PHOTOGRAPHY & FILM | Volvoreta

Jimena San Miguel from Volvoreta is based in New York and is available worldwide. She only takes on six weddings per year, to ensure that she can focus wholeheartedly on each wedding and create something unique for each couple. Every project starts with a conversation, and she gets to know each of her couples in depth before photographing them. Volvoreta also always leaves space for play within a project, as she believes that art is a continuous journey of exploration and creativity. Her fine art work is represented by Galería Helarea in Madrid.

Tell us about your business!

Volvoreta is a small photography studio. Very small, by design. Around six creative projects a year.  

Before any wedding, I spend months getting to know the couple. Not their Instagram. Not their Pinterest board. Them. It is an intimate process, built over several meetings, where together we develop a photographic project.

I explain which concepts I am going to translate from who they are into images. And then I live alongside them. Not just on the wedding day, but in the moments before, when nothing seems to be happening and everything is.  

By default, I work alone. My analog eye, one perspective, one story. While your guests watch the key scenes from the front row, I am looking for something else. Something that will matter more in twenty years than it does today.  The delivery includes approximately 1,000 analog and 1,000 digital images, a private gallery, and an artist book. 

For couples who want to go further, we offer two film formats:  Super 8: analog moving image. Grain, light, time. The same texture as the photography, but alive. Super 16mm: for the real film lovers. A full cinema crew: director, focus puller, sound engineer. Cinematic image, on the most important day of your life.

What would you like couples to know about you?

I am deeply nostalgic.  

Years ago I started photographing my parents. I wanted to record my memory of them. Not posed. The things that remind me of them. Their rituals. Where my father reads the paper. My mother's feet. The two of them at the mirror before going out to dinner.  

That is what I want to bring into weddings. My way of looking at families. At couples. I prefer to observe the process. The result takes care of itself.  

I am a Spanish analog artist specialized in process, based in New York. I work for European fashion magazines, on film sets, and around six weddings a year. Everything belongs to the same universe.

Where are you based?

I am based in NYC.

Do you travel for weddings?

What matters is the energy. Couples who want something creative, intimate, relaxed, and true to who they are. If that is there, I will go anywhere to get to know  your story.

How would you describe your style?

My work has one centre. Intimacy and ritual. Fashion, cinema, weddings. Different ways of speaking from the same place.  

Three years ago I stopped shooting digital. Completely. I stopped believing an image had to be perfect. Because I am not perfect. And memory, which is really what I work with, isn't either. Loading the roll. Waiting for the development. Not knowing. The analog process became a ritual in itself. The grain, the accidental overexposure, the light leak. Those are not errors. They are the mark that something was real.  

Perfection moves no one. Vulnerability does.

What is your most memorable career moment?  

The most memorable moment of my career was a realization. That I wanted to commit. To my art. To my intuition. To follow it without fear. Stopping digital was part of that. Analog slows me down. It asks me to think about the light, to observe, to be present with the people around me.  

And what I have found is that the couples who choose me give me something rare. Permission. To look where I want to look. To trust what I see. That trust is what makes everything possible.

What inspires you?  

Silence. Time to stop and listen.  

Cinema, above all. The films of the 70s, 80s, 90s. Watching how new ways of telling stories were being invented. That still moves me.  

Stories about creative processes. Photography books. And making things with my hands. Ceramics, photo embroidery, analog printing, bookbinding. All of it. The process of making something slowly, physically, with attention.  

And observing my own life. Being grateful for it. Looking at the people I love and noticing what I like about them. The small gestures. The tics. The imperfections. Going in search of those. That is where everything starts.

How would you describe your working style?  

Intimacy takes time. Before anything, we meet. Not to talk about photography. To talk. I listen to how you describe each other. What you notice about the other person.  What you want to remember. From those conversations, I build a photographic project. A moodboard that shows you how I am going to move, what I am going to look for.  

And then I am usually hosted where you are. Because I think in small moments. The breakfast before everything starts. Waking up slowly. The bride cutting the groom's hair. Everyone by the pool, with nowhere to be.  

I like the freedom to move through the space without a schedule. To be there when nothing is happening. Because that is usually when everything is.

Do you shoot digitally, on film or both?  

Analog. Always. 35mm film. Sometimes polaroid as well. The roll has a limit and that forces presence. You cannot shoot endlessly and check. You have to trust what you saw.  

When digital coverage is needed, a second photographer joins. But my eye is always on film.

Do you have custom packages according to individual needs?  

Always. But the most important variable is not the package. It is time. How many days we have together. My favorite moments are the ones around the wedding. The days before, or after. A slow breakfast. A walk. The family arriving. The morning after. That is where people are most themselves. I adapt to each situation. But what I am really looking for are couples who invite me into their life. Not just their wedding.

What is a favourite product or service that you offer and why?  

My favorite thing to deliver is the final piece. Every project ends with a unique object. A photograph I intervene by hand. Embroidery, painting, drawing. Something that cannot be reproduced. That exists only once. Not a file. Not a print. A piece. Because that is what a memory deserves.

Where would you love to travel to for work?  

I come from Europe. Italy, Spain, France. That light, that slowness, that way of being around a table for hours. I know it well and I love it.  

But what excites me right now is the opposite ends. The Caribbean. That color, that heat, that completely different relationship with celebration. And  winter mountain weddings. Snow, fire, small groups of people far from everything.  

Extreme light. That is what moves me.

Who is your dream client?  

Couples who see the world in a similar way. Who find beauty in the small things. Who are not looking for perfection but for something real.  

People who trust my vision completely. Who don't need to control every image. Who understand that the best moments are usually the ones nobody planned.  

And who want to share the experience. Not just receive the result.

What is your advice to couples getting married?  

Protect your intimacy. Go inward. What is true to you as a couple? Your rituals. Your humor. The way you are when nobody is watching. That is what will last.

Volvoreta Website: volvoreta.com 

Instagram: @volvoreta