Luna Sweetheart: Marques Ruiz Explores the Possibilities That Lie Outwith the Realm of Digital Photography
FINDING ARTISTIC CREATIVITY IN DECELERATION — and taking time to focus on both the minor and the large-scale details, Marques Ruiz’s photography is as experimental as it is expert. His visually stunning oeuvre invites you into a varied range of rich atmospheres — works that immerse you in nature, ones that set you alight, and some that feel excitingly mundane.
Starting out as a hobby in 2017, it took mere months of practice before Ruiz had produced his first photobook. Introspective and personal, 21365 features images from every day of his 21st year of life, showcasing his fear of growing up.
This year, Ruiz is working on his goal of hosting a gallery show of his work. A believer in the power of physical art and the ways it communicates its stories better than in digital, he hopes to immerse viewers in his first solo show.
Read below as Marques Ruiz sat down with Luna to discuss his film photography origins, his creative process, and his current and upcoming work.
LUNA: How did your journey with film photography begin?
RUIZ: Back in the summer of 2017, shooting film was something that began as a hobby for me. What’s crazy is that I was editing all of my digital photos to look like film. After so many film simulations and look-alikes, why not shoot the real thing? After diving into a black hole of film videos on YouTube, a Canon AE-1 Program arrived in the mail from eBay four days later. I took the worst photos of my life shortly after that, and I loved every frame despite them being cataclysmically boring. It was when I took my first rolls to the local lab, and that changed everything for me. When I got my first few rounds of scans, film made me feel like a medium where I was allowed to be ugly in peace. Later on into the fall, my experimentation inspired me to begin producing my first photo book called 21365. For this project, I took a photo on film every single day of me being 21 as a way to express that I was scared to grow up. I was scared specifically because as someone who turns 21, we have so many expectations as to who we are supposed to be by this point in our lives. That project changed the way I took photos, no matter if it was film or digital. For example, if you flipped through the book, you would see that I had amazing days with amazing photos as well as horrible days with a picture of a shirt on the floor. It was the range of the type of days that I wanted to explore and show people. Ever since the summer of 2017, film and I have always been good friends.
LUNA: What do you like about digital versus film? How do you approach the mediums differently?
RUIZ: Digital was my first love for a good reason. I learned how to wrestle digital images with Photoshop, and ultimately it became something you could do anything and everything with. Digital is modern, fast, and efficient in all aspects of the process. However, film is imperfect and requires patience. Film makes you slow down and focus on what you’re actually looking at. Film makes you ask questions and analyze what photo you’re making. As an artist in today’s world, it’s not about being strictly a “film photographer” or a “digital photographer,” it’s about using the best tools you have available to make the best image.
LUNA: From coming up with the original concept to sorting through selects, what part of the creative process excites you the most?
RUIZ: The best part of the process for me is between putting together the moodboard or seeing the images printed out for the first time. When it comes to creating a moodboard, I feel this rush of ideas that have many branches with many directions they can grow in. When you have accumulated a ton of images that inspire you, something new is born. I consider this to be the part where the art world tells you to steal like you’ve never stolen before. At the same time, there’s nothing I can imagine like seeing your project in print for the first time. It’s one thing to go through the entire process of creating and making an idea come to life; it’s another to see it come to life as a tangible object in real life. The digital space can be lackluster sometimes. Print that project and I promise you, you’ll be hooked.
LUNA: Why is it important for you to explore the “big picture” through your work?
RUIZ: When creating things in general, we often have a tendency to be so zoomed into what we’re doing and how we do it. When that happens, we could lose the opportunity to connect to something bigger. For example, say you make a project about the neighborhood you grew up in and the photos are great. I think that being able to look at the bigger picture is adding details to your photos or maybe even an essay portion by explaining why those things look the way they do in the first place. You go from being a photographer to a historian in one move. When it comes to creative work, there’s value in the bird's-eye view because it allows you to see the things people don’t know are sitting right in front of them.
LUNA: How has the way you approach making images changed overtime?
RUIZ: I’ve totally slowed down because of the process you need to endure to make good photos. When I got into the swing of putting out work online, I became uncomfortable because I often feel the need to be productive when I see other artists putting out a constant volume of work. Don’t get me wrong — I wish I could work at similar speeds to some of the creatives out there. However, slowing down really helped me lock in on what I wanted to create instead of creating just to compete for engagement on Instagram. Freeing myself from the volume expectation and seeking opportunities to print my art in real life is what changed me most, recently. I think it is so satisfying to see your work on someone’s wall.
LUNA: Your portfolio really showcases your range when it comes to portraits — each photo is so different from another while having your style to bring it all together. What advice do you have for photographers trying to hone in on their own style?
RUIZ: I know how this will sound, but find something else besides photography to occupy your time. What I mean by that is, focus on things outside of photography and see how it will influence your thinking when making photos. I feel like when we focus just on photography and only photography, we tend to keep ourselves in a bubble when it’s really all about showcasing how you specifically see something. When we look online and see Instagram, we see tons of trends that are more or less an attempt to take advantage of the engagement that comes with the trend. That’s not to say those works aren’t good, but I feel that it makes more sense to stand out and have original ideas that exist outside of the internet. For example, one of my photographic idols would be Joe Greer. I’ve watched him for a while, and while he is definitely a photographer a great deal of the time, he also is seriously training as a long-distance runner. I think being able to pour into something else greatly helps your photography improve overtime because you saw it from an angle nobody else has. Remember — you can only be yourself.
LUNA: What’s been your favorite shoot of 2022 so far?
RUIZ: At this time, it would be my Hellboise project. It means a lot to me because this was my first project produced coming out of a major creative block, but also personal issues. I hadn’t picked up my camera in months at the time, and it almost felt like photography was something of the past. I felt like I needed to prove to myself that I still had it. What helped me with this was having creative friends when I was in need. I hit them up and explained my ideas to them and how I was inspired by these specific references and they responded with the utmost support and excitement to produce something. Friends like that are hard to come by.
LUNA: Where do you see your creative interests taking you in the upcoming year?
RUIZ: I want to do a gallery show so bad. And I will. I hate the aspect of just dropping something on social media and going about your day. I remember seeing a YouTuber talk about how today most people never print their images. That made me think of how people often miss the point of your photos when they see it on a small screen. They tap it and comment a few fire emojis and that’s it. I always felt like as an artist of any trade, that is so deflating. I will be doing a solo show this year. I feel it.
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