Gabriel Cualladó was the first. Then came Humberto Rivas, Rafael Navarro, Chema Madoz, Joan Fontcuberta, Cristina García Rodero, Alberto García-Alix, Manel Esclusa and Manolo Laguillo. Nine photographers who formed the initial core of the Alcobendas Photography Collection, whose original name was Genres and Trends at the Dawn of the 21st Century.

It was no coincidence. Each one represented a different way of understanding photography. Some looked at everyday life with tenderness, others experimented with forms, some questioned whether photography could lie, others documented rituals that were disappearing. There were those who portrayed Madrid's nightlife, those who turned simple objects into visual poetry, those who photographed factories and cities in transformation.

The idea was not to build a homogeneous collection where everything looked similar. Quite the opposite. It was about showing that at that moment Spanish photography was a vast territory, full of different voices speaking about different things and with their own languages.

These first acquisitions meant something important: art photography ceased to be something exclusive to galleries or private collectors. It became something for everyone. Anyone could come to see them, enjoy them, be surprised by them. And the success of the first acquisitions is evident, as works by the same authors have been acquired recently, confirming their continued relevance.

In the end, building this collection was not just about gathering quality works. It was about betting on something bigger: that photography is a way of thinking, of looking, of understanding the world, and that we should all have the opportunity to approach it.