Photography
THE MAGICIAN OF LIGHT Olivier Woodes-Farquharson uncovers a treasured Peruvian photographer who documented a little-known Andean world of socialites springing into life in a hitherto deeply traditional city
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“Many keen amateurs will swear that the crispness of the light in South America is somehow on another, indefinable plane when compared to other continents, yet none have been able to ensnare it and let it weave its alchemy the way that Chambi did, whether capturing people or places on his camera”
ou think you’ve seen so many like it: A sharp, black and white photo of a popinjay, likely from the 1920s. He sits relaxed, confident, alert and dashing. You automatically assume it was taken in Europe – Paris, Rome or somewhere on the eastern seaboard of the US. But look behind him. There is no wall in the northern hemisphere that looks anything like that. It is monumental, it is ancient, it is stunning. It is Inca. And the fop in question is high in the Andes – a very, very long way from anywhere. It is largely thanks to the skill and passion of Peruvian photographer Martin Chambi that we are able to gain any insight into this little known world. Unknown outside South America until after his death in 1973, he is now regarded as the great photographic chronicler of pre-war Andean life. Others would come to the mountains and exoticise their subjects, tellingly not getting to know them. But as Argentine photographer Sara Facio points out, ‘Chambi was the first great photographer
not to regard us through the eyes of the colonist’. A social chameleon but a scrupulously honest and truthful one, Chambi’s photographs didn’t
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