JIMENA ROQUERO

My dad and my mum are both great photographers and I'm so grateful for having such a beautiful archive of my childhood

According to my mum, this picture of hers was the first one I ever took. Not too bad for a 3 year old analog photographer!

Madrid, 1978. No comments…

Trendsetter.

Ok, my cousin’s clicking, but I’m framing!

Our visual heritage is a big part of who we are as artists. This picture my dad took of me and my cousin in 1984 was used as a reference for a couple shoot I did in 2012.

The first wedding I ever photographed.

My parents were hip and cool, and took me along many trips around the world before I could even realize how lucky I was. They always encouraged me to take pictures no matter where we went. As you can see, the results were not always stellar.

My brother is 12 years younger than me and he’s the only millennial I can understand.

There was no internet, and much less cell phones in the 90’s, but we had video cameras! As teenagers into visual arts, nothing was more exciting than producing, scripting, directing, acting and editing our own short movies. We made dozens of them that, luckily, will never see the light of day.

Dressing up and taking “artistic photos” was always one of our favorite plans. My mum was often a good ally and we actually have very decent pictures of those amateur fashion editorials.

My first big adventure as a young adult was backpacking in Europe when I was 18. As I was always the one taking pictures, I’m rarely seen in any of them. This still happens to this day. Boo…

I started studying Journalism at university but the only degree I got was for hanging out in this beautiful college garden. Not proud of it, just a fact.

It was only a matter of time before I enrolled in photography school, where I felt I really belonged.

Some of the most significant journeys of my life were the several trips to the refugee camp during the Sahara Film Festival. Truly a life-changing experience in every way.

I went to New York for what was meant to be a 3-month adventure. Instead, it turned into a 5-year nomadic life-style with no real home, a double life and plenty of accumulated air miles. I did meet a husband there so kind of worth it.

Becoming a mother has been the biggest and most important event of my life. It has brought me peace, strength and maturity. I’ve learned to prioritize, and I’ve certainly found my muse…

2020 was a challenging time for everyone and freelance photographers were not the exception. I had recently became a member of the stock photography collective Stocksy and it was a life saving. It kept me busy during the worst part of the pandemic and brought me a new opportunity to start a new approach in my career. Apart from occasional commissioned jobs, stock photography has become my main occupation and I can’t be happier about that. It gives me complete freedom to produce, it challenges my creativity and it has given a new life to the hundreds of pictures I storage in my hard-drive :)

Thank you !