July 2025
Skin and Under kept me busy for almost two years. A complex project, not only for the practical challenges, but above all for the doubts I carried within myself. Legitimacy? Not the right word, perhaps. Right is closer to what I was taking on—portraying my subjects in moments of intimacy, when their defenses were lowered. I never wanted to invade, but to capture that magical instant when an expression turns into beauty. I tried to do it with respect, through words spoken and unspoken, relying on a language made of silences and gestures.
This journey left me with mental fatigue, followed by the technical tension of the final stages: proofs, plates, prints. Everything had to align with what I had in mind. The reward was twofold: seeing the finished work, and above all sharing those two years with the participants, meeting them again, and with those who followed the project online or bought the book. The comments you sent me were a gift; they make me happy because it is in dialogue that I find meaning. Images are a language, and what I seek is communication.
In July, just two months ago, I wanted to try an experiment. Alongside the photographs, I asked some of the models to film short moments, giving them the freedom to tell their own stories. Those who accepted offered something surprising: conversations I never heard in person—I was never present during the filming—that strike with their sincerity, at times brutally so. I don’t yet know what this material will become, but I know it carries an unexpected force.
In two weeks I will begin a new photoshoot in Italy, and in November a larger project in Cuba, where I hope to interview dancers and artists. Life there is difficult, and for those who make art, even more so. This is why I haven’t yet had the time to edit the July footage, but I plan to do so in the fall.
In the meantime, here are some images from those July shoots in Medellín, Guatapé, and Bogotá. What will they become? The truth is, I still don’t know. For now, I start by presenting them simply as photographs.
