Santiago Warren
Santiago Warren is a self taught photographer based out of Los Angeles working primarily in portraiture. Focusing specifically on musician performances, he captures moments of artists in full flow. His grainy images at iconic LA venues like the Troubadour, The Roxy Theatre, and more absorb the visceral experiences of being in the crowd. When looking at his images, one can’t help but to instantly receive memories of music.
Santi and I met last summer at a dear friend’s going away party. In the late August afternoon we talked about music, art, and life in it’s ever-changing nature. I remember wanting to interview him from then on.
It wasn’t until a few weeks ago I had the pleasure of spending an afternoon with him in Little Tokyo. We walked through the Paul Pfeiffer exhibit currently on at The Geffen, discussing moments of movement in film and photography, and sharing inspirations of our creativity. Afterward we discussed his practice over lunch exploring themes of romance, intimacy, and capturing the ephemerality of sight and sound.
Read part of the conversation below:
RR: How did you discover photography as the medium that called to you?
SW: I feel like I kind of just stumbled upon it. Growing up I watched a lot of movies with my dad like Westerns and he had this really huge admiration for theaters. So I grew up watching pictures, studying pictures, and talking about it after with my dad - with my family in general but really with my dad. I feel like from there that was a seed that was planted but it never really came into fruition until later when A24 started to become really prominent in the cinematic scene. Then I really started resonating with Euphoria and Waves and all those Arthouse movies. So I got a film camera and I started taking photos of my friends and scenes, from there I went down a rabbit hole.
RR: What about Euphoria and Waves specifically?
SW: I feel like with Euphoria, it just looked visually stunning and I loved the drama of it, it was really raw. There were a lot of raw performances and then the framing of the scenes were beautifully shot. Then with Waves, there was a romantic hinge to Waves. I’m a big romance buff, I love romantic movies. But there’s this specific scene where it was shot in blue hour and they’re in the middle of the ocean; You know, blue hour is that dark blue and then there’s the orange nails of Alexa Demie and that scene was crazy and I was like you know I wanna emulate that.
I live for those scenes that make you feel something emotionally, like oh god it's so sick. It made me be like, “I want to be in a relationship now.” Seeing that scene I was like, “I’m down bad.” I want to do that, make scenes that make people feel a certain type of way when they look at it.
RR: Would you say you have a romantic relationship with their camera?
SW: Yeah, I think so, definitely. You know that show My Strange Addiction where people wanna marry their car? It's not like that - I’m like, “Yeah I wanna marry my camera!” No, but I think in some ways it's a romantic way to infuse what I love and how I perceive of the world and what I love about the world and have it blast in an artistic way for other people to see. I feel like it's very difficult to explain to someone what you look at every day and what makes you tick but doing it through the eye of a camera it can really stop those beautiful moments. I feel like it captures moments I wish I could live in forever.
RR: What has being behind the camera taught you most about yourself?
SW: I think I see a lot more than I initially did. There’s things I’m picking up I would have otherwise lost because there are so many things going on. It helps me take the time to slow down and be in the moment more. I feel like I wasn’t living in the present as much until I started taking photos and realizing I should really just soak these moments in.
RR: Is it meditative for you?
SW: Oh yeah 100%, I feel like it's very cathartic. It’s a really intimate time to be with yourself as it is to writing or to playing a sport. It's a moment when you're with yourself and your thoughts and what you’re seeing, then translating it to that medium of art.
RR: Do you feel that way when you’re shooting musicians?
SW: Yeah, I love it. I feel like music is another big thing for me, I can’t go a day without listening to music. It's like I have to. And I can’t play any instruments unfortunately so the second best thing was taking photos of artists. I feel like it is really intimate because in some sense as a fan you’re looking at the artist like, “Wow this person is incredible.” You’re marveling at their musical prowess and getting to capture them in their intimate moment when they’re sharing that with a crowd.
RR: You do have such an intimate, romantic, loving relationship with photography.
SW: Yeah, I love it. It’s great, it’s beautiful because you can capture so many different scenes and emotions. I feel like with some people, when you model someone you capture things about that person they didn't even realize. You can capture so much true essence if you’re good or if you’re lucky enough. It eternalizes moments you can look back at for years.
