Madrid photographer Benito Román thanked Palencia for being awarded the XV Piedad Isla National Photography Prize 2024 and recognized that this award was a great satisfaction because “it helps him to continue working.” See those have received awards in previous years like Cristina García RoderoJuan Manuel Castro Prieto or Díaz Burgos, it’s an honor to share this with them because I have a lot of admiration for them,” he said.
Regarding his work, the Madrid native indicated that it is a documentary photograph that “This brings the photo closer and makes us feel how people transport us with their looks. or your feelings. I tried to capture it in the best way possible. “I have worked in rural and urban environments and I have always tried to tell stories like Piedad Isla did and make the people I photographed feel comfortable and forget about the “camera, which allows you to take good photos”, explained Benito Román. . The national newspapers El País, El Mundo, Très interesting or international media like Newsweek have carried Benito Román’s signature in their publications.
Furthermore, Romain claimed to know in advance the photographic heritage of Piedad Isla: “I knew the photos of Piedad Isla and thanks to this award I got to know her better. It’s a very interesting profession and the fact that I was a woman in those years was a great difficulty and that I was able to do it seems wonderful to me.
The prize, worth 6,000 euros, is organized by the Provincial Deputation of Palencia to reward an entire professional career in this artistic discipline. The award pays tribute to the figure of Piedad Isla, ethnographer and pioneer of photography in our country, born in Cervera de Pisuerga in 1926, whose fifteenth anniversary of death was celebrated on November 6. It was presented by the president of the Provincial Delegation of Palencia, Ángeles Armisén, and the representative of Culture, Carolina Valbuena.
Regarding the Madrid photographer, Carolina Valbuena explained that knew how to capture, like Piedad Isla, “the rurality of our Spain with sensitivity. Through all his work, mainly since the sixties, he was able to portray the reality of this country and that of different characters who were crucial in our time,” he assured. Likewise, the MP valued his work, which is reminiscent of that of the photographer from Palencia. It is precisely about his silhouette that we have been working for two years on a documentary, which should be released in the spring of next year and on which Valbuena. also wanted to emphasize, reports Ical.
Finally, the president of the Provincial Delegation, Ángeles Armisén, assured that the Piedad Isla National Prize “has become one of the prizes desired by the world of photography and a prize that honors the woman from Palencia, this photographer who, in as a woman, was someone who stepped forward and represented the mountains of Palencia like no one else.
