Photography Culture

Daniel Valledor: Street Photography Inspired by Cinema

Chris Gampat
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03/17/2017
2 Mins read
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All images by Daniel Valledor. Used with permission.

If you were to liken any sort of photography genre to cinema, it would be tough to do so with street photography–but Daniel Valledor is sort of putting that claim to rest. You see, Dan is a photographer and DP based in Madrid. During the day, he’s a Telecom Engineer but he’s worked in advertising and commercial photography. To his extra credit, he’s shot a number of award winning short films and has won over 50 awards and 100 selections in international film festivals.

So when you take a cinematographer and blend his work with street photography you get something with a classic, beautiful feel.

“Apart from my commercial work, I’m strongly devoted to documenting human souls in both metropolitan and rural spaces and the way they show a unique aspect of themselves when photographed.” Dan tells us. “Though my early work included posed portraits and detailed preparation, I have turned entirely towards a totally unstaged and unnoticed way of shooting, getting very close to the subjects without altering their expression or getting in their way, with the firm commitment of capturing the moment as honestly as I possibly can.” This methodology from Dan makes a lot of sense; and draws inspiration from the Magnum photographers who he admires the most.

Here are more words from Dan:

I shoot with a Leica M (both film and digital) and a 28mm lens. I chose this camera body because it is very small and quiet compared to any SLR, and allows me to approach people’s area of comfort without getting noticed. The 28mm is the result of testing different focal lengths: even though it’s harder to get the results I want than with a longer lens (ie 35mm or 50mm), it’s worth the effort. The sensation of proximity is hard to beat, but you have to get really close (less than 3 feet in most cases)!

I love practically all the Magnum-style photographers (Mark Cohen, Martin Parr, William Klein, Garry Winogrand, Harry Callahan, Joel Meyerowitz), and probably my favorite: Ramon Massats. But what really made me love photography in my early years was the wonderful cinematography work by Vittorio Storaro (“The Conformist” and “Reds”), Gordon Willis (“The Godfather”), Luis Cuadrado (“El Sur”) and Sven Nykvist. To me their use of light as a tool for storytelling is a true inspiration.

Be sure to check out more of Daniel’s work at his website.

cinema cinematic daniel Valledor film images inspiration leica magnum magnum photos street photography
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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.