I live here

Edward Cowley had a happy childhood, which he spent somewhere in England during the 1880s:
the family owned a lucrative brewery "Cowley & Cowley", managed by his father and his uncle.

Curiously, the brewery was located in a town called Bootle, near to Liverpool.


At first the young Edward joined the familiar business, circa 1895, helping to bottle the brew, which was distributed all over the bars and restaurants of the Lancasire

they used a cart hauled by big Neapolitan dogs to distribute the bottles of beer, often driven by the young Edward

notwithstanding this affable regularity, the dogs got mad one afternoon for mysterious reasons, and ran out of control to the shores of the Mérsey river, jumping in the waters, and hauling cart, Edward and bottles with them.


After this incident, Edward decided to abandon the familiar business, attracted by a technological novelty called daguerreotype, dispositive that captured images in paper

investing a small fortune that he amassed during his work in the brewery, Edward purchased a very complete set, imported from Hendaye, France: camera, spot lights fed with benzine, and background curtains

finally, he rented a small studio, choosing deliberately the most irregular municipality of England: Cantórbery, a medieval ville devastated by the lycanthropy.



His first professional photograph was outdoors, though
it portrayed a Holando-Argentine cow: in the image, the bovine appeared with melancholic gesture, with the city of Nóttingham full of smoke as background.

This portrait would be known later as "The cow of Cowley", first photograph of a cow in the English Isles.



In spite of his abilities and talent as photographer, the business of Edward Cowley was a complete ruin, because nobody wanted to be photographed in Great Britain back then, fearing to lose their souls, or cerebrum, that would get caught in the paper, and fearing the camera, which was enormous and looked like an electric chair or a witch.


Due these circumstances, and the superstitious mentality of the population, Cowley decided to dedicate his efforts to the artistic photography

he traveled all over England, taking churrigueresque images, that were conveniently edited in his studio, by means of a complicated technique called frou-frou, using ultra-thin brushes, Ybarra oil, Gillettes, Voligoma and marcadores Sylvapen.


Cowley portrayed many buildings, churches and cathedrals especially

thanks to his revolutionary technique, the simulated images made the churches appear in extravagant ways, for example under the sea, settled on the Moon, or flying stuck to space ships with the British flag in flames

Cowley created the concept of ufology in Europe in the year 1900, discipline that was completely unknown

this caused a great sensation, ardently promoted by sensationalist newspapers like 'The Flabbergast', of Glastónbery, or 'The Patrioteer Journal' of Súrrey.


Such commotion made the Victorian authorities distrust, and Cowley was arrested, and thrown in jail, the charges were: "Atheism, promiscuiti [sic] and promotion of anti-English ideas".

His oeuvre was officially classified as "Dishonest, worthless and degenerate trash" by the Queen Victoria in person, through a radiotelegraphic speech -the first in its type in the Universe-.
The speech was received the 20th of December of 1900 at 11:05 PM by an estimated audience of 18 people in the United Kingdom, 3 in France and 1 in Catalonia, through radio a galena.


Fortunately Cowley is released two months later, the first of January of 1901, dedicating his efforts to a moderate artistic photography ever since: no more churches were portrayed.

Through the rest of the decade, and the 1910s, 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s, Edward Cowley created an enormous quantity of surreal portraits, which granted him the nickname of "The Dalí of the Photography", notwithstanding, his mind was getting more and more absorbed by the camera and the long sessions of edition, hour after hour.


The day 32 of December of 1959, in a sunny morning, the housemaid opened the door of the studio to cook and do the cleaning
Edward Cowley was not there, she called out his name but only the echo of her own voice replied

the small room to develop the negatives was empty, same as the kitchen, and the room were Cowley slept

she finally went to the main studio, which was used to edit the photographs: it was empty, too

perplexed, the housemaid stayed in the middle of the room, lost and confused






on a shelf behind her, with the unequivocal appearance of the consciousness, Edward Cowley observed the woman from a framed photograph taken that very morning.

"I live here."