Season 5: Episode 7 -
MARIANA ARRIETA IBARRA
I was born with the need to observe. Since I was a child, I’ve been drawn to small gestures, to what almost goes unnoticed. Photography became my way of staying longer with what truly matters.
My work moves between the intimate and the collective, between the street and human connection. I document people, moments, and struggles that deserve to be seen with honesty. Whether I’m photographing a love story, social movements, or the poetry of everyday life, what drives me is always the same: the desire to understand, to connect, to leave a trace of what has been lived.
I’m a Mexican and Spanish photographer based in Barcelona. I studied photography at the Escuela Activa de Fotografía in Querétaro (2019), then completed a postgraduate degree in Art Direction at ESCAC in Barcelona, followed by another postgraduate program in Documentary and Artistic Photography at IDEP. My work has been exhibited in Mexico, Rome, Cuba, and Italy, and has been featured in international publications such as Portrait of Humanity.
I work with both digital and analog cameras, and part of my process unfolds in the darkroom, where I hand-develop some of my images. I value the time it takes, the patience, the slow transformation of the image. That alchemy reminds me that photography is not only about seeing, it’s also about waiting, choosing, and letting go.
I grew up surrounded by photographs. My father and grandfather were both photographers, and although my path is my own, they taught me to pay attention. To pause. To look at life with a cultivated sensitivity, shaped by film, family albums, and memory.
I also work as a wedding and couple photographer, where I bring the same documentary and emotional perspective that defines my personal projects. I believe in the beauty of the real, in imperfection, tenderness, memory, the body, and love in all its forms. Photography, for me, is a way to build a visual memory of who we are. And also of what we never want to forget.