She had managed to escape the spotlight and be the one to cast her gaze on others for more than four decades when suddenly this Wednesday the tables turned. All eyes present in the Lower House turned in the direction of Emilia Gutiérrez (born in Madrid “one spring in the 60s”), to whom Patxi López had just dedicated a few words of gratitude for her forty-year career. portraying current political events in the Congress of Deputies. And at that moment, the photojournalist burst into tears of emotion for this well-deserved recognition of hers during her last plenary session before her retirement.
A versatile photographer for La Vanguardia, with references such as Joana Biarnés and Marisa Florez, Gutiérrez came to the chamber when Felipe González was in charge of the Government in 1986. And it is impossible to tell History (thus, with the literary license of writing it with a capital letter). without also counting the fundamental role played, precisely, by those who have been there to narrate it. Making history with it too, especially when it is a woman who has stood out with a very extensive and impeccable career in an area that had been practically taken over by men.
You have been asked a lot these days about your parliamentary experience, but I would like to know a little more about who you are and how you became a photojournalist, because you were probably one of the first in the Transition, right?
Well, no. When I entered, Marisa Florez and Queca Campillo were already there, who were then established photographers and who opened the way for me, and then Begoña Rivas also arrived, although it is true that there were very few of us.
And how did you end up dedicating yourself to this?
I have to thank the journalist Margarita Sáenz-Díez, who was the one who got me into the world of journalism and introduced me to her husband, Enric Sopena. I started in the Diari de Barcelona and the Periódico de Catalunya, also La Vanguardia, but I didn't think it was something that would last me so long. I had taken a photography course and, at first, I took my camera and went to the demonstrations to take photos, to hit the streets and then I tried to sell them.
You have thousands of photographs, I have seen that you covered the protests over the racist murder of Lucrecia Pérez, for example, or that you photographed music stars like Eric Burdon and Elton John, although that part of you is less known. You have stayed with that more parliamentary profile.
Yes, yes, that was a long time ago, but I have done everything: sports, shows, concerts... I got to photograph Michael Jackson. His bodyguard, who was four meters wide by three meters high, took me as if I were a folder and put me in front of everyone there, because with so much man and so much pushing, I had been last. But he put me first and thanks to him I was able to take that photo.
How have you experienced being a woman in this world?
It has been very complicated. When you were going to do information, you left the camera on the ground and when you came back to take the photos, they had already taken the film from you. You were an intruder. I remember once, with the Spanish Basketball Team, that they had to say: “Let the girl take a photo now,” because it was all pushing. That day I arrived at the laboratory crying, because I didn't even know if I had a photo of the pushes that those standing men gave me.
How could you compose yourself in the face of that?
Well, turning his nose at him, saying: “Here I am and these people can't beat me.” The harder they make it for me, the more character I get. There were very few women who went down to the sand, we had to work with elbows, and there I was usually alone.
Did those things happen to you many times?
Yes, look, in a Barça-Rayo Vallecano game, I was with a folding chair, because we were almost on the line, they hit me with a ball and threw me back. And at one point when I went to change fields to cover Barcelona's attack, the entire stands started yelling at me, everyone: "You son of a bitch, they should have hit you in the pussy." I said: “No, please, please, I have to hold my head high.” And in the end I had to go directly to take the photos, because my legs were shaking. I would have been in my twenties.
And what was it like being a photographer in Congress?
Well anyway, I don't have that physique that men have, so in the end I tried to take the photo from another side, sneak in as best I could...
And do you think your photographic perspective has been different from that of men?
I think so, because while in a demonstration they are hoping that there will be fights between the police and the protesters, I am hoping that everything will be calm and that nothing will happen.
What details do you pay attention to when taking a photo?
In press conferences, for example, in the look and gestures, which also helps you know if you are lying or not. What is very important for a photojournalist is to be informed of what he is going to cover.
Patxi López quoted you the other day saying that “when a woman takes a good photo, they say it's a pretty photo, but when a man takes it, they say it's a photon.”
The thing is that no-nonsense photos are taken every day, there are very few photons. But there are men who have a lot of ego and with two photos they take, it already seems to them that one of them is a photon. Then you have the same one, or even better, and they tell you that yes, she is pretty. There has been progress with feminism, but there are still many micro-machismos, although they are now better camouflaged.
That is why it is very important to make professional photographers like you visible.
Yes, we have always been invisible, totally invisible to the media and to everyone. Patxi López's gesture the other day was very important not only for me, but for making our work visible in general.
You have lived through many different governments and portrayed many men. How did you experience the fact that little by little there were finally more and more women in politics to photograph?
With great enthusiasm, with great enthusiasm. And more because I have a daughter and I don't want her to be in a society like that. As a photographer, it makes me very angry that women in politics are criticized more for what they wear or whether or not they go to the hairdresser. A minister can be a woman, she can be sexy, she can be feminine and you have to portray her the same way you portray a man. They are not criticized for those things. But I believe that in the end Congress is a bit like the schoolyard, like the society that is outside the Chamber.
Is there a photo that you would be especially excited for us to include in this article?
I don't have any preference, although well... One that I do like a lot and that at the time I would have liked to give to her is the one I took of Carme Chacón going down the side of the PP bench pregnant with everyone caressing her tummy and saying sweethearts. I would like to have given that photo to his son.
