitude and happiness. Having the opportunity for Marilu to trust me as I captured her with a camera was a privilege that I will never take for granted.

“Enlaces”, is a thank you and acknowledgement for Marilu’s unconditional love as well as her bravery for leaving her family behind in Cajamarca at eighteen years old, to seek a better future in the capital. Her resilience of overlooking the negative and seeking the optimism is what I admire and always remember her for. Hopefully, my images can transmit my feelings of love and gratitude that I have towards her but most importantly for Marilu to see herself in a light full of love. As I continue to develop projects, I always value people’s time and trust that they give me when getting their photograph taken.

Natalia, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’m a photographer currently based in New York. I was raised in the capital of Peru, where I was constantly exposed to art from a young age. Growing up, I remember vivid memories of Sundays spent at my grandparents home, where I found myself captivated by the art pieces adorning their walls. This early exposure fueled my passion for the arts. Later on, when I turned nineteen I decided to move to New York and pursue a Bachelor of Fine Arts in photography at the School of Visual Arts. It was during this time that I took my very first steps into the fine art world and developed a deep appreciation for medium format film cameras, shaping the visual narrative of my project “Enlaces”. As a creative, I work on projects that explore the examination of the self, traditions, family, and a sense of belonging. I try to make optimistic environments for my subjects, for them to feel good when having their picture taken. For me it’s essential to know who they are, before taking their photograph and I hope that the human connection that I truly value resonates through my images.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

My journey as a BFA student taught me the importance of trusting the creative process, and finding the beauty in mistakes. Especially, an Alternative Processes class where I continually experimented with ultraviolet lights while printing digital negatives on diverse surfaces such as glass, seashells, fabrics, etc. It involved a degree of unpredictability, where factors like exposure time or how chemicals are applied to a type of surface influenced the final outcome. At the beginning it was stressful if a print did not meet my expectations, but as I kept on printing I began to realize that some mistakes gave the final product a unique character that I wouldn’t have achieved otherwise. Nowadays, I tell myself to trust the process, not every image has to be technically perfect. Instead, what truly matters is the message or emotion a photograph conveys.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

As a photographer, it is rewarding to capture and convey emotions, stories, and unique perspectives. I consider my work to be personal when re-exploring nostalgic memories from my childhood and reflecting on the experience of living in a different city. For me, it’s incredibly fulfilling when my art is able to evoke emotional connections with others. If I can leave even the smallest of impressions on the audience or subjects, for a memory or feeling to resurface, it feels meaningful to have shared a part of myself to the world.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://nataliaormeno.squarespace.com
• Instagram: @noz_399
• Linkedin: Natalia Ormeño

Image Credits

All images courtesy Natalia Ormeño