Reproducing a gaze, 2017.
Which gaze of the model Yazmin is most like my mother’s?
Untitled #1, Reproducing a gaze Series, 2017.
Archival pigment print Hahnemuehle Photo Rag Ultra Smooth paper. 67.99" x 23.88” (172.69 x 60.67cm).
Edition of 3 + 1 AP
Project Statement
Reproducing a gaze Series, (2017 - 2020).
Can you recreate a gaze? With these photos, I set myself the task of recreating my mother’s gaze. I thought that by doing it I could guess what she was thinking back in 1962 when my father took the picture.
My father told me this about the image: “Your mother was pregnant with your sister Yoly. We were walking along the beach on the Gulf of Mexico. She used a stick to walk in the sand because it was more comfortable on those long stretches. Your grandfather Hector had a ranch in Tuxpan, Veracruz, and it was close to the banks of the river of the same name. Located on the east coast of the country, the Tuxpan river lets out into the Gulf of Mexico. The city on the other side of the river was called Santiago de la Peña. Back then there were no bridges to cross over—they used flat barges called “pangas” where you could fit five cars. Today there’s a bridge.”
Photo © Héctor Herrera, 2021. Herrera Archive. All Rights Reserved.
Portrait of my mother Yolanda Peralta taken by my father Héctor Herrera with a Rolliflex 6x6" in 1962.
Untitled #2, Reproducing a gaze Series, 2017.
I portrayed a model in 2017 trying to recreate the gaze of my mother in my father´s 1962 picture. I also used a medium format camera but in this case a digital one the Fujifilm GFX50s.
My father with his Rolleiflex 6x6" camera in 1964, the year I was born.
Comments by my father Héctor Herrera, the author of the picture and now the spectator of this Series after watching it in my website:
"A portrait is an act of love. When you deal with someone you have the satisfaction of capturing on film, you need to be interested—even fall in love with what you’re doing.
In this case, as if that weren’t enough, I was madly in love with your mother. I was drenched in her personality, her charm, the way we got along. Around then we’d been married for five years. And this the first thing that’s going to be impossible to replicate, unless you’re in love with the model.
Actually, I didn’t set up the photo. It just came out like that. That’s what I call making a portrait without a camera. Obviously, after that I raised my camera and took the picture.
Another part of it is the pleasure of capturing the moment. There’s a kind of complicity that grows between the subject of the portrait, or the actor, and the photographer or author. And it’s done to win over the viewer, the person who’s aware and more interested in the photo.
That’s why I think your essay is wonderful and unique. Even though the gaze isn’t the same, you found what you were looking for, because you interpreted the gazes based on your own experience. It’s great that people like you, with your intense motivation for art, can find so much in such a simple photo. What’s essential is to inspire in people the thing you’re looking for."