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Basque photographer Schommer (Vitoria, 1928) has presented the first ever exhibition of his works to look back over his entire career, comprising more than 100 works of art created over a 55-year-long professional career. Though the Alavan photographer practices "conventional photography" he insists he believes "in new photography and in all the fantastic technical methods that the human mind is creating for it".

The collection, which opens in the Basque city from 9th February until 16th May, is divided in three parts: First era, Urban landscapes and scenes and Experimentation and production, which cover the most important works of the artist from his first photos taken in his native Vitoria back in 1955 to the series Volumetric cascographs, produced in 2008.

The exhibition also includes a number of celebrity portraits of both Spanish and international personalities such as poets Gabriel Celaya, Rafael Alberti and José Hierro, painters like Salvador Dalí and Andy Warhol; architects, such as the Basque Country''s Eduardo Chillida, intellectuals like José Luis Aranguren and artists like the dancer Antonio.

During the opening of the exhibition, Schommer took the opportunity to define himself as "a person who wishes to create artwork for others, so that they may be satisfied with that work... I was a painter, half-architect, who made films and, in the end I realised, thanks to Irving Penn (US fashion and portrait photographer) that I had to be a photographer," he continued.

The commissioner of the exhibition, Alejandro Castellote, photography theorist and specialist in the works of Schommer, highlighted that the Basque photographer, in contrast to others who have "photographed the dark side of humanity, Schommer has always focused on humanity''s positive side as a hymn to the goodness of humans that has characterised his career."