I met Gregorio during lockdown. He is an 85-year-old farmer who lives in a house in a valley in Valdáliga (Cantabria). I was attracted to his life from the first minute. The rest of the world collapsed due to the standstill caused by a pandemic and he, at his own pace, living a life that many would consider confined. I am fascinated by his hands, his clothes, his window, where he stands for hours watching the fields and the road for passing neighbours; his plastic chair in the hayloft, where he sits in winter seeking the warmth of the few rays of northern sunshine. I am fascinated by his blue eyes; the old bathtub that serves as a drinking trough at the door of the cowshed; his huge bull, Majo; his cat, Paisano; his calves, who look for him every time he comes in to check on them. I am fascinated by his agility despite his obvious ailments, his strength, his dedication to the countryside and the animals; his generosity when he gives me the few eggs laid by some old hens or the sack of chestnuts that he chooses one by one from among the best.
A life in the countryside that is moving.
"He was a good and frank man, he knew his way around the countryside", goes the old saying. Gregorio was born during the war, did his military service in Madrid, in Cuatro Vientos, made tyres for bicycle wheels in Amsterdam, loaded coal trains in Bilbao, got married, had four children... And he raised cows. He raises cows, because at the age of 85 that is what he continues to do, ignoring his ailments, at his own pace in Caviedes, a village in Cantabria, which is what he always liked best. A life ploughes in his hands, in that right hand that he offers to the calf to lick in the picture on the right. The photographer María Morenés (Madrid, 2 September 1984) met Gregorio during the past lockdown. "I was struck by that isolation, that life so different and at the same time, at that moment, so similar to ours, which had been detained. What for us was a confined life for him was simply a life". His, chosen and fulfilled. So, she picked up the camera. In nine weeks, she photographed him on 12 different days. With each photograph she got closer and closer. The sullen man's gesture was loosening, his sullen words were softening. One day he said to her: "Come, let me show you the calves", and off they went. "Of all the photographs I took, I think this is one of the best," says Morenés. "Everything is in it, in that hand, so country, so rough, so worked, on the one hand, and in how the animal comes to it, on the other. Crudeness and tenderness.
After the confinement, Morenés took some of the images to Gregorio, one of which shows him with the bull he has to fertilise his cows, and of which he is particularly proud, in a modest frame. "I'll be damned...", was his response, opening wide blue eyes whose gaze is beginning to glaze over. A raw and tender way of thanking her. "He was a good and frank man...". Victor Rodríguez Arroyo. FUERA DE SERIE, October 2020.