Sofía Moro is a Spanish photographer, a graduate of the Brooks Institute of Photography, who stands out for her strong commitment to social justice and human rights and for her fascinating portraits of artists, musicians, writers, and politicians. Her work is divided between portraiture and photojournalism, with works published in magazines such as El País, Vogue, Vanity Fair, Matador, and the publication of monographic books and exhibitions such as "Them and Us", "Defenders" and "Ribera del Órbigo. Invierno". In 2018 he published the book "Who Deserves to Die?" about the application of the death penalty in five different countries: the United States, Japan, Belarus, Malawi, and Iran.

Hi, Sofia,

First of all, I would like to thank you for taking the time to tell us about yourself and your work in this interview.

To begin with, where are you from? Tell us about yourself and your passions.

I am from Madrid, and I live in Madrid. I spent three years in the United States studying photography, but I came back to Madrid where I develop my work.

As for my passion, photography is almost my obsession because I think that in my work since I started, there is a common interest in all projects, which is to approach the stories of people who interest me because they have had a life totally different from mine. That's what moves me to photograph and what excites me. Then there is portraiture in general, which I am also passionate about, which I find very difficult, very complex but always a very exciting challenge, to get close to someone and photograph them. And I think those are my passions in photography. In life, I'm passionate about beauty in the broadest sense of the word, life in general, and also things that upset me, injustice, for example.

What inspired you to approach photography? How did this journey begin? 

 Photography was always there. My grandfather was a photographer for the College of Architects, in a right-wing family of an acceptable economic level, there were eight children, and my mother was the oldest. My mother, when she finished school, didn't go to university and started working as my grandfather's photography assistant. She had the laboratory at home and developed the photos taken by my grandfather, who was then in charge of making a register of all the castles in Spain for the College of Architects. In my house there was a lot of talk about photography, my mother always said that when my younger brother grew up he would teach me how to develop and set up a laboratory, but with seven children he never had time for that and when I was at the University studying genetics at the Faculty of Biology, I signed up for a photography course in the evenings. I think I signed up because it was something I always had in my thoughts, photography, and also because there was something in the photography that I had seen until then, basically the Sunday paper of the ABC newspaper, which was the one they bought in my house, that moved me. It was a way of getting to know the world that I didn't have at my fingertips. That, especially on social issues, moved me deeply. I have the memory of a photograph of a catastrophe that had occurred that gave me a tremendous shock, it was an earthquake, there were injured children, personal misfortunes... What photography transmitted to me did not happen with painting, sculpture, or with other arts; it only happened to me with photography.

On the other hand, in my room, there were photos, which I later realized were by Miguel Trillo. All that time of "la movida" seemed very exciting to me, although I was a bit small, I arrived at the end, we can say. Those photos seemed to summarize what I was feeling, that attraction to photography was perhaps what made me sign up for that course, and from that moment I realized that what I wanted to be was a photographer and not a biologist. That's when it all started, I finished my degree and went to a school in the United States to study photography for three years. And I came back to Spain.

Of all the genres, why were you attracted to documentary photography?

 Actually, I'm interested in people, but I don't consider myself an object of interest. I don't find the inward look interesting, I'm not an object of collective interest. I'm not interested in people, in portraying people, in looking outside. That inward look that I recognize in other photographers and that wonders and excites me too, in my case I don't consider myself or my story to be of interest to anyone. On the other hand, I am very interested in the story of others: first to know it and then to tell it in a serious way. I want to know, for example, what happens inside a prison, it is one of my obsessions. This is what makes me prefer to be a documentary.

Please share with us the photographic equipment you use.

I need big cameras, I am not able to use small cameras, I have the feeling of being more unnoticed with a big camera than with a cell phone. My favorite camera to work with is a Nikon D850 with a 50mm or 35mm fixed lens. For the last year, I have been trying to change the pace and I am also using a Fuji medium format which I am very happy with. It allows me to work slower and more reflexively; it is another working formula.

In 2009 you traveled to Birmingham, Alabama, to attend the reunion of 21 of the 139 exonerated death row inmates who have successfully proven their innocence throughout U.S. history. There he saw and photographed Shujaa Graham, one of the exonerated inmates. With Shujaa Graham's portrait, a piece of history was written. How did you feel when you met the 21 detainees and their stories and what attracted you to Shujaa Graham?

 I remember very well what I thought on the plane on my way to the United States: 21 people sentenced to death, there will be innocent and guilty, they won't all be innocent... well yes, they were all absolutely innocent of the crime they were accused of. They were people who had committed other crimes before and it was easy to implicate them in a crime they had not committed. Meeting them was a shock for me for several reasons, because they were very special people, with tremendous sensitivity, and with tremendous post-traumatic stress. They were people who had looked death in the face, some of them had been an hour away from being executed. Of the 21 of us who were there in a shabby hotel in the USA, Shujaa caught my attention from the beginning, he was a special guy, he had something special, something that caught my attention; he was almost the last one I got to sit in front of the camera, he was very elusive. It was a very nice session, when Shujaa sat down, he started crying composing an image with a lot of feeling, beyond the tear. I felt that was the picture I was looking for, it was really emotional for me. On the other hand, I was happy to be able to get a photo that lived up to the story he was telling. This man deserved it, he had made the effort to remember a terrifying story, to come here and sit with 20 other people, and it wasn't a game, it was a very serious thing. That photo was going to represent that person, all of them, and their story. It was very special, I don't have the feeling that I got a great photo, but I got a photo that tells a story.

His documentary photographs focus on people and realities. Part of the series of black and white portraits "La cárcel de Carabanchel" (1994), focused on the life of women prisoners in a Madrid jail, appeared in the report "Prisioneras", published in El País Semanal. How did you decide to make this series of portraits? What do you want to transmit to the viewer?

 Two issues are mixed in that question. I did a job in the Carabanchel prison in 1993, three afternoons that I was allowed to enter and I made an article in black and white, which is the one you are talking about. It was the first time I entered the prison. Later, for El Pais Semanal I did an article "Prisioneras" (Prisoners) which was a different story. I wanted to do a report on why women are in prison. I decided to make some portraits in which I "took" the women out of prison. I put an appropriate background and tried to make them speak as women, as people, not as women in prison.

You are the author of three monographs, including "Them and Us," the result of 10 years of research, a photographic testimony of a fratricidal civil war, about people who fought on opposing sides during the Spanish Civil War, in which you have brought together contemporary portraits, oral histories, and archival images. What prompted you to undertake this project and what is its significance for you and for national history?

 This was the first major work that I did, and I learned a lot from it. For me, it was a lesson in many ways. I started it with the idea of doing a small story about the international brigadistas who came to Spain in 1996 when the government recognized their Spanish nationality if they wanted it. I went to make some portraits of the brigadistas and I was deeply impressed, people who were not soldiers, more pacifists than bellicose, carpenters, workers, and teachers, who decided to come to a country that was not theirs, in their youth, with the romantic idea that the world can be changed and that here a battle was being fought between communism and fascism and it was necessary to prevent the latter from prospering; many of them died in the effort. I photographed them, I prepared a small questionnaire, I took some information, and I took their address to send them my photos later.

When I returned home and looked at the photographs, I was so impressed that I realized that there was more history there. It had been 60 years since that war and there was a great silence around it. So, I decided to go around photographing people, collecting the stories of the participants. Then there was a literary and film boom of the war, but at that time, the people I talked to had never told their story and for me, it was an absolute discovery and very exciting because it was knowing my own history, in a way. It was very good to take many years to do it because it grew as it went along. And I think the importance it can have in history is that they are testimonies of people who have already died, and it was one of the first works in which people from one side or the other told their personal experiences.

In 2018 you published the book "Who Deserves to Die?" about the application of the death penalty around the world in five different countries: United States, Japan, Belarus, Malawi, and Iran. This project was made possible thanks to a Leonardo grant from the BBVA Foundation in Madrid. What can you tell us about this book and how long did it take you to research this topic? What do you think of the impact of your documentary work?

 I start at the end. I would like it to be even more useful. A curious thing happened to me that surprised me and ended up making sense of this. When I presented the book in Madrid, a person came up to me and told me that he was completely in favor of the death penalty; I told him that the book was precisely for him and for people like him, that those who are against the death penalty had no need to read it. I think that many times we speak for those who think like us and that is not the objective. I would like to speak for those who are in favor of the death penalty because of what I have learned about the death penalty I have learned by doing this work.

I really enjoy speaking in high schools, because those students are going to be the future judges, the future lawyers. I always tell them that I have not gone to convince them of anything, that the decision is theirs, but they should reflect on it, not let themselves be dragged by anger or other feelings.

Your portraits produce emotion and have a strong impact on the viewer. In 2019 you were a finalist in the Lensculture Portrait Awards with the series "Death Row Exonerate. Member of Witness to Innocence," about death row inmates who have managed to prove their innocence throughout American history, including Shujaa Graham. What advice would you give to a beginning photographer who wants to convey emotion through their portraits?

 First of all, I would tell him that he has to be moved by his work and that in social work, I would tell him that the important thing is to tell the story well.

Share with us your favorite photographers you admire, and why and how they have influenced your photographic career.

 The most important for me are the ones I learned from, the Americans of the 20th century. I have a huge fascination for Robert Frank and also Diane Arbus. I also like Walter Evans, I think he is a photographer to see slowly and many times, in which you enter little by little and he becomes a must.

I also marvel at the work "Café Lemhitz" by Anders Petersen, very different from what I do, but that moves me. Finally, Richard Avedon, who is a photographer who photographs everything well; my first work was influenced by this photographer.

Which photograph of yours do you prefer and why?

I don't have a favorite photo. There are photos that move me a lot and that I remember with special affection, but I wouldn't know which one is my favorite.

How do you imagine the evolution of your artistic work and your figure as an artist in the future?

 I would like to finish the projects I am starting now, and I hope I can finish them. That would be wonderful. One of the works has no future at all because they won't let me publish it, but I love it and I'm excited to do it. Maybe one day you can publish it, but it's difficult.