A group of men and women in southern England dedicated themselves to conserving the forest so that butterflies can reproduce. The link with nature becomes as subtle as it is complex. “A love story”, says photographer Bego Antón, who is also struck by arrows, not so much because of the butterflies, but because of the intensity of that bond. And if the loved ones there are butterflies, in the United States she met people who dance complex choreographies with their dogs and she discovered there the same love passion experienced by the protectors of butterflies. She portrayed them too, with that mixture of tenderness, humor and empathy that she seems to run entirely through her photographs.

If we wanted to define Antón’s work, the portrait of those links would be the first point to take into account. And going deeper, such a definition would be insufficient. In Iceland, the country where there are elves, fairies, unicorns, huldufolk, trolls, beach dwarfs, water elves, mountain spirits and ghosts that live with the inhabitants and that are taken into account in the layout of the cities and roads, Bego deepened her line of work. There she traveled “from north to south and from east to west” and even she went to the school of elves to learn to bond better with them. She cant’ speak directly to any of them, but she did meet that portion of the population that has a direct link with those beings of nature and that can translate her wishes, including changing the route of a road so as not to damage her home.

There, on that island populated by wonders, she portrayed the depths of that love: a territory where nature is a temple, and where, as she says, “we call magic to things that we cannot understand.”

Your photos show a fairly clear thematic line that runs through nature, the human being and what is not seen.

Yes, totally. My work revolves around the love triangle between humans, nature and animals. It doesn’t necessarily revolve around all three, but there are always two. I am also interested in groups that have strange interests, weird in a positive way, different. And I move around the blurred line between reality and fantasy.

When did you discover that this was your work universe?

I have been discovering it little by little, without thinking about it much. The subjects that I have photographed have led me to know myself as an author. Suddenly there is a topic that you discover in a conversation, on the internet, in the news, in the press and you have a kind of crush, the topic grabs you and you have the need to dig deeper. It is like love. With Iceland I felt I had to document it.

Does the great crush on these issues come from childhood? You grew up in a rural environment and had a bond with nature since you were little, right?

I am Basque and my life has always been related to nature. Not necessarily with the forest, but I remember that on weekends with my parents we would go to the sea and go down on the cliffs to fish. My father is fond of fishing, and as a child he jumped from rock to rock. We also went to the mountain. In the Basque Country, nature is present. I am from Bilbao but our whole life we ​​have been on the weekends in a small town between sea and mountains.

I spent the whole day reading, even things that did not correspond to my age. I wanted to be a writer, I had an imaginary closely linked to fantasy. That generated in me all this of stories and adventures, of getting into other universes. On the other hand, The Diary of Anne Frank impacted me. When I read it, I don’t know if she was 10 years old, I think I felt identified because we both wrote a diary. Forgotten King Gudú by Ana María Matute also influenced me, is very fanciful.

You wanted to be a writer.

I used to write comics and stories quite macabre. For that reason I got into journalism at the Universidad del País Vasco and what happened to me was that my creativity disappeared, because everything was to inform. That saturated me and I started to shake when I had to write. In fact, I still have a kind of phobia and it takes a lot for me to start writing in my work. The field of photography is linked to writing because although sometimes you have to conceptualize, you have to write where the ideas come from, what the intentions are. In the end, I think I am doing the same as if I were writing. I am counting things. What I have done has been to change tools.

When I was studying there was a photojournalism course that was very disastrous. That’s why I say that I don’t know how I ended up being a photographer, but I did have an interest in the darkroom. I remember that my father had a camera and some workshop, and when I finished my degree, I said that I was going to Barcelona, ​​I have always been about moving a lot. I said that I was going to study photography to see what it was, and that’s how I got hooked.

Did you always work as an author or did you go through photojournalism?

I didn’t go through there. But the photos I took when I started out had a classic charge. I had photographers as references to whom I am grateful for having inspired me, but I no longer feel that bond. It was my way of immersing myself in this world to go, little by little, finding my way. My intention was to do a type of protest-photography, then I was transforming to another type of photography with which perhaps I make another kind of protest, an appeal to a theme that seems important to me. I try to give it one more shot towards humor or funnier, more enjoyable, everyday stories.

If you had to point the moment when you found your own voice, what would it be?

There have always been key moments, projects that have marked me in some way, that perhaps are not part of my website nor do I teach them. The first time I felt: “Okay, I want to go this way, I fit in here” was with the butterfly project. I liked the process, I began to enjoy the fact of getting involved in a community that opened its doors to explain to me what their passion was. I met people who were influencing me with that passion. I photograph subjects that have a lot to do with obsession, with enthusiasm

How did you get to them? They are not people who only collect butterflies…

They dedicated themselves to conserving its habitat so that it doesn’t become extinct and doesn’t die. Therefore, they are the complete opposite of hunters and collectors. They hate that side of humans. They dedicate themselves, for example, to conserving forests, cleaning them so that the butterflies can reproduce well. The interest is saving it. They go out into the forest, register the butterflies in each area, see if there are any species that no longer exist or if there is a new one that has entered. They are people concerned about all insects.

I met them by chance. I wanted to do something about bird watching, but it is something that has been photographed many times. Talking with a friend, she told me about it, I did some research on the internet and I ended up finding this association in England. I wrote to them and entered the circle.

How long were you with them?

I went for the first time in 2012, in spring, a very specific time to photograph butterflies. I spent a week with them. Afterwards I did not know how to spread it, how I could exhibit it. I did a small shibition. That is also something that you are learning so that they do not remain locked in the closet, because in the end what interests us is dissemination.

In your photos a love affair is appreciated and there is also a very fine humor.

That’s true. The one with the butterflies is loving. But there are other subjects that are delicate, they are more tricky to photograph because of the clichés and also because we tend to judge without knowing. I feel like I can release some tension from a loving mood, let’s say. When I talk about the beliefs of other people, I strike a chord with something very personal, and if a person opens the door of her intimacy for you, undresses in front of you, the way to show it to the world has to be based on respect.

Your essay on the dog dance in the United States, thought about a topic of photography that is to show the customs and freaks of the middle class. But you add something cute to the job. When we see the woman with her dog who made circles with her hands so that the dog would jump off her, we want to hug her.

That is one of the sensitive topics that I talked about. Depending on how you look at it, with which eyes you look at them, you can see different things. I say this because they always ask me: “What’s wrong with these women?” My answer is always the same: “Nothing happens to them.” When I photograph those women who dance with their dogs and those dogs that dance with their humans, I seek to show a sport, the canine musical Freestyle, and show that this is a very difficult link to explain in words, it is an enormous unbreakable link. Behind that there may be a psychological or social analysis, but it is not the part that interests me. I see them doing something bravely, leaving behind the social pressures for having certain behaviors and doing what they are passionate about, which is something strange seen by people who do not know what it is. They are still women who dress according to songs and dance choreographies with their dogs.

My idea is to show the funny side, how they teach them. I treat them as a collective of strong women who are dedicated to carrying out their passion and love for their dogs.

How did you get to them?

That was also another theme that I came across by chance. I had gotten a place to do an artist residency at an agency in New York. I had proposed a project that I temporarily called Animal People, my intention was to analyze the contradictions we have with animals. How some of us love them, others eat them, others hate them. My idea was to make a potpourri.

Researching on the Internet I ended up seeing a video on YouTube of Carol and her dog Scott in which they danced a song of Elvis dressed as in the movie. I hallucinated: “What am I seeing?”

Does that look have to do with you being a woman?

Maybe yes. Nor can I generalize because I am convinced that there are men who also have a tender look and can achieve this level of bond. There are many, many styles within photography. What I have been clear about is that it would be easier for me to enter that circle as a woman. When I write in an English-speaking place they always think that I am a man and they answer me “Mr. Anton”. Not! When I wrote to them I said from the beginning “I am a woman”, to make things easier for me.

Let’s talk about your crush on the elves. How did you get to that country? We all have the fantasy of going to Iceland for Bjork and for Sense8.

I wanted to go to Iceland. I did an artists residency there. There are people who like the south. I like the north. I am from Nordic countries, snow, clouds, that is something that I always have in my images. While I was there I discovered this intense relationship and this coexistence that exists between humans and the magical world. I got one of those crushes. When I found out that there were elves in Iceland I said, “This is made for me to photograph.” I also discovered that there is an elf school that you go to and become an expert on the subject. Once you finish the course, you are given a diploma that legally certifies your knowledge. It was a game that allowed me to search for people who have the ability to see elves and the places where they live. Be careful, we are not talking about a belief, we are talking about a reality: I am not looking for people who believe in elves but people who see elves.

Did you go to that school?

Of course I went and I have my diploma. It is hung as one more piece of work.

Did you see elves?

No, but I had curious, strange experiences. I always felt that something was protecting me. Icelanders naturally see that there are people who can see elves. In Iceland there are 330 thousand inhabitants, which is practically the same number of inhabitants as there are in Bilbao. 50% of the population would never say they don’t believe in elves. 2% honestly say they can see them and interact with them. There are also people who believe in trolls, fairies, gnomes, unicorns, centaurs, we speak of a very extensive imaginary of magical beings.

How does this fit into your human-nature-animal love triangle?

Right here are all those elements. This project is a reflection on the meaning of truth and how there cannot be an absolute truth. Everything these people told me, for me, was true. Is it part of their imagination because they have imagined it or are they really living it? If they say they are living it for me it is already real. Therefore, the world they describe is absolutely true.

Maybe you never considered yourself a documentary photographer but in this project you joined the logic of breaking the line between what is real and what is not, between the imaginary and the concrete. Have you worked it like this before?

I had worked on it in a more global way and had never been satisfied with the results. Then I was faced with something complex: invisibility. How do I photograph the invisible? The invisible to my eyes. Including color was a crazy way to do it because I ended up experimenting with photography and playing with camera functions, with filters, with colored fabrics. I did it because I know people who can see people’s aura, the energy we give off. If I appropriate this idea of ​​color as energy that radiates from the body, I photograph everything from color. That is why in some photos you can see colored stones with filters or flashes of lights inside a portrait… The invisible lives there.

All the projects we are talking about are outside the Basque Country, outside of Spain. You always go through an environment but more expanded, right? Why?

Yes. Usually these stories happen in very specific places so inevitably I have to move to these places. I wish everything was closer. That is also part of the adventure because in the end you leave and when you go to a place everything is absolutely new and that is enriching.

How did you do in the pandemic?

It was a great break. I have dedicated myself a lot to research, I consider it a super important process in my work. In my case, it’s funny how I ended up directing the camera at my family, especially my son. I say it’s curious because if you told me five years ago: “Bego, you will take pictures of your son to upload,” I would have said: “No way.” But living in confinement has made my point of view to focus on him, on his life now. Sharing this intimacy has been strange because I have always shared intimacies of others.

Being confined was also the perfect setting to start reading and advancing future projects. As soon as I could, I went to photograph the witches’ project that I have closer because they are in the Basque Country.

Are you photographing witches?

Yes, since 2016 I have been involved in Todas ellas brujas, I make a visual narration of the witch house in the Basque Country, I base myself on the confessions of these women. For the first time I am dedicated to recreating a historical event. I am dealing with a subject from 400 years ago. I wish I could go back in time and photograph them without being seen. Although I don’t know if I would put up with it, frankly, because that persecution is a heinous subject.

I translate the confessions of the official papers into images, I copy in my notebook the ones that interest me the most. When I read them, they are directly translated into images because they are very descriptive. I take everything into account: the location, the wardrobe, the woman who is going to play it. For example: Margarita de Jauri was accused of being a witch but she could not bear the pressure from the town when she returned to it, where people continued to mistreat her both physically and verbally. She couldn’t take it anymore, she jumped into the water and killed herself. When I read it, it referred me to the painting of Ofelia, by Millais. I saw an Ophelia in the water, so I made a kind of Ophelia in my own way, more raw.

I tell the story from the point of what they lived. The project was born out of a personal interest in demystifying their stories. The witch is not the hunched, wrinkled old woman from the Wizard of Oz and Snow White. The woman falsely accused of being a witch had a strong link with enjoyment, she knew the local plants to make ointments that she gave to her neighbors, she was a matron, she was in control of reproduction, sexuality, sometimes she was a fortune teller.

It was a way of destroying female power, at some point, by the church and the states. And what are those photographs like? You go from photographing the intimacy of people to a recreation.

It was a gigantic terror started by the church. There was also a general hatred towards these women by the men who talked about medicine because they were the doctors of the moment. My initial idea was not to give a feminist vision of this issue, I changed from those readings. It is a feminist reading although I do not consider that they have been feminists.

I am about to finish it because I have an expo in 2021. I am not about making books but I think there are projects in which history is told in a more intense and interesting way in book format.

Of all of them, the one that interests me the most is that figure of the herbalist, the Basque woman who has a lot of knowledge of her environment and her forest. I am doing a series within the series in honor of the figure in which I take different women, I photograph them in the forest and they blend in with the landscape and end up being part of the leaves, of the branches of the trees until they become on land. That image symbology allows me to play. I do not have the responsibility of an anthropologist, of a historian to tell as it was, but I can imagine my own vision, precisely, a recreation.

In a more epistemological sense, we can think that you appropriate photography and work from an image. How would you describe what your search is?

I am interested in the process. Photographing is the last thing I do. I spend time with each person and that is the moment I like the most. I love listening to stories and I think that comes from reading. For me, it’s getting into the book, it’s like I’m inside. Photography is the excuse to get into those universes because if not, I would not have access to those stories.

The photographic act has certain overtones linked to selfishness. Sometimes I feel like I am appropriating that experience and sharing it. I am in those moral dilemmas with photography. I have been a mother for two and a half years, then the confinement came; I haven’t been out shooting immersive in a long time and I miss it. That is why I have that need to move within the book and be part of that reality… For example, I have never had a dog and I have not ended up dancing with my dogs and I have not seen elves or auras, but still the experience is very enriching.

If your photograph could be heard, what kind of music would it generate?

With a woman’s voice, little lyrics and very calm music.