Winter into Spring

by Oliver Muñoz

  • Photo Essay
decorative header image from Volume VIII Issue 1 · Spring 2022

For Oliver Muñoz, photography is a therapeutic pastime that challenges him to try to capture through a lens what he likes best about nature. In an act of conscious reflection on the gift of sight, Muñoz also uses the photos he takes to honor the 460 people who lost their sight to rubber bullets during his home country’s recent protests. He sees Chile’s social movement intersecting with art and music in that he considers them all to be expressions of social justice, beauty, and the human spirit.

Originally a city boy, Muñoz considers himself fortunate to have walked through Iowa’s hilly landscapes. He has been moved by the diverse world of plants and animals he has found there, and by the beauty of the prairie and the changing of the four seasons (much like Vivaldi, another composer he admires). In this collection of photos, he focuses on tableaux—such as waterfowl surrounded with snow and ice on a frozen lake, or the happy accident of hoarfrost creating flower-shapes on a bare stem—through which he traces the re-emergence of life, taking the viewer from the stillness of deep midwinter into the gradual awakening that creeps over and, ultimately, transforms the prairie landscape. Rootstalk leaf-bug icon marking the end of the article's text.

“For Oliver Muñoz, photography is a therapeutic pastime that challenges him to try to capture through a lens what he likes best about nature.”
“…Muñoz considers himself fortunate to have walked through Iowa’s hilly landscapes. He has been moved by the diverse world of plants and animals he has found there, and by the beauty of the prairie and the changing of the four seasons…”
“[Muñoz] remembers the words of Gustav Mahler, who composed his majestic 5th Symphony in a little cottage in rural Austria: ‘My music is nothing more than a rumor of nature.’”
About Photographer Oliver Muñoz
Portrait image of Photographer Oliver Muñoz.
All photos courtesy of Oliver Muñoz
Oliver Muñoz is a classical violist who was born in the mining city of Rancagua, Chile, later settling in Santiago to follow his dream of being a musician in the big capital city by the Andes. Muñoz left Santiago with his American wife to live in Chicago in 2016, embarking on an adventure he never imagined when he was growing up. He has spent many joyful hours photographing Iowa’s natural spaces and, like many musicians, has found inspiration in his relationship with music through explorations in nature. He remembers the words of Gustav Mahler, who composed his majestic 5th symphony in a little cottage in rural Austria: “My music is nothing more than a rumor of nature.” Across the ocean, Antonín Dvořák found inspiration for his String Quartet No. 12, nicknamed the “American Quartet,” from his natural surroundings when he worked in Spillville, Iowa, for a summer.