David Schonauer
socialdocumentary.net Wednesday November 26, 2014
Last summer, New York-based documentary photographer Diana Bejarano visited the Brazilian city of Salvador da Bahia, a place, she notes, of
“aggressive social contrasts.” The exclusive neighborhood of Vitoria is home of modern residential buildings and hotels with majestic views of the bay. In the middle of it, however, is
Vila Brandão, a low-income community whose residents, lacking any legal status, have faced threats of eviction but nonetheless endured and even thrived. “Vila Brandão stands as a
symbol of resistance; it’s an example of how to empower individuals and communities,” says Bejarano, a winner of the Latin American Fotografía 2 contest. See her new work at Social
Documentary Network. Read the full Story >>
By David Schonauer Monday November 24, 2014
This week we begin spotlighting winners of the Latin American Fotografia 3 and Latin American Ilustracion 3 competitions, starting with Brazilian artist Nik Nevis, who was also a winner of LAI 1 and
LAI 2. This time Neves entered the cover he designed for the book "Juvenilia" -- a collection of early stories by English writers Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte being brought out … Read the full Story >>
By David Schonauer Wednesday November 12, 2014
Earlier this year, we looked at a Latin American Fotografia-winning image by photographer Lianne Milton that described, in a brutal way, the violence that is part of daily life in Guatemala. In that
photo, Milton, an American journalist who lives in Rio de Janeiro, documented a terrible scene--the body of a 17-year-old woman who had been shot and killed by the abusive husband of … Read the full Story >>
By David Schonauer Wednesday October 15, 2014
Daniel Romero Uribe, a native of Mexico City now in his senior year at the Savannah College of Art and Design, offers a pointed commentary on the issue of gun violence in America in his Latin American
Ilustracion 2-winning work "Gun Control." Romero created the illustration as an assignment for a class with professor and illustrator Mohamed Danawi. "I was inspired by symmetric compositions, … Read the full Story >>
By David Schonauer Tuesday October 14, 2014
Elena Wen was born in Taiwan and was two years old when her parents moved to Costa Rica, where she grew up. At 19, she moved to New York City to study illustration at the School of Visual Arts and
then worked for several years in the motion graphics industry. Two years ago, she moved back to Costa Rica with her boyfriend, Luis Imbach, … Read the full Story >>
By David Schonauer Tuesday October 7, 2014
"In the high desert mountains of Central Mexico, the people thirst. Their groundwater is disappearing," writes Nicole Franco, a Mexican-American documentary photographer who moved to San Miguel De
Allende, Mexico, in 2012. Once there, she attended a local meeting and heard about a looming environmental crisis; decades of mining, erosion, and pollution had left the area's water supply
contaminated. She set out to document … Read the full Story >>
By David Schonauer Tuesday September 16, 2014
The rock band Titas helped set the tone for Brazilian music culture with its influential 1986 album "Cabea Dinossauro"; in 2012, the band launched a re-release of the album with a concert in Sao
Paulo, and photographer Gabriel Rinaldi was backstage to document the event for a Brazilian magazine. Rinaldi's portrait captured the style of music: "It had energy without too much care for … Read the full Story >>
By David Schonauer Tuesday September 2, 2014
Sighting two memorably designed objects in the same scene, Brazilian photographer Brunel Galhego shot a photo that later became a winner of the Latin American Fotografia 2 competition. Galhego, who
is based in Sao Paulo, had taken his son to a location near their home where antique-car collectors show their vehicles. There, beneath a flying-saucer-shaped water tower well loved by locals, he
spotted a … Read the full Story >>
By David Schonauer Tuesday August 26, 2014
For Javier Perez, the world is not always what it seems: When he looks at grapes, he might see balloons, and a balloon might become ice cream. A tool like pliers turns into a human figure, while an
Oreo cookie stands in for the planet Earth. Perez, who lives in Guayaquil, Ecuador, has made his Instagram account a home for playful illustrations that mix … Read the full Story >>
By David Schonauer Tuesday August 19, 2014
Photographer Jose Diniz was born in Niteroi, Brazil, and now lives in nearby Rio de Janeiro. But he says that he has always had a strong emotional relationship with the central Brazil's Cerrado
region--a landscape of savannahs and rivers sprawling across the country's central highlands. "It is a very important part of Brazilian culture, mainly through connections with literature," Diniz
notes. It was there, … Read the full Story >>
By David Schonauer Tuesday August 12, 2014
Ronnie Barrera's Latin American Ilustracion 2-winning piece "Porfirio (The Tourist)" is an abstract depiction of a stranger in a strange land--"an immigrant, a traveler, a foreigner, the outsider
finding his way in," says the artist. The work was sparked by a conversation that Barrera, a New York City-based illustrator who was born in Lima, Peru, had with a friend who was immigrating to the … Read the full Story >>
By David Schonauer Monday August 4, 2014
Traveling to the Middle East to shoot portraits of people in a small Egyptian town with an 8x10-inch large-format camera is not an easy task. But New York City-based photographer Pedro Arieta has been
doing just that for the past decade. Dahab is a town in the south Sinai that, as Arieta puts it, "stands between the desert, a few Bedouin villages, and turquoise … Read the full Story >>
By David Schonauer Wednesday July 23, 2014
A naked body is more than just a piece of meat, says Colombia photographer Ana Maria Trujillo. For Trujillo, the body is a series of sensuous lines etched in light: Her series "Divas," a
black-and-white nude study shot in her studio in Bogota in 2012, was named a winner of the Latin American Fotografia 2 competition. "The nudes I create reflect my interest in … Read the full Story >>
By David Schonauer Monday July 7, 2014
Children are adept at many things, notes Mexican photographer Carlos Diaz, who in particular admires their ability "to create fantastic and secret universes where they find shelter from the multiple
conflicts in which they are involved." His ongoing personal fine-art project "El Lado de Los Nios" ("The Child's Side"), which was named a winner of the Latin American Fotografia 2 contest, mixes
documentary tradition, … Read the full Story >>
DOC Gallery Wednesday June 25, 2014
Brazilian photographer Brunel Galhego Ricci, a past winner of the Latin
American Fotografía competition whose work was on view in the traveling Los Diez exhibition sponsored by Epson, is one of a group of shooters taking part in a unique project documenting the
country’s passionate relationship with football. For the project, called Monstra Futebol BR, work
from the photographers is being showcased at bars, restaurants, and galleries in the Vila Madalena neighborhood of São Paulo. Read the full Story >>
Luis Maximiano Wednesday June 25, 2014
The world’s media have turned their eyes to Brazil for the 2014 World Cup—on every newsstand, present and past international stars of soccer (or football, or fútbol, or futebol) are
featured on the covers of magazines—including ESPN the Magazine, which looks at the game
through the eyes of perhaps its most iconic star, Pele. To photograph Pele, the magazine commissioned Brazilian photographer Luiz Maximiano, a winner of the Latin American Fotografía 2 competition for his formal portraits of
boxers taken ringside at the Champion’s Forge competition in São Paulo. Maximiano’s portraits of Pele, like his boxing images, probe the emotions the lie behind sports and find in
the former superstar a man who is both hero and a nation’s savior. Read the full Story >>
By David Schonauer Tuesday June 24, 2014
Ink spots, scribbles, old papers, graphic fonts, vintage photos--all these elements and more can be found in the work of Brazilian illustrator and graphic designer Walter Vasoncelos. His two Latin
American Ilustracion 2-winning pieces, both personal projects, are in fact perfect specimens of his creativity. "I use Illustrator and Photoshop, but I don't want my drawings to have a 'computer-made'
look," he says. "I … Read the full Story >>
By David Schonauer Tuesday June 17, 2014
"I like to create images that tell a story allowing for multiple interpretations from the viewer." So writes Colombian illustrator Claudia Maria Gutierrez of her Latin American Ilustracion-winning
work "Suenos," ("Dreams"), in which Tibetan flags fly from a tree, enrapturing two forest onlookers. "The Tibetan flags are traditionally believed to be horses that dance to the wind and spread
blessings and good fortune," notes … Read the full Story >>
Shock Till You Drop Wednesday June 11, 2014
Costa Rican artist Tony Aguero, a winner of the Latin American Ilustración 2 competition whose work was included in the traveling “Los
Diez” exhibition sponsored by Epson, recently participated in a unique event in Los Angeles: His work was part of an exhibition titled "Kings of Cult,” in which various artists paid
tribute to the cinematic work of two of Hollywood’s best-known cult filmmakers, Roger Corman and Joe Dante. Go to Shock Till You Drop for details. Go to this Facebook page for more. Read the full Story >>
By David Schonauer Wednesday June 4, 2014
By profession, Patricia Ackerman is a psychoanalyst. But Ackerman's avocation is photography, a hobby she picked up in her youth and began studying intensely seven years ago. Last year, Ackerman, who
lives in Buenos Aires and works in a public hospital there, was vacationing in Acapulco, Mexico, when she looked down from a hotel balcony and snapped what would become a Latin American
Fotografia-winning … Read the full Story >>
