For Inaki Soria, photography and travel go hand-in-hand. The Spanish-born fella jets around the world, then tells tales of his adventures through tactile printed snaps – relishing the chance to ditch the screens and rustle up something rather eye-catching while he’s at it.

We had a little chit-chat about his photo-taking fun.



What is your name and how old are you? My name is Iñaki Soria and I’m 29 years old.

Where were you born and where do you live now? I was born in Barcelona, lived in London for the past two years and now I’m back in Barcelona.

How does where you live affect your photography? I guess it affects me in terms of light. In London I used to shoot more at home, I paid more attention to details, and in Barcelona I shoot more in the street, looking for the sun. What’s for sure is that in both cities I felt like one more in the crowd, because it’s full of tourists with cameras.



What areas, things or people in your neighbourhood do you most like to photograph? To be honest, what I enjoy the most is taking photos when I am travelling because all is new, but I also like to photograph simple and boring days, like a day in IKEA eating meatballs.

What kind of subjects interest you the most? Everyday life.

What do you shoot on (digital or analogue) and why do you choose to use that type? I shoot almost 100% in analogue and sometimes I use my iPhone when I don’t have my camera. I started shooting in analogue around six years ago and kept going because I liked that feeling of picking up the pictures from the store and getting surprised when I didn’t expect anything special.



What kinds of ideas are you working on at the moment? All this time I have been scanning my photos with a very cheap scanner, so now I’m trying to re-scan my favourite ones in good quality directly from the film with my new toy, a Pakon F135 – an ugly old scanner that only works with Windows XP. The result is pretty good and I don’t need more than that.

When it comes to taking photos, do you have more of a controlled/set-up or spontaneous style? I like spontaneity, real moments, but sometimes I try to control too much the final result and you can see that in the photo. It’s something I’m trying to avoid. That’s my goal, although I still have to improve a lot to get that feeling.

Do you take the same care with personal photographs as you do with commercial/artistic work? I actually don’t do any commercial work. I work as a UX designer so I spend most of my day in front of a screen, I see analogue photography as something fun to do that allows me to forget all kinds of screen devices. But now that I think about it… at the end I finish scanning the pictures into my laptop, so again I’m in front of a screen #nosenselife.



What are the hallmarks of a great photographer? For me, storytelling. I love when I found a professional photographer, Instagram user or anyone that has a gallery where I can follow a story and get excited about it.

What are your thoughts on the rise of mobile phone photography and Instagram? I think it’s great! Photography is amazing by itself, but when you give people the option to do it easy, nice and in a journal format it makes it even better. Some people I follow on Instagram are not the best photographers, but they are really good at telling their story only with pictures.

What do you enjoy doing when not taking photos? Going to the store to pick up the prints.

Where can we see more of your work? All my photos are on Flickr, with selected ones on Tumblr and my work in inakisoria.com.