Yosigo’s warm photography takes a look at where nature and civilisations meet

Straddling the line between documentary, landscape and highly-polished snapshot photography there’s a playful element to Yosigo’s photographs. Outside of his commercial work, shooting for familiar brands like Nutella, Decathlon, Estrella, and Jack Daniel’s, the mononymous photographer turns to beaches, nature and architecture as the setting for his personal projects. “I’m a 37-year-old boy from Donostia, now based in Barcelona. I was a graphic designer before being a photographer!” Yosigo tells It’s Nice That about his five-year career in graphic design. “But spending too many hours in front of a computer didn’t go with my lifestyle. I started taking pictures almost by chance. And today I could not do otherwise!” he adds enthusiastically.

Beaches and bodies of water often become the location of choice for many photographers. From Andy Sweet’s photographs of the Jewish community in Miami’s South Beach to Denisse Ariana Pérez’s intimate pictures of men half-submerged in lakes, there’s something about the meeting point of land and water that helps people become more vulnerable and openly show who they are. It’s a place that’s rich with metaphors and movement, so it’s not hard to find moments of beauty and meaning there.

“The theme of the sea is strictly linked to my land and my childhood, and I suppose it’s a resource that I’ll always return to,” Yosigo says. He talks about one of his projects, Animal Turista, shot on the Mediterranean coast. “The tourist becomes a predator of nature, obviating, most of the time, the beauty of the place,” he explains. Surely enough, in contrast with shots that are more sparse with sunbathers, giving space for the ocean or the sand dunes, the picture becomes more poetic and less journalistic.

Often shooting the scenes from afar with a 70-200 mm lens, Yosigo still manages to create compositionally strong photographs, balancing just the right ratio of people in the different corners of the frame with the approaching waves. The ocean, closer to emerald than blue, combined with the proximity of the tourists’ skin tones to the sand makes the image seem beautifully surreal, like looking into a telescope and finding a beach on Mars. The way the oblivious visitors roam innocently across the beaches is particularly notable, given how unaware they are that in the swarms and masses they come in, they eventually cover the entire coastline with their bronzed bodies.

Of course, his collection of work doesn’t stop at tourists and beaches, having recently visited Dubai and exploring different parts of Spain. “Every job is an adventure and a challenge for me. I keep getting nervous every time I work on something new. I like that because it makes me focus on what I do,” Yosigo says. “I really like the documentary part of photography because it allows you to travel and explore the world, so I try to work on projects that allow you that.” From the sand dunes in Dubai to sun-kissed windowsills in Spain, let Yosigo’s photography bring you back to warmer days where the heat lingers a little longer on your skin.