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David Schonauer

Latin American Fotografia Spotlight: Brett Nadal's "Strong Babies"

By David Schonauer   Wednesday August 21, 2013

In 2011, the City of Milwaukee, WI, approached photographer Brett Nadal about shooting an advertising print campaign to make people aware of ways to better nourish infants. Public-service ads are often earnest and boring, but the concept behind Milwaukee's "Strong Babies" campaign was anything but that: Nadal was asked to create images showing local children performing acts of impossible strength. "I couldn't turn down …   Read the full Story >>

Latin American Fotografia Spotlight: Kenji Arimura

By David Schonauer   Wednesday August 14, 2013

Every other year, a different Brazilian city hosts the Indigenous Games, a weeklong event in which people from ethnic groups across the country compete in sports like archery, football, swimming, spear throwing, and canoeing. In 2011, a thousand indigenous athletes came to Porto Nacional to participate; Brazilian photographer Kenji Arimura came as well, to document the games in black and white for a personal …   Read the full Story >>

Latin American Fotografia Spotlight: Kathy T. Hettinga

By David Schonauer   Tuesday August 6, 2013

The Chiquinquira Cemetery in Colombia sits on a hill covered with lush green grass and is filled with what photographer Kathy T. Hettinga calls "the most lovely and incredible markers and monuments." The colorful gravestones are reminders of a far less serene history. "In the towns of Girn, Barichara, and Morales, nearly every family has been touched by the ongoing war between conservative and …   Read the full Story >>

Latin American Fotographia 1 Spotlight: Kike Arnal

By David Schonauer   Tuesday July 30, 2013

Venezuela-born photographer Kike Arnal first visited the remote Choco region of Colombia in the 1990s and was fascinated to find a people of Africa descent living there; it wasn't until 2009, while working for an NGO, that Arnal returned to document the Choco inhabitants eking out a living by mining for gold in the forbidding jungle. Since then, the photographer has made a number …   Read the full Story >>

Latin American Fotographia Spotlight: Kike Calvo

By David Schonauer   Tuesday July 23, 2013

Freelance photographer Kike Calvo's fascination with dance began when he was asked to shoot an advertising campaign for the National Ballet of Panama. "Their main goal was to create interest in ballet among younger generations and among those who are not familiar with it--which included me at the time," Calvo explains. Born in Spain, Calvo has transformed his fascination with Latin America into a …   Read the full Story >>

DFLA Spotlight: Illustrator Carla Torres's "Larry and Friends"

KICKSTARTER   Wednesday July 17, 2013

Carla Torres is a talented Ecuadorian illustrator living in New York City who has created a book called Larry and Friends that tells the story of a group of friends from around the world who have relocated … to New York City. It’s a tale of diversity and adventure as seen through eyes of some particularly charming characters, all of who happen to be animals. Torres, a past winner of the American Illustration and Latin American Ilustración competitions, is currently crowdfunding the book project via a Kickstarter. She hopes to raise $10,000 to cover the costs of printing and other expenses by August 3. “It is a unique collection of life stories in New York, the city of tolerance where everybody is welcome,” Torres says of her project. Brilliant!   Read the full Story >>

Latin American Fotografia Spotlight: Tigre Escobar

By David Schonauer   Tuesday July 16, 2013

Born in Bogota, Colombia, fashion photographer Tigre Escobar has shot for magazines like Marie Claire, InStyle, and Nylon, and this month his latest work appears in Vogue Latin America. It was, however, an advertising job that earned Escobar a spot among the winners of the first annual Latin American Fotografia competition: To introduce a new fashion line from designer Esteban Cortazar for the Latin …   Read the full Story >>

Latin American Ilustracion Spotlight: Carolina Amaya

By David Schonauer   Tuesday July 9, 2013

"I love to love. I love to hate. I love being thrown into the world. I love contradiction. I love balance. I love that there is time, and know that I haven't taken advantage of it. And I love my job," says Carolina Amaya. The Bogota, Colombia-based artist's passion for her work is certainly apparent in her Latin American Ilustracion-winning series "Eyes Many Eyes, …   Read the full Story >>

Latin America Ilustracion Spotlight: Vlad Alvarez

By David Schonauer   Tuesday July 2, 2013

Today we spotlight illustrator Vlad Alvarez, named a winner of the Latin American Ilustracion 1 competition for work on done on assignment for American Lawyer magazine. Alvarez, who was born in El Salvador and is currently in based in West Chester, Pennsylvania, was assigned to create art for an essay arguing that law firms should nurture talent and promote from within their ranks rather …   Read the full Story >>

Latin American Ilustracion Spotlight: Catalina Silva

By David Schonauer   Wednesday June 26, 2013

"While I'm working on an illustration, I am completely focused on it and very driven and active," says Chilean illustrator Catalina Silva Guzman. "But at other times, you might see me, and it would seem like I'm not doing anything, because I don't lift even a pencil. But inside I am in a boiling creative process." Silva was named a winner of the first-annual …   Read the full Story >>

Latin American Ilustracion Spotlight: Leandro Souza

By David Schonauer   Tuesday June 18, 2013

Leandro Souza, whose digital self-portrait was named a winner of the Latin American Ilustracion 1 competition, was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in 1974 and grew up loving nature and music. He also enjoyed studying physics and geometry and eventually earned a degree in economics, after which he worked for nearly a decade at the Brazilian Stock Exchange (Bovespa). Then, he says, he quit …   Read the full Story >>

Latin American Fotografia Spotlight: Gabriel Rinaldi

By David Schonauer   Tuesday June 11, 2013

In 2011, the Brazilian magazine Trip assigned photographer Gabriel Rinaldi to create a portrait of Ze Celso, the famed theatre director noted for his ideas about sexual diversity. "When the magazine called me, the designers had the idea of using a woman's hands, photographed to look as if they belonged to Ze Celso," explains Rinaldi, who added a few ideas of his own and …   Read the full Story >>

Latin American Ilustracion Spotlight: Pia Jimenez

By David Schonauer   Tuesday June 4, 2013

Costa Rican illustrator and graphic designer Pia Jimnez says she has loved creating figurative line drawings for as long as she can remember--her early influences being her grandfather's childhood storybooks filled with illustrations by Arthur Rackham, as well as vintage Mickey Mouse cartoons, which she pored over on rainy days. "And there are a lot of rainy days in Costa Rica," she adds. Last …   Read the full Story >>

Latin American Fotografia Winner Spotlight: Claudio Ruiz

By David Schonauer   Tuesday May 28, 2013

It was 9:35 pm, and Claudio Ruiz Burgos, an art director at the Leo Burnett ad agency in Santiago, Chile, was riding home from work in the subway. Alone in his car except for a young couple, Ruiz, who calls himself a graphic designer by profession and a photographer by accident, was exiting the train at his destination when he sensed something and turned …   Read the full Story >>

Latin American Ilustracion Winner Spotlight: Kiko Rodriguez

By David Schonauer   Wednesday May 22, 2013

Born in Cuba and now living in Quito, Ecuador, designer and illustrator Kiko Rodriguez says he "felt driven" to create his LAI-winning caricature of the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. "The idea came to me in 2010, when Chavez was still at the peak of his power," says Rodriguez. "I did it from a sense of duty. The illustration has strong and aggressive style. …   Read the full Story >>

Latin American Ilustracion Spotlight: Gabriella D'Alessandro

By David Schonauer   Wednesday May 15, 2013

A day at the park has inspired many an artist, including Gabriella D'Alessandro, a Dominican illustrator now living in Brooklyn, New York. Excitedly anticipating the end of a cold winter, she created a self-promotional postcard featuring two young women enjoying sunny splendor on parkland grass. "I took the concept further by covering them with what appear to be flowers at a first glance, but …   Read the full Story >>

Latin America Fotografia Spotlight: Roberto Falck

By David Schonauer   Wednesday May 8, 2013

Brooklyn, New York-based Roberto Falck has recently been making a name for himself by shooting high-end destination wedding photography. But his photographic interests are considerably wider, both in creative and geographic scope: He has photographed in Jordan, Argentina, Mexico, and Brazil, and extensively in his native Ecuador. It was in central Bolivia, in the village of Candelaria, that Falck came across an Easter ritual …   Read the full Story >>

Latin American Fotografia Spotlight: Ana Adarve

By David Schonauer   Friday April 26, 2013

From 2008 to 2011, Colombian photographer Ana Advare, one of the winners of the first annual Latin America Fotografa competition, prowled the border areas between northeastern Mexico and Texas, exploring what she calls the "hybrid identity" of this frontier. The results of Adarve's photographic inquiry was "Northernmost," a two-part project consisting of documentary work and digitally-constructed fine-art images that reveal the illusory nature of …   Read the full Story >>

Spotlight: Latin American Ilustracion Winner Diego Terros

By David Schonauer   Sunday April 21, 2013

We continue our series featuring winners of the first annual Latin American Ilustracion and Latin American Fotografia competitions, this week spotlighting Brooklyn, NY-based illustrator Diego Terros. Born in Tarrytown, NY, Terros relocated with his Colombian parents to their native country, where he was raised until the age of 10. The family later moved to New York City. Terros, who studied at the Pratt Institute …   Read the full Story >>

Spotlight: Latin American Fotografia Winner Livia Corona

By David Schonauer   Wednesday April 17, 2013

Dispatches from Latin America continues its series on winners of the first annual Latin American Fotografia and Latin American Ilustracion competitions, this week spotlighting Mexican-born photographer Livia Corona. Currently living in New York City, Corona is the recipient of an SNCA endowment for the arts, granted by Mexico's Commission of Arts and Culture, and is working on a groundbreaking project called "Two Million Homes …   Read the full Story >>

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