Documenting Aging & Life Today
By: Justyne Gurley
Meet Constanza Hevia H.—photographer and alum of the School of Photography. Her photography journey started at 15 when her father encouraged her to start taking a darkroom workshop. For her undergrad degree, Constanza studied Cinema and worked as an assistant director in that industry for about 7 years. Over time, Constanza realized that she preferred to work on independent projects. She states, “I wanted to be alone.”, mentioning that photography is, most of the time, a solitary discipline. She decided to move from Chile to San Francisco to study Photography at the Academy of Art University.
While at the Academy, Constanza worked on her thesis project entitled, “The Time I Have Left”. She had started to develop a strong interest in documenting the lives of the elderly, as well as issues related to death and mortality. In July 2016, Constanza visited her family in Chile. She showed her project to her aunt, who mentioned Hugo Kuschel, the oldest man in the village of Las Cascadas. Due to their health, he and his wife, Wilma, had not been able to leave their home.
Photo By: Constanza Hevia H. @constanzaheviah
“The project portrays the point of view of a person who only had contact with the outside world through windows, television and old photographs. I have tried to place the viewer inside Hugo’s point of view, in both his psychological and physical space along with his imagination. I proposed contemplation as a discourse as it applies to this project. Besides being an external observer using the objective eye, I introduced into the project a subjective perception that represents Hugo's point of view. The subjective view is present in the still life images, where Hugo is not part of the frame. This subjective eye places the viewer in Hugo’s personal experience, and helps the audience to understand and feel a part of Hugo’s physical and emotional world. With these images, I want to make the viewer see as though he/she is looking through the eyes of Hugo.”
Prior to the shelter in place, Constanza was traveling between Chile and San Francisco to work on her personal project about a town in southern Chile. Constanza worked with organizations such as, Meals on Wheels, Homebridge, Planned Parenthood, and The San Francisco General Hospital Foundation, as a freelance photographer. Now that she is unable to travel and work on her personal project, she is still photographing for various news publications, such as the San Francisco Chronicle, documenting the COVID-19 outbreak. Each publication provides a short story for her to cover, requiring quick turn arounds – often within a few hours.
According to Constanza, newsrooms are providing education on how to stay protected while documenting. She and her colleagues wear masks, gloves and continue to exercise social distancing properly. The social distancing, Constanza says, can be difficult for photojournalists as it can be instinct to want to get much closer to the subject. They are having to use long focal lenses to be able to provide quality images, while staying safe.
Constanza encourages those working from home to keep crafting, creating and documenting in these uncertain times. She also suggests the following site for ideas if you don’t feel comfortable leaving your home: https://www.wpthejournal.com/ .
Constanza’s advice to students:
“Keep working hard and don’t give up on your dreams. Art is very subjective and if you don’t get into Spring Show or any other contest don’t feel bad. You have to learn who is your audience and be aware of that when you apply to competitions or festivals.
Build a strong portfolio and take advantage of every class to create something meaningful for you. Make all the contacts you can while you are in school. When the pandemic is over, go to portfolio reviews, meet people, volunteer, do internships (this is so important!). Everything in this industry is about contacts and networking.”
