Artist Q/A (April 2025)
Zeke Rios (Photographer)
Q: Is there one photograph you’ve taken that you’d want to be remembered for or that you remember regularly, and why does it mean so much to you?
A: Ironically one of the first pictures I took getting started as an amateur with a new camera is still one of my favorites. I like a variety of categories in photography but I primarily like photos that tell a story about people. I took this photo (see below) during a skating competition and this one guy with a brace on his wrist sitting on a skateboard smoking a cig with bruises and tattoos on his arm just stood out to me. I didn’t know him and he didn’t know me but I just started snapping and the photograph and experience still stands out to me.
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Q: How do you decide what’s worth capturing in an image?
A: I try and capture the story of the moment and that mostly just comes with instinct. In the beginning I was focused on hard fast composition rules but as time has gone on I’ve tried making my own style and trusting my instincts more. Less and less I’ve been taking landscape photos and more and more I’ve been focusing on people. People can be unpredictable and the photo moments come and go so you have to be fast. I mostly want my photographs to be looked at by my kids and my kid’s kids and I want them to see their parents and relatives caught in the frame and be able to immerse themselves in that world inside the frame untouched by time.
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Q: What’s the most unexpected lesson photography has taught you about yourself?
A: Photography has taught me to slow down and appreciate the little things. I’ve realized I sometimes live life on autopilot and I look back and see all that I missed. Photography has taught me to look around and admire the beauty, weirdness, and subtlety of life.
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Q: Do you have a favorite subject to photograph? If you were only taking photos of that subject for the rest of your life, how would you keep it exciting?
A: Favorite subject is anything that includes people, mostly family at home, or portraits. Looking back again and again at the photos as time has passed, seeing what’s changed and what hasn’t, keeps capturing those moments exciting.
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Q: When you’re behind the lens, what’s the one thing you’re looking for—emotion, beauty, or something else entirely?
A: I mostly look for the emotion, but the emotion can include the beauty of the moment. Just something that tells a story or opens that window in time to that moment. I want my kids to see what life was like with people that may no longer be around by the time they see the photographs.
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Q: What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever had to leave out of a frame, and why did it haunt you afterward?
A: Hardest things I leave out are those people might find disrespectful. It doesn’t happen often, but taking a camera out or sticking it in someone’s face in certain situations is harder than others, I mostly choose to let people have their space. The only reason it haunts me is because the moment will never be captured and reflected on.
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Q: If your camera could talk, what do you think it’d say about your habits as a photographer?
A: It would probably say I don’t pick it up often enough and baby it too much. Probably says I’m too concerned with just capturing banger photos and not interested enough or too busy to create something actually meaningful. Someone that’s actually a series of works that go beyond the Instagram post.
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