Pablo Corral Vega (English)

Sanjeev Chatterjee: 0:05

Where dreams come from, is a podcast featuring successful people from around the world who have pursued their dreams to arrive at a station in life. I'm your host, Sanjeev Chatterjee. I'm a professor of cinema and journalism. And in my creative life, I make documentary films. I started this podcast to explore what it takes for people to follow their dreams, even while being true to who they are, at least, who they believe. Pablo crowl Vega My guest today is an Ecuadorian photographer, from a childhood balanced between a patient and practical lawyer father, and a very creative mother, as he tells him pablos imagination was fired by light. possessed by his own creativity. Pablo did climb to heights few photographers outside the United States were able to reach at a time when top publications in the US were most likely to hire white American male photographers for their global assignments. Pablo was one of the early breakaways despite early rejection, even from friends, he persevered and prevail. Today he lives to collaborate with others and help the next generation of artists thrive. Pablo spoke to me from his home in Quito, Ecuador, the same home he grew up in many years. Bob look Raul Vega. Welcome to where dreams come from. What a pleasure,

Unknown: 1:34

Sanjeev such a wonderful thing to be here with you,

Sanjeev Chatterjee: 1:39

Pablo, today, I wanted to start with your earliest memories from childhood.

Unknown: 1:46

Well, actually, I am in the same house where I grew up. And one of my earliest memories was seeing the sunshine come through my window. I remember lying down on the floor and seeing dust going around. And I imagined that that dust were were galaxies, and planets and stars. And I think that's the first time that I became truly aware of light, and imagination and what was beyond what I was able to see. I think it was then that I became in love with life.

Sanjeev Chatterjee: 2:26

That's such a wonderful image. I want to explore a little bit more about the imagination, and what your experience was with your own imagination.

Unknown: 2:38

I was sort of a lonely child saw, I have to pay company to myself. And the best way to do that was to, to imagine things. I mean, oftentimes, I would just create these little tents in the garden, and I would hide there or I would go behind the plants. And I would just imagine the worlds and imagine things and think about all the things that I could do with my mind. I think imagination is fundamental, allowing yourself to to dream and to think about worlds that are not yet possible.

Sanjeev Chatterjee: 3:19

Looking back, is that particular trait that children very often have? Does it need some kind of control? Do you think it probably does,

Unknown: 3:31

I do remember a tale that a good friend told me years ago, he said that he saw his older child getting close to a window, it was a high building. And he saw his older child getting close to the window and he said, Hey, be careful. And then another one of his children got close to them. And he said, Hey, don't talk. Don't go too close. Don't get took with that. That's dangerous. And then a very young child went to the window and he jumped and grabbed the child. As I remember this friend said, well, the rules are just for the little children. The older ones need to take risks to that idea stayed with me. We need to care for children, we need to give them the comfort we need to give them direction. But we don't need to keep them away from their own emotions and their own dreams.

Sanjeev Chatterjee: 4:29

When did the ideas of your being a creative person become something that you realize that that's the direction you would go in

Unknown: 4:39

my house? I have two clear models. My father was successful lawyer, a politician. He was very practical. He was extremely kind. He was a very kind good man. But very practical. And my mother would just The opposite. My mother was very impractical. She was a dreamer. And she was a creator. She was a person who was always doing something creative. She was writing, she was painting. She was imagining things, thinking a lot. So I had those very clear models. And, of course, the creation side, the creative side was more tantalizing for me was more attractive to me. And I studied law, I finished my law school because I was thinking about working with my father. But when I graduated, I said, No, I want to be a creator, I want to do something creative with my life. I think that with the years, I have learned to reach a certain balance between the two sides, because I'm very practically minded person, I like to organize things. I'm, I'm a manager, and I'm also I love politics. But I also love creation, I love the possibility of dreaming and constructing and building and imagining and, and specially about creating connections with others.

Sanjeev Chatterjee: 6:20

And what is your first memory of being attracted to the visual arts and photography in particular?

Unknown: 6:27

Well, my, my father loved photography. He was this successful lawyer, but he loved spending time in his darkroom. So he would go and stay hours in the darkroom. And I would go with him. And I would be fascinated by the magic of it all. And something that was extremely exciting for me was the fact that my father loved going to the mountains to fish. So I would go to fish with him. And I would take bring my camera with me and, and we would spend the whole day together from the morning, early morning to the evening. And I would just wait and see. And I think that was one of the most important lessons in my life, because my father was a very patient man, he would stay in the same part of the river for three hours. And I, I have to entertain myself. And I started seeing little things. I started seeing bugs and I started seeing flowers, and I started paying attention to things that that usually kids don't pay attention to, because they're going by quickly, they're rushing.

Sanjeev Chatterjee: 7:38

How about friends? Did you have friends in school?

Unknown: 7:42

Yes, I was a strange kid. Because I was a very bossy kid. I wanted everybody to play what I wanted them to play. And I was the smallest kid in the class. So so my classmates sometimes would go along with me, and they would play what I wanted them to play. And other times they would kick my ass. So often, I would come back home with a black guy. Because somebody didn't want to play but I wanted to play.

Sanjeev Chatterjee: 8:18

What is your favorite high school or even Middle School story?

Unknown: 8:21

Oh, my gosh, middle school and high school where we're really fascinating. Because we love thought, we love philosophy. We love ideas. We love creation. But Mike, my class was really funny because out of my class, at least eight musicians came from, and several writers and painters and creators of all kinds. So my, my class gatherings were fantastic. And we were rebels. And we have teachers who taught us to be rebels.

Sanjeev Chatterjee: 8:59

That's such an important part of being independent thinkers to be creative

Unknown: 9:03

as Exactly. And this teacher, Sylvia larghetto, was her name. She just taught us to love culture, in a way that was fascinating. Her classes were literature classes, but what she thought his life I mean, she taught us that everything was connected to the reality the everyday reality of our own lives. And I think that shaped my way of seeing the world for certain.

Sanjeev Chatterjee: 9:36

Sometimes I feel because of having the privilege of traveling sometimes I feel that living in America. It is very difficult to see the merits of other parts of the world. It takes a Gabriel Garcia Marquez to break through little windows. of the world of Latin America and its intellectual heritage.

Unknown: 10:07

Yes. And I think listening to family stories was such an important part of growing up. My mother Mary, perfect memory. So she would remember things from her childhood in such detail. She would remember the plates, the exact shape and color of the plates where she ate when she was four years old. And she would know exactly what she had for lunch or for dinner when she was four years old. And she would remember the feelings and the emotions and, and, of course, the stories. She knew stories in such detail. And, of course, she lived them in when she told them, she relived them. And she suffered a lot because of that. But she also gave us an enormous amount of joy. And I tell you, when I finally met Gabrielle Garcia, Marquez, he was my hero, I was judging in his contest for the foundation gobble. And he came into the room where we were judging, and I saw him and I could, I could not speak anymore. And I happen to spend a few days with him. And I hear him talk a lot. And we had a lot of conversations. And what I discovered is that that's our heritage, Latin American heritage. It's our stories. It's the life that we have all have lived, he just tolls those stories in a beautiful way.

Sanjeev Chatterjee: 11:37

Did you think at that time, in your school years, what you were going to become or that was not a concern at

Unknown: 11:43

all. I wanted to, I wanted to be an economist, because I was very interested in politics. And I wanted to change the world. And I wanted to study literature, and I wanted to study all kinds of creative things. And my father said, hey, look, first, you have to do something that is going to give you some financial standing, and then you can do whatever you want. So when I came back from a year in California, as a high school student, as I was an exchange student, I was already enrolled in law school. And I kept fighting that I wanted to leave law schools, I tried several times, but my father would not accept that. He said, finished law school, and then you can do whatever you want. Actually, I'm glad he did that. Because believe it or not, during the pandemic year, I started working as a lawyer again. I never imagined that. And and it's been wonderful. And and I think the creative, the creative part, and the practical sides have finally come together, in a sense, the

Sanjeev Chatterjee: 12:53

sense that you wanted to pursue a life in photography, when when did that really take off?

Unknown: 13:00

I think that happened when I was studying law. I felt very, I was very frustrated. Being in law school, because I was not interested in the topics. I was working at my father's law fees. And I didn't especially like the things that I was doing there. And I had a wonderful view. He was a, it was a high building. And I have an amazing view of the mountains from my office. I said, I don't want to be in this inside these office all my life. I don't want to spend all my time here, I want to be out there I want to to be photographing the clouds that go by and the mountains and the people who live in the mountains and everything that is happening outside my world is bigger than these office. and on weekends as an act of rebellion, and as an act of self affirmation. I would go out and photograph I wanted to be free. I wanted to be out there. I wanted to feel the sun on my skin I wanted to I wanted to talk to people because I was very curious.

Sanjeev Chatterjee: 14:03

One aspect of photography or filmmaking, knowing students have taught for a long time that there's a romance associated with it, which for many people vanishes very quickly, when they realize how hard the work is. Did you find that?

Unknown: 14:22

Yes, I think I spent many years enjoying photography totally and completely. But I was not paying attention to my finances, for example, because I had the joy of having savings and having a family that that could help me pursue that, that path. When I started realizing that I have not been thinking about my future, it became harder. I think many photographers can be photographers because they're independently rich or they have other sources of income. But making a life solely from photography or filmmaking is not an easy task. It requires a lot of work that is not creative. You have to become a manager, you have to become an entrepreneur, you have to generate your own projects, because you cannot expect somebody else to always hire you.

Sanjeev Chatterjee: 15:20

Right? So tell us a story about you know, your early days as a photographer, just to fully on the creative mode. My

Unknown: 15:27

first big project was Andy's, I graduated from law school. I borrow some money from my father and I say that I would pay him back as soon as I was able to which I did. And I started traveling along the Andes, I went to Peru, I went to Bolivia. And I started photographing in this small Hamlet's and I would go have this wonderful isolated places and, and I just remember the fascination, fascination with people the fascination with the lives that I was witnessing. And I just wanted to be a witness of that be a witness of beauty, but also have pain be a witness of what people were living in. Then I thought that my mission was to be a journalist. Later, I realized that my vision of journalists was bigger, that I wanted to be a creator, not just a journalist, I wanted to, to have a voice to have a saying that I just didn't want to tell other people story that I want to tell my own story,

Sanjeev Chatterjee: 16:33

it seems to me from my own experience of at least, that that's not

Unknown: 16:37

very No, no, it's not for everyone. I think if you want to become a National Geographic photographer, or an award winning photographer, creator, that's the wrong model motivation, it's not going to take you anywhere, you have to have these need to tell stories, there's nothing else you can do. And it's then that photography, that visual storytelling becomes such an important part of who you are. But you should never try to become this famous important figure. You need to know what is that you want to talk about first.

Sanjeev Chatterjee: 17:22

So give me an example. You know, how did the Andes become something that you really needed to tell the story?

Unknown: 17:28

Yes, well, National Geographic became interested in the project, and it was an article for them. The owl Roy's who was the managing editor of the magazine told me back then, how many months Do you have to go? How much time do you need to finish this? This project man, he says, Well, I need at least three, four months of work and say, Okay, go ahead, finish that for us. And then ideally, Andy's book with National Geographic, Mario Vargas Llosa wrote 20 short stories around my photographs for this book. Yeah, but the first part, the first few years of that project I did by myself.

Sanjeev Chatterjee: 18:08

So I want to go back to this idea that as you grow from childhood into maybe young boy, young adult them into into adulthood, as you made your way into open waters, so to speak, just going out into the Andes. What were the risks you took? Are there any stories that we want to hear?

Unknown: 18:31

I would say that the great the greatest risk that I took was to be true to myself. And, of course, that's a huge risk, because it means that you have to, to really question who you are and what you want to do. And I think with the years my vision has become wider and wider. I love to think about the world. I love to think about journalism, I love to think about the role of visual journalists, I love to think about culture, culture has become an extremely important part of who I am. I was the director of culture for the city of Quito, the Minister of Culture for the state of Quito for four years, and I work with the people. And that was fantastic. Collaborating with actors and actresses collaborating with Boyd's collaborating with all kinds of creators just opened my mind. And I realized how important that cultural dialogue is for any society.

Sanjeev Chatterjee: 19:32

So how did it come about, you know, National Geographic, Gil, New York Times, Washington Post, you've you've published your photographs, many, many, many places, but you live in Quito. And how did that really work?

Unknown: 19:48

Well, now now it sounds normal. Because you have photographers from all parts of the world working everywhere and back, but 20 years ago was more difficult who if you saw the roster of photographers who work for National Geographic, it was all white males from the United States. There was no one else. I mean, there were a few women. And there were no photographers from other parts of the world except for a few couple maybe. So I think James, the Lord, National Geographic is a much more diverse place. When it comes to photographers. Now you have young photographers from all parts of the world, doing terrific work. It's much more open and and I think most publications have realized that it doesn't make sense to fly an American photographer, we have learned that local people can tell wonderful stories if they get the training and the tools. But that was not easy. 20 years ago, or 15 years ago, I think the world has changed a lot since then. And I just kept trying, I just kept knocking doors. And I have a lot of rejections. They told me that the work was not good enough, my dear, dear friend can cover Steen who was the director of photography of National Geographic. He said, pablito you're not good enough as a photographer, you will never be Why don't you think about going back to law. And he was very painful. He was very painful, because he was my friend. And later, he said, Well, I have to make sure that you really wanted to be a photographer. That's why I discourage you so blatantly. And I said, No, I want to do this, I really want to do this.

Sanjeev Chatterjee: 21:40

I'm curious to know, from the time you were a child and interested in light in a very organic way. Over time, obviously, you've had tremendous intellectual development through the your own experiences as a photographer, as a lawyer, and the interactions you've had with people from all streams of life. How does this transformation from instinct to a more I think, thinking, considered creative person? How does it affect your work? Can you give us some examples of what you're talking about and how it has affected your photography work over time?

Unknown: 22:21

Well, I think I have become less interested in my own work and more interested in generating projects. I mean, in the past, I always, I only thought about my own creations. And I only thought about my photography and my trips. And now I just enjoy thoroughly the possibility of seeing other people's work and collaborating with other people. Actually, that's a very important part of growing up. That shift from the ego to the community. When you were a young child, you just think about yourself, you just think about your own emotions, and then you start realizing that other people's have feelings also. And, and that's transformational. I think I think that's what it means to grow up to realize that the other people, enrich your life and make your life special. So I think it's a process that all of us follow, in a sense.

Sanjeev Chatterjee: 23:20

Pablo growl Vega, thank you very much for this very deep conversation. I appreciate you very much.

Unknown: 23:26

Mica Sanjeev such an honor to share these minutes with you.

Sanjeev Chatterjee: 23:32

After speaking to Pablo, I see how the idea of chasing once passions and dreams does not mean abandoning reason. Perhaps looking at once pursuit of a dream as an enterprise with purpose is the way to go for media for change. I'm Sanjeev Chatterjee