ROBERT CAPA IN CERRO MURIANO: THE DAY IN WHICH REALITY SURPASSED IMAGINATION (2nd Part)

Remnants of trenches on Cerro de La Coja and exact spots where were made the pictures of the refugees fleeing from Cerro Muriano to save their lives.

Text and Indicated Photos: José Manuel Serrano Esparza. LHSA

REMNANTS OF TRENCHES

There are some big rocks on the ground sparsed through the last meters before reaching the summit of Cerro de La Coja, where there where there were some trenches.
Very probably the trenches were filled after the war to avoid people falling inside, specially children, and the rocks and stones of different sizes surrounding the front area of the trenches were left on the ground after filling them and some of them were thrown down, specially the biggest ones. © Photo: José Manuel Serrano Esparza

One of the locations on top area of Cerro de La Coja, on whose summit there were some trenches defending the east access to the village of Cerro Muriano. Here, we can see some big stones which were put intentionally on this spot.
On the other hand, the peak area of Cerro de La Coja hill has got a lot of places where there are irregularities on the ground and probable remnants of trenches which were filled with sand, etc, immediately after the Spanish Civil War. © Photo: José Manuel Serrano Esparza

Another remarkable spot on top of Cerro de la Coja next to the location of the previous photograph. Probably it is a remnant of a Republican trench of that September 5th 1936 together with the row of stones in the foreground. In any case, research was not easy, because there are also remnants of archaeological excavations made from nineties looking for Calcolithic and Roman metallurgic vestiges -the whole Cerro Muriano area is a great copper mining site from 5,000 years ago- and sometimes they´re intermixed with the September 5th 1936 Republican trenches which were filled after the Spanish Civil War, specially to prevent children from falling inside them.© Photo: José Manuel Serrano Esparza

A sudden deep and irregular stretch of ground on the summit of Cerro de La Coja overcrowded with stones of different sizes that were intentionally put here. Also very probably a remnant of a Republican trench located on this spot that September 5th 1936. © Photo: José Manuel Serrano Esparza

Another stretch of ground on top of Cerro de La Coja in which there are areas with much lesser vegetations than in the nearby zones, together with abundant presence of stones and rocks of all sizes intentionally put in this spot. © Photo: José Manuel Serrano Esparza

Another location on top of the Cerro de la Coja featuring a remarkable gap of vegetation and a lot of stones and rocks intentionally gathered in this spot. © Photo: José Manuel Serrano Esparza

A close-up of the different size stones and rocks of the previous photograph. © Photo: José Manuel Serrano Esparza

On the right of this photograph we can see a stretch of ground on top of the Cerro de La Coja remarkably deprived of vegetation compared to the zones of land around it a lot of rock and stones of different sizes and shapes intentionally assembled. © Photo: José Manuel Serrano Esparza

Another remarkable longitudinal gap of vegetation on top of another area of the Cerro de La Coja, on the left zone of it looking at Cerro Muriano village. Very probably there was a trench on this spot and it was filled after the war in the same way as the rest of trenches in order to avoid accidents and the heavy stones and rocks still visible on the place were left on it. © Photo: José Manuel Serrano Esparza

Area of the Cerro de La Coja more nearby to Cerro Muriano village, some of whose houses can be seen on the right. © Photo: José Manuel Serrano Esparza

Ruins of the foundry of the English ´Córdoba Copper Company Ltd´ seen from the Cerro de la Coja. The magnificent copper veins of the village of Cerro Muriano, known from the Calcolithic times and Roman Empire period, were exploited by the quoted English Company until 1919, year in which its Chairman Edgar Taylor decided to abandon them because of the decrease of copper price as a consequence of the First World War and the dangerous ingress of water from the eastern and central shafts of the mine. © Photo: José Manuel Serrano Esparza

THE PHOTOGRAPHS TAKEN BY CAPA OF THE REFUGEES FLEEING FROM CERRO MURIANO VILLAGE
During all of his life, photographing the impact of war on civil population was top priority for Robert Capa, and Cerro Muriano was not an exception this September 5th 1936.
There are six known photographs made by Robert Capa depicting refugees fleeing from Cerro Muriano, whose exact location, unknown for 71 years, is in my opinion the following one:

Escaping from Cerro Muriano, September 5th 1936. First photograph of refugees taken by Robert Capa in Cerro Muriano, in the south outskirts of the village (full details about this photograph in the section on refugees of the main text). Photo: ROBERT CAPA © By Cornell Capa/Magnum Photos

a) Vertical photography taken by Capa on September 5th 1936 at midday, with an old woman on the left holding a little child between her arms and a man on the right clad with the typical Andalusian hat and taking a little boy between his arms. You can also see a boy being approximately eight years old in short trousers and a donkey in the background with a very little child hardly glimpsed mounted on it.
This is the first photograph of refugees taken by Capa and is made around high noon of September 5th 1936 very near the south entrance to Cerro Muriano village coming from Córdoba, next to the grade crossing. The hill that can be seen in the background is TorreArboles, and fierce fighting is taking place on the other side of it (the one facing the city of Córdoba) between Republican forces defending Torre Arboles and Varela´s and Baturone´s columns of rebel troops. These people, probably dwelling in the houses and cortijos of this area in the south of Cerro Muriano, know it and are gathering beginning to go up towards Cerro Muriano village following north direction to subsequently abandon the village walking by the railway until reaching the Obejo Train Station and so forth.

Escaping from Cerro Muriano, September 5th 1936. Second picture of refugees made by Capa in a very narrow street inside Cerro Muriano village (full details about this photograph in the section on refugees of the main text). Photo: ROBERT CAPA © By Cornell Capa/Magnum Photos

Escaping from Cerro Muriano 71 years later. Narrow street of Cerro Muriano in which Capa made his second photograph of refugees fleeing from the village. The people seen in the picture together with the donkey were advancing from the bottom of the street to the camera following north direction, trying to reach the railway for Obejo Train Station. © Photo: José Manuel Serrano Esparza

b) Horizontal photograph, taken by Capa on September 5th 1936 at around 15:20 h in the afternoon in a narrow street of Cerro Muriano, depicting a mother mounted on a donkey with a little boy wrapped in a white blanket between her arms and a felt hat immediately on the right. You can see two windows in the background under a scorching sun rendering a very high key area. Immediately on the right of the donkey´s head, you can watch a little girl eating an apple.
They are advancing from left to right, fleeing in north direction to reach the railway towards the Obejo Train Station and El Vacar.
This is the second picture of refugees fleeing from Cerro Muriano taken by Capa. Because of the narrowness of this street and the fact that he was using very probably a Leitz Summar 50 mm f/2 lens, Capa was possibly forced to lean his back on the other wall of the street behind him in order to have a minimum shot distance doing his best trying to include them all inside the image. That´s why the frame is so tight, cutting some of the woman´s head on top and and the donkey´s body halfway below.
From this picture on, the refugees photographed by Capa are people compelled to abandon Cero Muriano after some air attacks of fascist aircraft on the village.

Escaping from Cerro Muriano 71 years later. The beginning of the long march. Many of Cerro Muriano inhabitants (specially women, old men and children) began here, in the outskirts of the village, to walk following the railway towards the Obejo Train Station. On September 5th 1936 there was only field both on the left and on the right of the track. © Photo: José Manuel Serrano Esparza

Escaping from Cerro Muriano, September 5th 1936. Third picture taken by Robert Capa of refugees fleeing from Cerro Muriano to save their lives, following north direction towards Obejo Train Station. Virtually impossible to spot the exact location of this picture, because of its very blurred background, but very probably it was taken at the beginning of the long march in the outskirts of Cerro Muriano (full details about this picture in the section on photographs of refugees in the main text). Photo: ROBERT CAPA © By Cornell Capa/Magnum Photos

Escaping from Cerro Muriano 71 years later. The refugees go on advancing walking always toward the north bound for Obejo Train Station, 6 km from Cerro Muriano. A big and original telegraph post appears almost exactly as it was in 1936. Incredibly, vast majority of these very old telegraph posts are nowadays in good condition (and almost intact in some cases) today between Cerro Muriano, Obejo Station and El Vacar, because the immediate post Civil War years in Spain were a period of famine until 1942 and great necessities of all kind until late fifties. This way, in spite of the fact that telephone prevailed after the war till currently, telegraph posts were left mostly as they were, including the cables. © Photo: José Manuel Serrano Esparza

Escaping from Cerro Muriano 71 years later. A big pine has grown up in the middle of the railway after so many years and the absence of trains making the route Almorchón-Córdoba since eighties. The refugees go on advancing towards Obejo Train Station and El Vacar (a village 14 km from Cerro Muriano). © Photo: José Manuel Serrano Esparza

Escape from Cerro Muriano 71 years later.The refugees went on advancing in north direction, following the railway to Obejo Train Station and El Vacar, both on the right (walking on the old way to Obejo Train Station) and on the left of the track. Currently, everything is in very good condition, though rusted because of the elapsed. The military facilities on the left didn´t exist then. There was only field and trees on both sides. © Photo: José Manuel Serrano Esparza

c) Horizontal photograph taken by Capa on September 5th 1936 at around 15:30 h in the afternoon in the first meters of the north outskirts of Cerro Muriano village. There are three women wearing black dresses and walking under a scorching sun: two young mothers (on the center and left, the one on the left is taking a very little baby in her arms and the one in the center is taking a blond more grown up child with his right arm while takes the arm of an old woman on the right of the frame helping her to walk) and an old woman on the right.
This is probably the third picture of refugees fleeing from Cerro Muriano taken by Capa. Virtually impossible in my opinion to find currently the exact location of this picture, because the background is very white and blurred. But they´re probably beginning their trek towards Obejo Train Station from the beginning of the outskirts of Cerro Muriano Village.

Escaping from Cerro Muriano, September 5th 1936. Fourth picture of refugees taken by Robert Capa of civil population fleeing from Cerro Muriano to save their lives (full details about this picture in the section on photographs of refugees in the main text). Photo: ROBERT CAPA © By Cornell Capa/Magnum Photos

Escaping from cerro Muriano 71 years later. Spot on which Robert Capa took his fourth photograph of refugees. The woman is walking towards Obejo Train Station and the outskirts of Cerro Muriano (seen in the distance) are approximately three kilometres from this location. © Photo: José Manuel Serrano Esparza

d) Vertical photography taken by Capa on September 5th 1936 at around 15:35 h in the afternoon of a woman taking in her left arm a very big checkered baggage with her belongings. She has got the back of her right hand and almost touching her chin. A lot of fear is reflected on her face and she´s looking at Capa rather puzzled. Behind her you can see a telegraph post which is nowadays exactly as it was 71 years ago. She is going to Obejo Train Station.
This is the fourth pictures of refugees fleeing from Cerro Muriano taken by Capa.

Escaping from death, September 5th 1936. Fifth picture taken by Robert Capa of refugees fleeing from Cerro Muriano to save their lives. These people are walking hastily following north direction towards Obejo Train Station (full details about this picture in the section on photographs of refugees in the main text). Photo: ROBERT CAPA © By Cornell Capa/Magnum Photos

Escaping from Cerro Muriano 71 years later. Location in which Capa took his fifth picture of the refugees, approximately three hundred meters beyond the fourth one going towards Obejo Train Station in north direction. Neither the metallic fence nor the military facilities in the background existed on September 5th 1936. Refugees appearing in this photo were advancing from left to right of the picture following north direction towards Obejo Train Station. © Photo: José Manuel Serrano Esparza

Escape from Cerro Muriano 71 years later. Deeper perspective of the railway stretch in which Capa took his fifth picture of refugees. Cerro Muriano village houses can be seen in the distance. People advanced walking towards the camera trying to reach Obejo Train Station as soon as possible. Neither the metallic fence nor the military facilities on the right didn´t exist on September 5th 1936. © Photo: José Manuel Serrano Esparza

e) Horizontal photograph taken by Capa on September 5th 1936 at around 15:36 h in the afternoon, with a woman on the right taking a very little child in her arms. She appears wearing a kitchen apron on her dress. Behind her (on the left of the frame) we can see a very young girl walking barefoot who is looking at Capa, and after her we see very probably the husband of the woman and father of both girls, clad in a black attire, cap and bearing a blanket. He´s also looking at Capa.
This picture is very dramatic. The woman isn´t looking at Robert Capa. Her sight is stray, because of great fear and she is very anxious and worried about the security of her two daughters.
It´s evident that they all have fled Cerro Muriano village full-blast to save their lives, leaving all their belongings behind.
This photograph is taken by Capa approximately two hundred meters beyond photograph d) going northbound following the railway towards the Obejo Train Station.
This is the fifth picture of refugees fleeing from Cerro Muriano taken by Capa.

Escaping from Cerro Muriano, September 5th 1936. Sixth picture taken by Robert Capa of refugees fleeing from Cerro Muriano to save their lives. The woman is very anxious and fearful and is walking very quickly taking a very little baby in her arms (full details about this picture in the section on photographs of refugees in the main text). Photo: ROBERT CAPA © By Cornell Capa/Magnum Photos

Escaping from Cerro Muriano 71 years later. Exact location on which Robert Capa took his sixth picture of refugees. The woman taking the baby in her arms, walked along the old way to Obejo Train Station and El Vacar, going on the right of the railway. She advanced from right to left of the photograph, coming from Cerro Muriano and following north direction, doing her best to reach Obejo Train Station as soon as possible and avoid so any possible danger. © Photo: José Manuel Serrano Esparza

f) Vertical photograph taken by Capa on September 5th 1936 at around 15:45 h in the afternoon of an old woman taking a very little baby wrapped in a blanket in her arms. She shows a great deal of angst and fear and is walking very fast. One of the arms of the baby is hanging from the waist of the woman. This is another very dramatic image of people escaping from death. The telegraph post located on the right of the woman as we watch the picture, was broken after the Spanish Civil War, but the rest of this spot currently remains exactly the same. The body of the woman is hiding some big trees similar to the one appearing on the right of the frame.
This is the sixth picture of refugees fleeing from Cerro Muriano taken by Capa, and the woman is also going to Obejo Train Station.
Later on, most of these refugees would go on their march to El Vacar and Pozoblanco, always advancing walking northwards.

Escaping from Cerro Muriano 71 years later. Some of the stretches of the escape route were specially hard for refugees that afternoon of September 5th 1936, as can be seen in this picture of the railway to Obejo Station full of dense trees and vegetation on both sides. © Photo: José Manuel Serrano Esparza

Escaping from Cerro Muriano 71 years later. After a hard march walking approximately 6 km, the refugees approached to Obejo Train Station. This spot in the picture is around 400 meters from it, which will appear before their eyes immediately after arriving at the bend on the right visible in the background of the picture. © Photo: José Manuel Serrano Esparza

Escaping from Cerro Muriano 71 years later. The refugees come across an auxiliary water reservoir for filling the steam locomotives of the period. This spot is about 200 meters from Obejo Train Station, already visible in the background. © Photo: José Manuel Serrano Esparza

Escaping from Cerro Muriano 71 years later. A sight of hope. At last, the refugees are arriving at the Obejo Train Station. This spot is located one hundred meters from it. © Photo: José Manuel Serrano Esparza

Escaping from Cerro Muriano 71 years later. After walking about six kilometres from Cerro Muriano, the refugees reached the old Obejo Train Station. In the same way as Cerro Muriano Train Station, this place has been out of working since 1985, though through last years of the XIX century and most XX century they were important epicentres of transport of people as part of the great line of railways going from Córdoba (Andalusia) to Almorchón (Badajoz). The lack of activity has made that a lot of vegetation and weeds have grown up on the tracks. © Photo: José Manuel Serrano Esparza

Escape from Cerro Muriano 71 years later. Big main water reservoir by Obejo Train Station. In spite of the fact that almost three generations have elapsed since 1936, though rusted, it´s almost brand new. Very probably, refugees were given water at this spot. © Photo: José Manuel Serrano Esparza

Escaping from Cerro Muriano 71 years later. After stopping at the Obejo Train Station seen in this picture, refugees took up again their march walking towards El Vacar Train Station (eight kilometres beyond) always going northwards from right to left as we see the photograph, on both sides of the tracks. © Photo: José Manuel Serrano Esparza

Escaping from Cerro Muriano 71 years later. The refugees left Obejo Train Station behind them and walked again following north direction (advancing towards the camera) to arrive at El Vacar Train Station (eight kilometres behind the camera). © Photo: José Manuel Serrano Esparza

Escaping from Cerro Muriano 71 years later. The refugees coming from Obejo Train Station arrived at El Vacar from the south (in the background) and advancing walking towards the camera. © Photo: José Manuel Serrano Esparza

Escaping from Cerro Muriano 71 years later. After walking eight kilometers more, very tired and sweating, the refugees reached El Vacar Train Station (on the right of the photograph) where they stopped to rest and drink and were offered some food by the local inhabitants. © Photo: José Manuel Serrano Esparza

Escaping from Cerro Muriano 71 years later. Many of the refugees began here and even more wearying march walking a lot of kilometres more to the north towards Pozoblanco.
This spot would mean the beginning of the glory for the best war photographer of all time.
Cerro Muriano, 14 km behind, was only some hours to be assaulted by General Varela´s forces which would eventually annihilate the Republican defenders of the village meter by meter, until reaching the local train station, where the last militiamen and loyal officers resisting in Cerro Muriano fought bravely to the death. © Photo: José Manuel Serrano Esparza

Copyright Text, and Indicated Photos:
José Manuel Serrano Esparza
Leica Historical Society of America

FOREST, SILVER HALIDE, FORMICA AND A GREAT WALL: Jesús Jáuregui carries through Large Format to its upmost

Text and Photos: Javier Izquierdo Vidal.

Published in Film und Foto Magazine Number 5 July 2008

At full daylight, Jesús Jáuregui´s exotic work lies imposing and visible from a distance of many hundreds of metres. The photographic quality of the images engraved by means of pigmented inks on formica is extraordinary and increases as one progressively approaches to the huge wall.

That´d be coming to the point in a nutshell. Jesús Jáuregui has conveyed the forest to the wall by imprinting silver halides on formica. He´s just come to pick me up by car at our rendezvous spot located at Lezama station in Bilbao, where we´d previously made the appointment. Both of us are being punctual. We´ve spoken twice before in order to arrange our date.
He´s going to show me something which has turned me somewhat puzzled. We get on being acquainted each other while we make our way to the Industrial Park Boroa encompassing a large number of half built buildings. It will hold concerns devoted to new technologies and different services.
It isn´t raining, but it seem that it´s gonna do it soon. There´re large black storm clouds, as if it were any January day at five o´clock in the afternoon, albeit we´re at the end of May.
We go on our march and after an easy bend, we stay on the straight and narrow until reaching a little drop. In front of us, from the wan grey, a black mass streaked with clear yarn springs up on the left. At first sight it seems to be a colossal code bar embedded among pavillions and buildings under construction. A low key high contrast prism on a magma of blended grays. We stop by the road edge and get off the car.
The landscape is gorgeous. The code bar is steadfastly becoming into tree trunks, branches, leaves, lights and shadows featuring a bias to be anchored on the floor and on the other hand hurl themselves at the clouds not bursting with rain but threatening a great deal.
Right away, a squashed light just above it seems to want to spread out, and the silver halides forest stamped on formica reveals gaiety increasing its glitter. The light greys get more significance while clouds win and close the focus of the sun, which beats a retreat. The forest turns darkling and tones readjust again in the same way as previously.
I´m deeply amazed, thinking about what´ll happen with an open blue sky and when the works come to an end (with green lawn surrounding the roots of the forest we´re heading for by skirting the slope), when there´s a different light being subject to the day hours.

The artist Jesús Jáuregui in his atelier, with a formica panel on which through an ultramodern technique has been engraved a photograph showing branches and leaves of oaks and eucalypti from a 4 x 5 ´ (10 x 12 cm) large format plated digitized with a professional drum scanner.

While we arrive at the esplanade and begin approaching this weird work of art, the logical thing would be to start seeing a built-in blurredness regarding the closeness of something thought from the onset to be watched from a much further distance. But exactly the opposite happens: five or six meters from the façade measuring about 15 metres high and 30 metres wide, the acutance increases. It´s a huge work of art, made up with three hundred and sixty four 3 m high x 1´30 m wide formica planks weighing 45 kg each.
There are no halos, apparent grain or artifacts revealing that we are in front of a gigantic enlargement. The photographic quality is utterly impressive and overwhelming, along with the realism proving to be striking, with wrinkled oak barks counterpoising and conveying texture to flaying eucalypti resembling flat skin snakes, branches, leaves and backlighted areas in smooth bokehs and so forth.
Jesús tells me how it is feasible. He needed some months of research till he found the fitting working method: a huge black and white forest based on a unique monochrome mural composition implemented using large format chemical plates and the most up-to-date printing technologies enabling to achieve a gorgeous quality in the gray scale along with rather deep matte finished blacks, which brings forth a full-grown masterpiece.
It´s a kind of great mural sculpture made with formica planks made by a core of kraft paper leaves soaked in thermostable resins and coated with a very thin layer of decorative paper. The surface paper is saturated with high resistance resins and protected by a film acting as an ultraviolet rays barrier avoiding the black and white tones spoiling. This is a fairly lasting material, fireproof, and the cleaning of any possible graffiti is very easy, apart from requiring very little maintenance.
He was proposed the draft by Celulosas Vascas firm, in whose environs we´re. They wanted a forest for the frontage and he has built it, exposing plenty of 4 x 5 ´ large format plates of chemical film Kodak T-MAX 100, Fuji Velvia 50 and Fuji Provia 100 with a Cambo camera attached to Schneider-Kreuznach Super-Angulon XL 90 mm f/5.6 lens (featuring an angle coverage of 110º) and Apo-Symmar-L 150 mm f/5.6 Copal lens (sporting an angle coverage of 75º) whilst visiting different ancient forests.
Following this, he digitizes each of the 4 x 5´ (10 x 12 cm ) large format plates in a professional drum scanner so as to get 16-bit Adobe RGB TIFF archives at 4000 ppi between 500 and 1700 MB (the 4 x 5 ´ plates) and between 300 and 460 MB (the medium format 6 x 6 cm slides made with his Hasselblad), always in search after the greatest possible quality in king sizes. With all of this brutal information managed by a very powerful computer, Jesús Jáuregui sketches a vision of his own elaborated with fragments of the taken pictures. The colour stuff transferred to grey scale merges with the purely monochrome, and everything is shaped into this mamoth photograph. The next step is panelling the image in order to print it on a paper able to be integrated in formica and based on solvent inks resistant to ultraviolet rays and all kind of climatology. It´s a very interesting breakthrough and fairly up-to-date technology to imprint photographs alike, both because of the dazzling quality attained and since it sets up a photographic prop able to endure flawlessly the harshest weather conditions ( rain, snow, frosts, hailstorm, thaw, high levels of humidity, pollution, strong winds, scorching heat, and so on, together with outstanding antiscratching and isolating properties ) for many decades.

Fragment of an area of the low part lit at night by artificial light. The experienced feelings are indescribable, and incredibly, in spite of the very close distance, the quality of the photograph on formica and the texture and realism of everything is so big that it seems that we´re in the middle of an actual forest, undergoing a very strong wish to touch the leaves and branches, though knowing that it is a flat wall.

Jesús Jáuregui hasn´t been able to find a suitable title to its creation (whose appearance changes
according to the hours of the day and its respective luminosity conditions) and the adjacent works don´t allow to see the forest in all its radiancy, but it is already integrating itself into a land art format; a sort of land foto would be more precise.
We bend the corner to take a look at the other building front, almost double long and whose end makes up the store vehicle entrance. The light isn´t evidently the best possible, but we make some photographs and get on the car to go to the studio which Jesús has in the middle of the Santutxu neighbourhood in Bilbao.
The oddest thing is that Jesús Jáuregui is not a photographer. He´s essentially an sculptor, a Jorge Oteiza´s pupil and friend, and also an admirer of Remigio Mendiburu and Nestor Basterretxea, the great Basque sculptors of the iron.
Jesús Jáuregui has been author of a consistent sculptural work in México (where he lived for 17 years), Buenos Aires and Spain, also excelling as a painter and engraver. From this latter side departures his great interest in photography, fostered by some Mexican photographers, friends of his. Until four years ago, he hadn´t seen through it within his creative momentum.
Unlike artists of other disciplines on tackling the photographic topics, Jesús Jáuregui approaches anxiously and humbly alike. He doesn´t even think of taking out a four megapixel mobile phone and making clicks which after being made by a ´creator´ should be considered photographs soaked with an artistic patina.
He gets into the large format as a token of respect to the photographic means. First and foremost he wishes to make a report on the Bilbao Nervión River Estuary, titled Banks of Light and Shadow, a seminal wall painting in which panoramic formats with other ones more squared merge. Sporting substantial dimensions, the forty pictures reveal a highly intuitive and disciplined sight, with a spotless grasp of the space and its voids.
With the same negative size as in the forest, imprinted with carbon pigments inside his own studio, helped by one of his Mexican friends deft on these subjects. Obtaining an extraordinary photographic quality on paper.

The author and his work. Jesús Jáuregui poses by his work just before his great creation, lit for the time being through artificial lights. Impressive the level of detail and realism in the trees, branches and leaves engraved on the formica departing from pictures made with large format 4 x 5´ plates digitized by means of professional drum scanner and transferred through a very special ink engraving system on the quoted stuff.

Taking profit from his self sterness as an engraver ( a craft which he regretfully comments that is
disappearing, its wisdom being lost ). Jesús Jáuregui wants absolute quality and he manages to accomplish it by dint of using Large Format chemical emulsion plates. The pith of his very uncommon technique relies on the tremendous resolving power, sharpness and fabulous tonal range boasted by the photographic entropy attained by the chemical films in large ormat and even by the medium format he also uses with a 6 x 6 cm Hasselblad and a Carl Zeiss Planar 80 mm f/2.8 lens.
The artist and main character of this essay has become a knowledgeable expert on every phase enabling him to achieve these hugely high photographic quality on formica: from the act of capturing the image with his large format camera, metering light as thoroughly as possible up to the digitization of the 4 x 5´ plates at a huge resolution in a professional drum scanner, the treatment of the images with his powerful high end Macintosh computer until rendering them exactly in the way he wants them and the great number of tests on paper he makes by means of his two high end Epson Stylus Pro plotters featuring an exclusive technology with cartridges of
Ultrachrome K3 pigmented inks delivering a printing resolution of 2880 dpi and 3,5 picolitres Epson Ultra Micro Dot, also sporting three levels of blacks so as to reproduce the most subtle details of lights and shadows, with a superb global balance of greys and tonal range for monochrome impression, together with a more than remarkable density of the black.
Therefore, Jesús Jáuregui has got the hang of the whole system and each of its stages, exerting a great control on the gradations of both gray scales and netral tones, though he keeps on investigating and making a lot of tests on paper before turning his projects into reality.
Pushing forward a step in his active artistic poetics, on one hand he seeks to increase his technical knowledge as to the development of the chemical films and on the other hand he strives after starting a new complementary artistic way pondering over man as an epicenter of his photograph.

When nightfall comes and the artificial lights illuminate the great wall, the impressive work acquires an utterly different appearance, both grandiose and frightening, related to nature strength at its deepest roots. It is at these moments when the aspect of this formidable creation outstandingly resembles the famous monolith of the film 2001: A Space Odyssey directed by Stanley Kubrick.

He´s interested in fathoming the photograph as an unrestricted powerful fact in itself, infused with all of its creative strength and poetry art, but understanding that it is not the only means of artistic expression varnishing a more or less lucky speech. From photography, with its whole aftermath. At the gigantic sizes through which Jesús Jáuregui depicts his ideas, you need the maximum feasible weight of TIFF digital archive and the astounding quality of image you attain with large format chemical emulsions.
He feels that nowadays the artistic creation is frequently somewhat doped and vulgarized,
more often than not being brought to life touristic spaces where to look at any work and which fulfil a mission of certain submission to the artist, in such a way that he is tamed and weakened, to the discernment of critics and artistic comissars. This is a very usual context where regrettably the author is chasing after a cheque rather than an artistic masterpiece.
On getting dark, some lighting test are going to be carried out with some little electric light bulbs
being a part of the lawn pavement which will surround the forest, so we leave the atelier and come back to the colossal work of art location.
Several faint pinkish reflections of a sunset, finally struggling to jut out, tone the crowns of the trees in a dim magenta. With this low light sight is pastelized.
All of a sudden, the electric light bulbs are switched on and contrast roars on the wall forest. The
sharpness and power of resolution is almost painful in this motionless and dumb dreadful photographic landscape, where leaves do rustle. We´re at a very short distance and if seems as if the work had life, a full-fledged living forest, continuously terrifying. Such is the quality and realism of this truly incredible work of art performed on formica attached to a very big 15 m high x 30 m wide wall to which the dusk and the sparkling of artificial lights turn into a vital and awesome being, intimately linked to the most ancestral nature ........

Jesús Jáuregui inside his studio, looking through some test strips on paper made with his king size Epson Stylus Pro printer and pigmented inks cartridges Ultrachrome K3, from large format 4 x 5´ (10 x 12) plates digitized with a professional drum scanner.
On the other hand, since his coming back to Basque Country in 1995, Jesús Jáuregui has fulfilled different exhibitions in Bilbao, Madrid, Londres and Munich, as well as making monumental sculptures both for public areas and all sorts of firms in the Basque Country.

A place absolutely deserving a visit which will bring along an indelible remembrance on those who ever watch live on the spot this unutterable photographic and architectonic work of art.

Photographs made with black & white film
Rollei SUPERPAN 200 rated at ISO 400
and developed with Argenti ULTRA-ISO