Blue Chevy and Dancing Couple (2006)
José María Mellado is a photographer that became widely known for his research in the field of development of digital images. He created a new photographic language where landscapes are at the mercy of human whims. Roads, industrial fumes… reminders that humans leave their footprints in every corner of the planet.
True to his conviction that photographers do not always need to carry a camera with them, he landed in Havana. Walking along the Malecón, he came upon a magnificent blue Chevy parked right in front of him. With the music blasting full volume, a couple got out of the car and started dancing. Astonished, Mellado suggested that they come back the next day to take a picture. And there they stood, like models waiting for the photographer’s sharp eye to immortalize them.
Mellado, a master in the art of finding beauty in everyday life, finds the perception of the scene in the yellow color of the boy’s sweater with the line of the floor and the woman’s clothes with the blue of the car.
This couple from Havana has been forever entangled in a dance at sunset, the time at which Mellado, this trained engineer who was used to working with a rigorous methodology, chose to preserve them forever.
José María Mellado
Almería, 1966
He began taking photos of villages in Almeria with a Russian Zenit and has managed to turn his passion into a way of life. Despite having achieved great success with his books on digital photographic treatment, Mellado has always admitted that the artistic side of his work is the most important part for him. The passionate search for beauty in everyday life is one of the key elements in his work. He was president of the Royal Photographic Society.