Fernando Santos & Víctor Nicolás (Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic)
If you check any fashion magazine in the Dominican Republic, it wouldn’t be any surprise if you run into a fashion spread made by Fernando & Víctor, two young professional photographers who are rapidly becoming an icon in the fashion industry.
Fernando Santos (24) and Víctor Nicolás (27) met 7 years ago in Santo Domingo. Both of them started to study Advertising. Even though Víctor graduated in 2005, they both realized that pitching ads and creating commercial slogans wasn’t their passion.
In 2006, Fernando dropped out from school and decided to go to Barcelona to start taking classes of professional photography. A year later, he moved to Buenos Aires, Argentina, with Victor where they took fashion photography classes, as well as advertising photography, styling and fashion.
Arlenis Sosa (c) 2009 - Photography by Fernando & Víctor
(c) 2010 - Photography by Fernando & Víctor
Fernando & Víctor started frequenting back home, impressed by the rapid evolution of the local fashion industry and were able to do at least 5 editorials in Dominican magazines, while still living in Buenos Aires. In December 2008, they decided to move back to Santo Domingo, after concluding their studies and learned everything Argentina could offer.
They didn’t wait long to be embraced by the fashion industry and started working in most of the Dominican fashion magazines, and to have their name heard all over the society. “I wasn’t expecting the Dominican audience to receive us as well as they did” -Fernando says- “It’s amazing to see how much the fashion has grown here, and I believe it has because Dominican Republic rapidly became a nest for new models, people started to pay attention to editorials and started to appreciate a little more the local industry.”
One of the reasons they have achieved success could be their completely different point of view towards style and art. When they merge both perspectives, they create a new one that is in fact liked by a wider audience.
(c) 2010 - Photography by Fernando & Víctor
(c) 2010 - Photography by Fernando & Víctor
(c) 2010 - Photography by Fernando & Víctor
As for the future, they know fashion photography will more likely to expand, even though print media is getting budget cuts, losing staff and closing some of them. Perhaps the future is online media, where they could express themselves without that much editorial censorship and enhanced with audiovisual material.
Also, the duo is starting to consider to move to a fashion capital (such as New York City), a place where they could live from fashion and get inspired by what’s happening in the world. “The goal is to work someplace else, without forgetting our personal mission to improve the industry in the Dominican Republic”, explains Victor.
(c) 2010 - Photography by Fernando & Víctor
(c) 2010 - Photography by Fernando & Víctor
