AN EVENING WITH HELEN NAVAJAS

I had the privilege of meeting Helen back in 2012 when we were both working for the same company.
We used to spend most of the working days together laughing and making jokes about all random things. Helen has this super energetic and cheerful character that is contagious, so no matter if you’re feeling moody, it won’t last long until you start laughing as soon as you get close to her.

We are so different from one another, and that’s probably why we get along so well, but yet we have many resemblances, similar tastes and way of thinking.

Listening to her stories from back when she was living in Brazil also makes me travel to a complete other reality that I always fell in love with.

Helen is a proud daughter of a well known painter, a wife, a mother and photographer, working now full time on her own.

Hereby I leave you with a part of her. Hope you enjoy it!

So tell us a bit about yourself. Where were you born and how did you end up here in The Netherlands.

I traveled in my mother’s womb from Minas Gerais to São Paulo back and forth until I was finally born in São Paulo. Before I was even one year old we moved to Minas Gerais. Brazil, what a craziness… I inherited my entire accent from Minas Gerais, but a part from that I think that I only catch the hospitality, everything else I don’t feel like it really has something to do with me.

I actually wanted to leave Brazil for a while already, and then I met Menno. I was still working in a hostel in Brazil and, in December 2008, I saw him and it was like “Opa demorou!” (this is such a distinctive expression of Helen and it means something like “WOW Finally!”). Menno is Dutch, so in 2009 I decided to come here to see how things were. I stayed for three months and I liked the idea, so we started making plans together.

Do you feel like your photography work has any influences?

Well it’s funny that I always think about it and I feel that I bring a bit from everyone in my photos. I studied with a photographer in Paraty, Brazil, called Claudine Doury and I thought her work was so good and so silent, like silent smiles, a lot of geometry. I tried many times to do the same and I think there is a bit from it when I take weddings photos. Letting the principal subject in an observation state and as a photographer don’t interfere in the moment. When I do that kind of photos I would love to stay even further away, like an invisible third eye, and I think that’s a bit of her influence. I still love her work. I love the strong and fantastic contrast that her black and white photographs have.

I also have many influences from my father, the geometry, his compositions following the aurea proportion. I love that as well, to look and find where the subject is, if in the center or not.

Now I realize that I have my own style and it is very centered, you know? The people are most of the time in the center of the image, which I find it weird but it doesn’t bother me anymore as much as it did.

So, is that something you feel like you should change or rather admit it as your own style?

I think that now I am more satisfied with what I am and what I do. I don’t fight so much with myself anymore.

There are two things that make my work: the money and, specially, the pleasure. The engagement with people and getting to know them. If a person wants to be photographed then there must be something special that they want to register. But how do you keep that in a photo? And what is their interest in your photos, right? There has to be something about your style that they like. So how do you keep that as well?

Nonetheless, I fight when the photo is not what I want in technical terms, like if the lightning is good, if it is not too saturated. That’s what bothers me the most now, so I try and try again until I reach what I had in my mind. But in terms of style I really don’t. I am very satisfied with the frontal geometry that my photos have. And the shape, I think that my photos have a lot of shape, outline and contrast.

A part from the style you have, do you have any favorite photography style?

That I could name probably not. I always loved photojournalism. I like the reality but a raw reality where I don’t have to interfere too much with, you know? I don’t know how to call it… A more rough reality maybe.

Do you have any preferred light during the day?

I love the natural light and I hate flash. Oh my god how much I hate it! I love the light at end of the day, like that evening light at sunset. I don’t like the morning light, I think it’s awful.

I also love to take photos at night using the light drawing technique. I love playing with it and I think it has everything to do with me.

Are you more of a morning or evening person in your day to day?

Afternoon/Evening for sure! Mornings are so tough, I only want my coffee and bed. And now it’s so crazy because it became a real job, you know? I try not to make it a routine but yeah, it reaches the end of the afternoon and I’m in that productive peak that I don’t want to stop and if I could I would only stop working at night.

So how do you deal with it? Because working for yourself without having necessarily to go to an office requires lots of discipline.

Well it’s a mess! (haha) Sometimes I take too much time editing, either because I fall in love with that specific photo or I don’t like it or it is just too much perfectionism, you know? Like that strand of hair or the skin color or something not so important that is annoying me. You know you didn’t need to be like that but still you’ve got to and it takes you overtime for such a small detail. In the end I think it’s good because it’s not an automated work. It isn’t robotic like “do and deliver”. I really personalize my work. There’s all this process of looking into the photo, the person, their personality and what will please them or not.

But coming back to the subject, now I only have two complete working days because of Joaquim, my son. I would like to take complete control during the photo-shoot to decrease the editing time, because if the photo-shoot goes well when you get home there’s not much editing to do. I don’t like the editing part as much as I love to work behind the camera. I love to take the photo and that’s it, you know? Of course give it a bit more of light and enhance a bit, but leave it as much original as possible.

Sometimes it takes me one day to finish an album so my “work routine” it’s still a mess. There isn’t really a routine, I end up working weekends as well so in the end I work more than I used to. But it is still a lot better as I’m doing what I love and I feel like I’m also getting better and quicker at it.

How do you handle the selecting process? Because to me it was always the hardest and boring part of it all.

Well, it’s still hard because sometimes I get too much attached to a specific photo that really isn’t the best and in the end I have to say “No! Step out of it!”.

Basically I look at the photos and select all the ones I like the most. Then, by reviewing them I realize that many have the same features, position or smile. That’s when I place all the similar photos together and from those, let’s say three, I select only one. This goes on and on until I’m happy with the final selection.

Now it’s a lot better and I delete a lot. Whilst before I used to select 100 now I only select 50.

When do you feel like there was the turning point? When did you felt “enough having this life. From now on I’ll focus in what I really enjoy doing”.

I was giving training at a company and I felt like it had something of mine, teaching people, you know? But then that ended and I decided to leave the company for good. That’s when I started thinking about photography in a real way.

I had already worked with photography back in Brazil, but it had nothing to do, it was mostly about the money. Of course I also loved the title of “Photographer” but still I had never thought of it as a work for life. I had never found my space within photography.

When I started working for this other company, I was many times called by my colleagues and friends to make some photo-shoots and I realized how much I was enjoying it. Learning Dutch also helped a lot, talking to people, made me understand that it wasn’t all so fake, you know? Like before I used to think “why are people taking this kind of photos, like maternity photos, weddings, newborns…”. It all seemed kind of fake to me before getting involved with the people and understand the real reason behind it.

I recently had a photo-shoot of a wedding where I got to spend a complete day and camped with all the people, and it was awesome getting to be with them and get to know each one. I feel that’s what is attracting me the most now in regards to weeding photo-shoots. I find myself many times crying behind the camera because I am participating in such an amazing and unique experience of their lives.

Making art, you know? That’s what I like, you are in a spontaneous environment with all the usual elements but you find yourself, you find that special angle, the smile that no one had really noticed. When you show your work and people tell you “wow you saw something that no one had seen before” that’s very gratifying! A lot more than the money. Sometimes it is even scary because my father used to say the same.

For example this September I photo-shoot a wedding and I finished the editing now. Oh my god, I couldn’t see those photos anymore. But as soon as I finished and I took a look at the final result I even cried because you see so much energy that the people transmit thought the lens and then when people react to your work, it is just amazingly gratifying.

Do you have any favorite project you’ve worked on so far?

There was once in Argentina where I made this, completely with no objective, photos. We called it “Documento sin título” (Untitled Document) I loved it so much!

We would get together once a week to make art - to draw, to cook and all that. The group was very small in the beginning and then it became so much bigger. I always had my camera with me and I used to take many spontaneous photos, people smoking, kissing, making art, doing something and nothing at the same time.

That was the project I enjoyed the most and I would love to do it again.

Is there any special project for the future?

Continuing working at the weddings is definitely in my plans. I would like to work for an exhibition and I think I would love engaging in photos of births.

If you could go back in time and talk to your younger self, is there something you would say?

Have the courage to do anything! Don’t be afraid of what people think, be more adventurous. Look at yourself and be more confident. Don’t be so lazy, get more involved and stop sabotaging yourself.

I can only thank Helen for her time and patience replying to all this questions.

It was a great evening in her company. Hope you enjoyed getting to know her.

You can find out more about Helen and visit her beautiful work if you'd like.

You can also find a short sample of pictures I did from Helen some time ago when she was expecting Joaquim

Thank you so much for reading!