Meet Marc Marco: MedFoto 2023 winner and 2024 edition jury
Marco Marco, the lightning hunter
How did you start in the world of photography?
I come from the world of professional tennis. I traveled every week and I always found it interesting to photograph the places I visited. When I stopped competing, I met a neighbor in my town who was a friend of my mother’s. She mentioned that I liked photography, and one day he invited me to practice night photography. He taught me, and that’s how I got started. In fact, night photography was the one that best suited my lifestyle. During the day, I worked, spent time with my family, and when they went to bed, I took advantage to go out and take photos. Gradually, as I had more time, I started going out at other times of the day and learned to take other types of photographs.
Starting with night photography isn’t the easiest thing in the world!
No (he laughs) . I remember the first one I took. He gave me the parameters to take it, I had the camera with noise reduction activated, which is for one photo, and I had to take a 30-second photo. I saw everything black, I didn’t know what was happening, whether I was focusing or not… I didn’t understand anything at all! But I learned. I searched the internet, watched tutorials on Youtube. And I went out a lot to take photos.
Could we say that you are self-taught?
Yes, nowadays there’s a lot of information available. If you search, put it into practice a bit, and if you want to improve and do a bit better every day, you learn. Sometimes I compare it to tennis. If you don’t improve day by day, you won’t win. Even when you lose, you must get excited and work to do better. It’s a bit the same with photography: going with the idea of doing a little better each day and if there’s something you don’t know how to do, try to learn more!
Tennis has a technical part but also its own skills or abilities. Photography too?
It is quite related. But I believe, above all, in daily work. It is clear that, due to innate abilities, some will be more useful for some things and others for others, but if there is work behind it and it is something you like, that you really have enthusiasm and you want to learn, it is more a matter of personal involvement. Everyone has the capacity to improve.
Which one do you think is your best photograph until nowadays?
I would say the one that won MedFoto 2023. I have a few like that, which are my favorites, but that one is very special. I’ve been behind many storms, trying to catch lightning, and that one, with so many in a single RAW, isn’t easy! Well, you never know, because lightning is a matter of luck: you have to pay attention to how they fall, their intensity, prepare the parameters of the photograph so it doesn’t burn out, so it doesn’t look too superimposed… So, I would say it’s the best one I’ve taken!
How did you take that photograph?
Whenever there are storms, I keep an eye on the weather. I have an app and I follow them. Many of the storms that reach Mallorca come through the Valldemossa area, and I see them coming. From home, I look at the sky and you can see the small lightning strikes on the horizon. When I see them, I say to my wife: “I’m going lightning hunting!” and I head to the lookout, which is 10 minutes from home. Sometimes storms arrive quickly and with rain. In that case, I had time to arrive, prepare and take the photo. I managed to capture all those lightning strikes! And then the rain came, and I had to leave.
What is it about lightning that attracts you so much to be a “storm hunter”?
The challenge. There are photos in specific locations, like the Milky Way or a static landscape, where you already know what you can get. With storms, you never know what will happen. They put you to the test to see if you can adapt to that storm because they’re all different: lightning strikes have different intensity, they fall closer or farther away, there’s moonlight or not.
When you have a specific place to take a photograph, you think about the final composition you want to capture. With lightning, no matter how much you want a composition, they might appear elsewhere, and you have to think and act quickly. Personal satisfaction is much greater than going to a place where I already know what I’ll get.
Storms are always a difficult challenge to see if you’re capable of taking a good photograph, even if the conditions can be very complicated. This really catches my attention. It’s like a game, very fun!
As a judge, what do you value most in a photograph?
That it communicates something to me. There are photographs that tell you a story. Then you look at whether it’s technically well done and the details. But the most important thing is that it transports you to the place, to the story, or stirs emotions in you.
