Life & Light Through the Lens of Daniel Montaño

Life has taken Belen-based photographer Daniel Montaño down many paths, but he always knew he’d end up in the arts, most likely as a musician, he thought, but reconnecting with his lifelong fascination for light is what ignited his passion for photography.

“Photography is capturing light; that’s all it is,” said Montaño. “The way light and shadow play with each other, I think that’s what I like to capture most in my photography.”

Montaño was born and raised in Las Vegas, N.M., and later moved to Belen in the late 1990s with his wife.

“I never imagined myself living in Belen, but this is where I found my photography, so I think I belong here for some odd reason,” he said.

In college, Montaño studied mass communication and graphic design. During which, he was also a firefighter with the U.S. Forest Service and he later owned and operated his own forestry company.

“I ended up getting out of that business, and that’s around the time when drones started to be a big thing, so I bought my first drone and I was one of the first ones in New Mexico to actually have a commercial drone license,” he said.

Eventually, his drone expertise led to his involvement in the film industry for work in documentaries, which began to pique his interest again in the arts.

In 2020, he contributed to a photo exhibition curated by Megan Malcom-Morgan, of The GRID Gallery in Belen, which he credited as what got him started on his journey of photography again.

Montaño enjoys photographing a wide variety of subjects, and one of the things he finds intriguing about the craft is how one is able to capture and preserve a small, precise moment in time. He now takes a camera with him wherever he goes, utilizing both digital and film.

“There was a point in time where it was just all digital but, this year, I started getting into film,” he said. “There was a time before that though, when I kind of lost interest in (photography). I don’t know why, but I think film photography kind of got me back into the whole thing and got me inspired again.”

Montaño said what he appreciates about film photography is that it slows the whole process down and allows him to put more emphasis on the intent of the photograph.

“It makes me think about everything involved, like composition, what the subject matter is and how am I going to highlight it,” he said. “When I’m doing digital it’s just like, snap! snap! snap! As quick as I can do the shutter sometimes, so it makes me think about the whole process, and it’s very relaxing doing film because it just slows everything down.”

Montaño is inspired by the old black and white masters of the past, such as Ansel Adams, so he’s also got a soft spot for black and white photography.

“When you have color in a photograph, it can sometimes distract from the feeling of the photograph and the emotions of the subject,” he said. “I mean, I love color photography, especially now with film because I like the way the old cameras capture color, but black and white doesn’t distract. I don’t know if it’s nostalgia maybe, but I’m just drawn to that old school look and the contrast of black and white photography.”

Nostalgia also plays a significant role in an ongoing series he is working on called ‘The Town Time Forgot’ dedicated to his hometown of Las Vegas.

“I want to get images of what I remember from the town of my childhood and share that with everybody,” he said. “A lot of it will be architectural photography of the buildings and just places and little things I remember about the town and things that a lot of people don’t know about the town.”

Some of his favorite subjects to photograph include landscapes and street photography but “pretty much anything that I can shoot with my camera, I’ll take a picture of. I just enjoy doing it all, but I think I want to focus on portrait photography for a little while.”

Montaño has a whole series coming up dedicated to portraits inspired by the people he’s met through his work as a court-appointed guardian and guardian coordinator. In the meantime, he enjoys shooting headshots and portraits, often marking important milestones in people’s lives.

When it comes to his portrait sessions, Montaño likes talking to the subject and getting to know them, which, in turn, also helps them to relax for a better photo.

“You always want to focus on the eyes,” he said. “If anything else is blurry, just make sure that those eyes are super clear and sharp, because that’s the person there in the eyes.”

When asked what makes a great photo, Montaño emphasized the clear signaling of a subject.

“I know it’s a good photograph when my eye is not all over the place and you know exactly where you should be looking,” he said. “That’s every aspect of photography combined to make that subject stand out. Whether it’s the lighting, leading lines or your composition, it all comes into play in a good photograph.”

PHOTOS: The Lens of Daniel Montaño

While Montaño has photographed grandeur sights, such as epic landscapes and stunning lightning strikes, he emphasized that capturing the extraordinary even in the most ordinary of places is a big source of inspiration for him, and he maintains that opportunities to capture compelling photos can be found everywhere.

“Everything is photo worthy,” said Montaño. “I’ve taken pictures of the way that light falls on a newspaper sitting on my counter in the morning, or of the bubbles while I’m doing dishes. Sometimes you don’t think twice about these things, and I think it kind of slows the world down a little bit when you are able to think in that way — that everything is worth taking a second look.”

To see more of Montaño’s work, visit his website danielomontano.shootproof.com and his Instagram, danielomontano_photo.