My Father

It was the early morning of March 25, 1954, in the neighborhood of El Guinardó, in Barcelona, when my grandma Pietat was giving birth to her second child, Josep Lluís Navarro Martí, my father. He was born at home, something that certainly isn’t very common nowadays, and was considered a very healthy but also heavy baby, weighing almost five kg. Which was very strange, considering that neither of my grandparents were really big or hefty, they were more of a small size.

So, the day my father was born, he already became “different” from the rest of the family. And he would be, in the future, in a lot of other aspects, but it was something no one would know yet.

Four years before, my uncle Jordi had been born, and that amount of time made a big difference between the two brothers. Because when you’re a kid, that’s considered a lot of time to have lived, and it can change a lot of things too: interests, experiences, knowledge, or simply the things you like to do. So that’s why the two of them weren’t always close, even if they loved each other.

When my father was four, he started going to the neighborhood school, where he studied primary and secondary school. Baccalaureate at that time was something not all families could pay, so it was mostly reserved to the ones with more money. The school my father and uncle went to was simple and humble. There was only one teacher, and he was the one who taught all the subjects to the students. My father loved to study, and he was always the best student in class. School was his thing, that’s for sure!

But apart from studying he did lots of other things as a kid. He loved to play in the fields that were near the house. At that time, Barcelona was very different from the city we now know. It was full of mediterranean nature: mountains, fields, rivers… Also, he took care of little cats and all the other animals he could find, feeding and building them houses to live in. He and his friends played lots of games, like football, hide and seek, hopscotch…

So, after taking some admissions tests and getting one of the best grades in all Spain, my father started working as a bellboy at fifteen years old at the Banesto bank. He started studying at night and working at day, paying for his own studies.

At nineteen, when he was still working in the same bank, he began studying at the university and had graduated years later from two majors: economics and contemporary history. As well as english and french. And a lot of other courses. He finished studying at thirty two years old. Like I said before, studying was definitely his thing, and he was the best at it.

When he was twenty two, he started working at La Caixa bank as a member of the marketing department. He spent seventeen years there and had been working for twenty-five in both banks.

During that time (in both banks), once a year, he had (more or less) a month of vacation. And that was when he took the opportunity to do what he was most passionate about: traveling and seeing the world. He traveled all over Europe: London, Amsterdam, Helsinki, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Italy, France, Belgium… He traveled three times to Africa, crossed the Sahara desert, spent some weeks in the jungle of Palawan island (in Philippines), crossed all Turkey by bus until he reached Russia, traveled by car through Patagonia (from Bariloche to Tierra del Fuego), rode his BMW motorcycle from Barcelona to Nordkäp… He also went to New York, Puerto Rico, Mexico, North India, Sri Lanka… And he always enjoyed taking his camera with him.

So it was then, when he was thirty nine, that everything changed. He realized that the work he had was not for him. And that after every amazing, beautiful and intense trip he did, he had to return home and go back to an office to work on something he was never passionate about. He had to work for a whole year to be able to do, just for a month, what he really wanted to. And that was hurting him, physically and mentally. He was doing what the rest wanted him to, instead of what he wanted. He needed to be free and make his own choices. And so, he did. He quit his job, not even knowing what he wanted to do. And, even if he felt lost and scared, he just knew that he wanted to be happy, and that he was making the right choice.

And, step by step, his new life began. He was driven by his desire to help those most in need. As the dreamer he was (and still is), he dreamed about changing the world and making it different, better.

The first job he did as a volunteer was with the ONG Medicus Mundi Catalunya, to Cabo Verde. He had to make a report of the new laboratory network in the different islands. But when he came back  home, during some months he had a difficult time, because things weren’t always easy for him.

Luckily, at that difficult moment, his best friend Monica helped him and offered him to leave it all behind, and live with her in Los Angeles for a while, where she was residing.

When he arrived there, he met a lot of Monica’s friends, who were mexican. They helped and took care of him. And then, thanks to all of the people who loved him there, he finally started feeling happy and free.

Some time later, he asked them if they gave him permission to take some portraits. And when they said yes, he started taking photos. What he didn’t know, was that those pictures he was taking, would become his first serious and paid job as a photographer.

So, as he discovered his passion for photography, he studied for some months photography, technique, portraiture and lighting at the UCLA (University of California in Los Angeles), and at the University of Santa Cruz, and also studied photographic laboratory technique in a school in McArthur square, LA.

And so, he spent two years living in California surrounded by good people, friends, happiness, passion and freedom.

And when he got back from the United States, he published a report on the life of illegal Mexicans in Los Angeles in the El Periódico magazine. And they asked him to go back and do another report about the lives of the homeless in California, and so my father did, and he spent another two months working. And the second report got published too.

Some time later my father went to Cuba with an ONG to do some work. He fell in love with the place. And when he got back to Barcelona, an editor asked him if he could do a work about Cuba. He immediately said yes and went back there. He worked for a lot of time and published two books: es La Habana and la habana arquitectura del siglo XX.

Later on, he worked for a whole year taking the pictures of another book titled La voz del caimán, visiting the whole country and portraying and interviewing many Cubans with his best friend Renzo, a cuban man he met working there, and they became inseparable. One of the Cuban girls he took a picture of for the book is my mother, Yamilé. She worked at a little book stand on the street, and my father asked if he could take a photo of her for the book. And that’s how they met for the first time, in 1997. And I think their love story is very beautiful. They sent each other love letters and, in time, they fell in love, got married in 1998, moved together to Spain and I was born. Some years later, they got divorced. But all of that happened long after.

And it was at that moment (when he had published his first books) that his career finally took off. Many other editors hired him, and he did lots of different works and published lots of books. Currently, there are already over fifty.

He went to Sarajevo for four months to photograph the end of the war and its population (Sarajevo humano), also to Angola at war with Medicus Mundi, to Bangladesh, he traveled twice for six months to India, he worked on many architecture books in Barcelona for the city council (like Gaudí, La Sagrada Família or El parlament de Catalunya, El palau), published two books of Valencia (Valencia and Valencia, secreto a voces) and also the Mediterranean (La Mediterrània. 30 ciutats. Un sol mar), photographed The Alhambra in Granada (Es la Alhambra), the city of Medellín and architecture in Colombia (Medellín que estás en el cielo) (it was there, in Bogotá, where he met seven years ago a woman he really loves, the one he’s going to marry soon, Sandra), he travels to Burkina Faso almost every year to take pictures and visit african poor villages with an ONG called Aigua per al Sahel, that builds water wells in those villages that do not have access to water (Les veus de l’aigua)…

He has done plenty of things, taken probably billions of photos and traveled all over the world again and again. And I just know he’ll never get tired of it. Because he absolutely loves his job and is passionate about it.

He’s had a difficult time too because of Covid and not being able to travel and work outside of the country, but still, he always finds a way to do what he loves, and help everyone he’s able to. So for a few months he has been working with the Cáritas Catalunya association, taking photos all over Catalunya to reflect the reality of the lives of the poor and needy people that Caritas helps. He really is awesome.

And I’m just glad to have him as my father, I feel very lucky. He’s the best dad I could ever ask for. He has taught me to fight for my dreams and for what I want, and never give up. He has taught me to be passionate about life. To be sensible, good, patient, responsible, generous, hard working, helpful… I am who I am thanks to him. And I know I will always have him with me, by my side, helping me follow my dreams.