LIME is quite a commitment for both Pieter and me. The time and energy we put into our bastard child, becomes a bit too much at times to be honest. But when we hear that we played a small part in the progress of a LIME-reader, we forget about all the late hours and feel extremely proud and happy.

Guillermo Calderon is a young photographer from Mexico. We chatted a few times on Facebook and he told me about his new project “Soaked”. I encouraged him to go on with the project and when I saw the results I was stunned. In short you could say that his project is about photographing formally dressed people in a bath tub. But it’s about much more. The project gave Guillermo the chance to expand his network, he got lots of attention online and squeezed a magazine article out of it too. He’s also going to publish the project as a book (we’ll keep you posted on that).

Check out the behind-the-scenes video:

Here’s what Guillermo has to say about “Soaked”:

My name is Guillermo Calderón and I’m a Photographer from Mexico City. I’m 25 years old and  since 1999 photography has been my motto.  Since then my main influence  has been the Internet, I usually don’t remember photographers names, that’s a pitty, I’m sure I have lost great work references. I love the work of Annie Leibovitz as well as the work of many blog and flickr photographers, I love to photograph people.
I worked at a school for 4 years teaching photography to kids. It was a great experience having  kids from 12 years old to 18 learning from me,  and even greater, me learning from them. In total I had 6 groups each year, and I met each group 3 times a week. I also work on the school’s yearbook, so each year more than 700 students, teachers  and personnel were in front of my lens. This changed my view from landscape photography towards people and event-journalism type photography (which includes landscapes)
I never had formal photography education, I was almost a Mechanic Engineer, but I went through with Communication Science at the visual media area. This gave me lots of theory that I enjoyed a lot. I do apply that to my photo business but not that much to my images. I think my work, is more documentary-like.
On November 2008, I was unemployed, I wanted to do something on my abundantly spare time, and also I wanted to do something with my photography. I thought about documenting a persons or a couple’s life, but nobody offered the way I wanted to. Then I turn my head into portraits, I looked into Richard Avedon and other authors, I thought about phographing a large number of friends and known persons. Thought about white background, or going to theirs houses, the second was to invasive and I would have little control over it. So I returned to the white background and instead of doing it vertical, it ocurred to me that changing to horizontal would give me a great deal of new expressions. Searching for references I found a cat on a tub and that was it. My white background would be my bathtub or a bathtub. Then I thought about inducing some situations and thats was almost clear for me, dressed people inside a bathtub should be interesting, but dressed soaked people inside a bathtub would give me more variety on the images.
At first  inviting poeple was difficult. I had to convince them about the project. Also I didnt know if each person should be in a different bathtub or not. Maybe I could use showers also.  With the 4 first session it was clear that only one tub would do a great job and it would be easier for me to make two or three appointments daily some days.  I only had some very clear scenarios 1.- My girlfriend on the tub. 2.- A couple 3.-A pregnant friend or her with the baby 4.- 5 BIG friends wearing suit, and one image of  all of them inside, they would be the only ones with full suit inside that tub. There where no other ideas than just the idea of inviting people. There was the idea of exhibition and book printing.
Today I’ve photographed 34 persons inside that tub and theres a big list of people wanting to get inside, but for this project I will only let 50 go inside. The project has been already a great  campaign thats making people know me and my work. I have been required 4 times more for model books, some weddings and other things, and this has given me 3 job interviews with 3 highly know magazines (haven’t take them yet).
I think the lesson on this is to take advantage to the equipment you have and do something,  make yourself be known, let your ideas be known. Show peope of what you’re cappable of, not just talk about it. I think  of photography more like a service, you will please people with a nice service, with nice images and sure they can be art also.
For this project I use:
1 Laptop, 1 Camera Body, 1 Wide angle to normal lens ( although at first I had a 50mm 1.2 and a telephoto zoom nearby) 1 CF card ,1 strobe, 1 model release for each person, and some liters of water for each person also….. and of course the bathtub. The key was the idea, knowing my limitations and keeping it simple.

I didnt give details up there  about my equipment beacuase I think is not decisive, although it helps to have the right equipment for the right assingment. I could have use  a  point and shoot like the Canon G9 ( which I own) but the shutter response would keep me away form decisive moments and faces. Instead I left the G9 for the backstage time lapses and promoting my work.

Guillermo Calderon

I think this project is very inspiring and wish Guillermo all the best with it. You can find more at his Flickr page, his blog, his site and his youtube channel. You can also find him on Facebook and Twitter.