Gomma Photography Grant 2024
NOCTURNA
Photographer
Daniel M. Torres
NOCTURNA
19 Jan, 2025
NOCTURNA is a documentary project, consisting of a photo-book and a future length experimental sensory documentary film, which compile more than five years of my work (and life) shooting underground raves in Mexico City. A project focused on the rise of a new subculture of clandestine raves within the city. But more specifically, it captures the individuals who frequent them and thus, create them. The photo-book will consist of hundreds of photographs (picked from an archive of thousands) and semi-anecdotal stories, mine and shared, of what it was like to witness a solid scene appear in that specific moment in Mexican history. But above all; NOCTURNA portrays the emergence of a culture, it portrays those fleeting moments shared by a group of people who, like me, gathered there, around the music, at night, because we didn't fit anywhere else. The project consists of portraits and candid documentary photographs that were mostly shot without warning nor planning. A photographic quest for rebellious beauty and freedom, expressed through the powers of music and the mysticism of our bodies swaying in the dance floor. Witness the birth of a thriving futuristic nightlife community. NOCTURNA (The documentary film) is in its post production stage.
About the photographer
Daniel M. Torres
"I'm a multidisciplinary artist from Mexico City living in Madrid since last year. My main focus is on the power of documentary photography and filmmaking. Dedicating myself for the past ten years to my better understanding of these, both still and moving images, in order to develop a style and technique through which convey and communicate my worries, passions and deepest desires. As a latino, or better put, as a mexican, I have had a unique life experience, standing between two worlds, North and South America, the “scope” of what we can see and live is extremely wide. I have seen and lived enough to know that any fight is valid. That every struggle is real. That anyone feeling down, deserves help getting back up. And in my own experience, it is through art, and specifically the story telling aspects of it, that we can share, touch and even heal each other through space and time in a way that no other human activity can. As wicked as our times are, as powerful our art forms may be. This is only a step in my path. And I'll walk it to the end. There is so much to be done, and so little we can each do. My independent cinematographic work as a producer, cinematographer and documentary filmmaker has been shown in major international festivals as Cannes, New Orleans, AMBULANTE or Sitges Film Festivals, my photographs have been shown in local exhibits and published both in local and international media. I have been releasing electronic music since 2018. Recently I was one of the selected as “Descubrimientos PHOTOEspaña 2024” and a finalist to “Gomma Books Black and White Photography Awards 2024” with my photographic projects “NOCTURNA” and “Covid NIGHT-teen” respectively."
