Un día en La Gallera Se trata de un ensayo fotográfico sobre las peleas de gallos. En homenaje a la memoria de mi abuelo.

My Photo scholarship 2011 entry

Colombia | Friday, October 28, 2011 | 5 photos

I visited the town of my childhood. I went to shoot pictures of what I had once seen together with my grandfather. He used to breed fighting cocks, then sold or played. I hated the uproar at the cockpit and got sad about the death of the roosters, but something aesthetically pleasing that stayed in my memories make me return.
"If my five images would had told what I wanted to tell, you should not choose me for this award"
Indeed, those photos create a story, but maybe the spectator reads something distinct to that I would like to tell. That brief story is trivial, is what every person sees when they go to a cockpit in any place around the world where it is practiced. A real photo series about cock fighting should be able to show the roots that give birth to the curious aesthetic of that death ritual.
I want to learn how to shoot photo-histories, how to capture the magnificence of a place; usually those pictures give hints of the creatures that inhabit there, their details and traditions.
During these years of self-taught photographer, maybe the only thing that I’ve learnt is to shoot pictures, I point my camera with the accuracy and curiosity of a Chronicler in the newly discovered America, anxious that the imagery logbook will be able to take along many on my same trip.
I was born in Ipiales, a village on the Andes in southern Colombia, where a map would say that there ends my country. I am an engineer by profession, but photographer by trade. At this moment of life I love better the trade than the career, so I think it is the main reason why I should have the luck to win this “photoprize”.