Eduardo Almeida is a commercial photographer based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, who specializes in food imagery and portraits for businesses. But he also loves working on personal documentary projects. In 2013, he happened to get in touch with an old high school friend he hadn't seen in years - an MMA fighter. Though not a fan of the sport Almeida was intrigued by … Read the full Story >>
The city of Holambra, in Brazil's Sao Paulo state, was founded by Dutch Catholic immigrants in 1948 and now is considered the flower capital of the country, as well as a popular destination for tourists. Marcela Badolatto's illustration "Holambra em Flores," a winner of the Latin American Fotografia 4 competition, was created as part of an illustrated products collection and as advertising for Holambra … Read the full Story >>
The sea is full of strange creatures. But William Kass's "Eggplant Orca" is truly unique. Kass, an artist living in Sao Paulo, Brazil, has made a name for himself by playing with food: He creates and photographs miniature scenes using fruits, vegetables and other edibles as well as figurines he finds. One of his images -- showing two scuba divers surprised by the appearance … Read the full Story >>
"I photograph dogs to better understand humans," says Sophie Gamand. A French photographer and animal advocate based in New York City, Gamand has created a number of projects exploring the connection between canines and mankind, including a series portraying pit bulls wearing crowns of flowers. Another series, titled "Xolotl, The Soul Companion," is an homage to Xoloitzcuintli, Mexico's national dog - and a winner … Read the full Story >>
In 2015, Chicago-based illustrator Nargol Arefi challenged herself to paint with her non-dominant hand for 100 days, in part as a way to achieve a naiveness in her work. One of the pieces she created this way was a portrait on Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, who she first learned of while growing up in Iran and watching the 2002 film "Frida," starring actress Salma … Read the full Story >>
Success doesn't always come the first time around: In 2015, Chilean-born artist Tomas Ives was asked to create a branding illustration for the Mas Deco Market design fair in Santiago. His initial idea was to use collage to transform a photograph of the home of Chile's government into a pre-Hispanic temple of human sacrifices. The artwork was rejected by the event's organizers, but Ives … Read the full Story >>
Futbol is a recurring theme in Oscar Correa's work: The Colombian illustrator was named a winner of the Latin American Ilustracion 2 competition after creating a poster for a short film called "Cristiano Ronaldo Most Vain, May 2012." Another Correa series focused on several famous soccer players, including Maradona, Pele and Zinedine Zidane. His illustration of Colombian soccer phenom James Rodriguez, made for a … Read the full Story >>
New York-based wedding photographer Roberto Falck has over the years worked on a continuing personal project that focuses on indigenous peoples around the world. It was in Papua New Guinea that he photographed members of the Simbu tribe, whose tradition of painting their bodies with a skeleton design using ash and clay ignited his imagination. He went on to create a series of striking … Read the full Story >>
Recently, photographer Saul Martinez uploaded memorable images to the Everyday Latin American Instagram feed documenting the exhumation of remains of children in Guatemala City’s largest public cemetery after family members failed to pay the fee to renew the burial plot. One of the images shows a grave site on the verge of collapsing into Guatemala City's garbage dump. Some 4,000 remains are dumped into a mass grave each year, notes Martinez, whose series on the exhumations is titled “Forgotten Children.” Read the full Story >>
Originally from Sao Paulo, Brazil, illustrator Alvaro Naddeo has also lived in Lima, Peru, and New York City and Los Angeles, which is his current home. "These urban environments have shaped my memory and permeate most of my work," he says. His series of paintings titled "Another Life," named a winner of the Latin American Ilustracion 4 competition, tell the story of a man … Read the full Story >>
The traveling “Los Diez” exhibition featuring work from the Latin American Fotografía 4 and Latin American Ilustración 4 competitions will be on view at the CasaTinta art space in Bogotá Colombia from February 11 to March 11, 2016. Admission is free. CasaTinta, which opened in 2012, features workshops, lectures and other events centered on illustration and graphic arts. The “Los Diez” exhibition is sponsored by Epson. For more, see the “Los Diez” event link at Facebook. Read the full Story >>
"For as long as I can remember, I've woven stories into being using pencil and paper," says Alexandra Beguez, who's nonfiction comic book "Los Conejos De Carmen" is a winner of the Latin American Ilustracion 4 competition. The project is based on stories that Beguez heard as a child from her mother, aunt, uncle and their friends about living in pre-revolution and post-revolution Cuba. … Read the full Story >>
Sometimes the only way to create a photo is to get messy. To illustrate a story for the Brazilian magazine Vida Simples about learning to cook, photographer Tomas Arthuzzi had to capture a scene of chaos. "They came to me with the idea of a girl trying to cook and making a mess, but getting a great result anyway," says Arthuzzi, who ended up … Read the full Story >>
The AI-AP “Los Diez” exhibition of selected work from the Latin American Ilustracion 4 and Latin American Fotgrafia 4 competitions continues to make news around the world. Recently, the Italian magazine Internazionale featured work from the exhibition, noting that AI-AP has been a point of reference for people in the publishing and photo industries for some 34 years. The exhibition, sponsored by Epson, travels to several venues in 2016, including Casatinta in Bogota, Colombia; Escuela Motivarte in Buenos Aires, Argentina; Galeria Epson in Brazil; and, finally, to the Photoville festival in Brooklyn, New York. Read the full Story >>
Luis Cisneros is a freelance illustrator based in Toronto, Canada, but he grew up in Mexico in what he calls "a typical conservative Mexican Catholic family." That's one reason he decided to create his illustration "La Imagen de La Virgen de Guadalupe," a tribute to the venerated image the Virgin of Guadalupe enshrined in the Minor Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mxico … Read the full Story >>
Victor Enrich spent ten years working as a freelance 3D architectural illustrator. The part of the job he liked best was photographing buildings in various far-flung locations, so in 2007, with some money saved up, he decided to take off on a short trip. It ended up lasting seven years, during which Enrich lived everywhere from Riga, Latvia, to Tel Aviv, Israel, where he … Read the full Story >>
When we last heard from Elena Wen, a winner of the Latin American Ilustracion 2 and 3 competitions, she was establishing a new textile studio in Brooklyn, New York, creating fabrics based on her own hand-drawn patterns. Wen, who was born in Taiwan and raised in Costa Rica, says her business, called De Islas, is growing, even as she creates new designs. One of … Read the full Story >>
"Most consider dreams to be pure fiction, fabrications of our mind. However, in his research Freud found that dreams are based on our day to day encounters," notes Los Angeles-based visual artist Alejandro Medina, whose series "Eternidad Momentnea" ("Momentary Eternity") explores some of the recurring elements of his own dreams over a period of two years. One of his images, a depiction of tree … Read the full Story >>
When Colombian illustrator and graphic designer Adriana Matallana was assigned to create the artwork for the book "Colombia con todas sue letras," she had an entire alphabet with which to describe her country. The book turns Colombia's most common and well known people, places and objects into vivid visual treats, from A (for acordeon) and B (for Bogota) to F (for frijol) and N … Read the full Story >>
In 2014, Nadja Massun, a photographer based in Mexico, traveled to La Paz, Bolivia, for the first time. Having grown up in Peru, she was eager to experience the sights, sounds and smells of South America again."I felt that I was in a city frozen in time. I wanted to capture that," she says. "La Paz is the most indigenous and at the same … Read the full Story >>
