Insta Fav #94: Adrián Cano

Follow: @adriancanolo

Where are you from? How does that place influence the way you photograph?
I live in Madrid, Spain. Although I love my city, I do not feel particularly attached to it. I love traveling and I feel influenced by the experiences I’ve lived in different cities and countries I have visited.

What are your favorite environments to shoot in?
As I said before, my greatest passion in life is traveling and discovering new places. When I’m traveling I like to photograph people traveling with me in different contexts, the local food and places that catch my attention, especially buildings with different/special architectures. I enjoy placing my friends in the same composition with the buildings or skylines at certain times of the day and play with symmetry, light and contrast of the object and the human figure.

When I’m not traveling, my photographs becomes nostalgic. I like noticing the little details of my daily routine. My friends, my girlfriend, my cats and magic spots of my house and my city, always paying attention on the natural light at that time. The photos I take are entries of what I consider my visual diary. If you put together all these pieces you can get an idea of who I am and how I live.

What are the strengths of shooting primarily mobile? How does this affect your imagery?
I think mobile photography has given us the magic of spontaneous photography. Many times, I found this moments that were worth photographing and I lost them because didn’t have a camera with me. With my iPhone I always have a camera in my pocket. I only have to take the picture, make a quick edition and share it with the world.

Who and what are the things that inspire you?
The most inspiring things are usually the simplest. I’m always listening to music and sometimes the song I’m listening takes me to see things differently. That’s why I usually add songs to my photographs to give them context. Another thing that leads me to take pictures is natural light and how it interacts with people and objects. I love the morning light through the windows and whenever I’m traveling I set an alarm to catch the “magic hour”, the time when the sun is about to set and everything changes color in a special way. I’m also obsessed with the geometric shapes and natural symmetry of things: walls, doors, windows, reflections … in contrast with the human figures and bold colors.

Favorite instagrammers?
I love all the pictures of @tiempodecerezas, she is my biggest inspiration and the other half of my visual diary, as I share everything with her. The creativity without limits and the colors of @annararo’s photos. @imartavargas beautiful images and the way she express her daily life in Stockholm. Smooth colors, great compositions and optimism of @piluro’s feed. And the sense of humor and funny compositions in @anniset’s pictures.

Which Apps do you use to edit your pictures?
I mainly edit with VSCO Cam choosing the filter that best fits with the pictures and making image adjustments if they’re needed. After that I can do some more local adjustments using Snapseed and if the image has any perspective issues, I recently discovered SKRWT, which works great.

Tell us a little about your everyday.
I live in a small apartment in the center of Madrid with Erea (my girlfriend) and my two cats, Nemo and Zissou (Erea and I created a hashtag for each cat #nemothecaptain & #zissouthecaptain to show pictures of our cats to our friends). I work as a personal trainer teaching video and photo editing but thanks to Instagram during this past year I have been able to partially make a living out of photography with Erea, making photo shoots, directing a music video and working with brands such as Reebok, Jameson, Audi, Movistar or Happy Socks. A few weeks ago I was invited to Antwerp to enjoy the city, meet new people and share my experiences through my Instagram feed. It was great!

Also, a few months ago my girlfriend and some friends encouraged me to start my own blog, where I share pictures taken with my cameras in my travels along with anecdotes that I like to remember. Only publish a few pictures with a little text accompanying the images, that’s why I decided to call it Momentos.

If you’d like to become a future Insta Fav, follow @ignant or post your profile in the comments below. We’ll look into it.