After today’s lecture on different photographers and their work, I decided to do some research and find a photographer that appealed to me. I found Karla Gachet, an artistic and documentary photographer from Ecuador.
Karla Gachet was born in the Ecuadorian capital of Quito. She went to college in the United States and studied art and graphic design in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she came across documentary photography. She chose to study photojournalism at San Jose State University after being drawn in by the power of visual storytelling. She returned to her home country in 2004 to study it with new creative eyes. She worked as a freelancer until 2005, when she was employed by Diario El Comercio, one of the Ecuador's most important newspapers. She worked there for two years and was the first woman hired as a photographer on the team.
She began working on longer-term projects after leaving the paper in 2007, including fourteen photo stories she created while on a road trip with her husband, Ivan Kashinsky. These stories delve into the diverse cultures of five South American countries and were collated into a book called "Historias Minimas, De Ecuador a la Tierra del Fuego" (Short stories: From Ecuador to the Land of Fire) in December 2009. Karla's trip stories, as well as the book, have won awards in prestigious competitions such as World Press Photo and POYi. She was also awarded third place in the POYi Latin America photographer of the year category. Her work has been shown in Quito, Cuenca, and London, among other places.
Kerly Aguayo lives with her parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents at Hacienda La Mariana in Los Rios, Ecuador. They are known as Montubios among the people of Los Rios. They cultivate their land, care for their animals, and compete in the Rodeos Montubios. The girls in the family always look forward to their quinceaeras, which are marked by large pink parties. They say the quinceaera is how the parents demonstrate to society and potential suitors that their daughter is now a woman and are a huge part of latin american culture. Gachet began documenting the family in 2008 and followed the girls’ transition to womanhood.
