MAESTROS
Aaron Sosa — Montevideo / IMAGO
Venezuelan photographer (Caracas, 1980), visual artist, professor, and founder of IMAGO, a photography school that has been training authors and visual artists for two decades based on four pillars: technique, narrative, criticism, and philosophy. His work has been exhibited in more than 120 galleries worldwide, and his vision has been recognized with various awards and a Prix Pictet nomination in 2012. Since late 2017, he has lived in Montevideo, where he continues to teach the Continuing Education Program that he began in Venezuela in 2005.
But for me, Aaron is, first and foremost, my tutor.
Since 2018, I have worked with him continuously on my photography projects. What began as a workshop evolved into a sustained collaboration—that rare and invaluable form of mentorship where the teacher doesn't simply impart a technique, but walks alongside the artist as their work takes shape, year after year. In 2019, I joined the IMAGO group, first as a student and later as a teacher, and that dialogue has continued uninterrupted ever since.
From Aaron I learned to think of photography as a long-term endeavor: to sustain a project over time, to question the first answer, to edit without fear, and to understand that behind every image lies an ethical decision. His teaching method doesn't start with technique but with questions—what are you looking for?, why this and not that?, what do you intend to say?—and these questions, repeated for years, have given me a perspective from which to view things.
Everything in this place passes, in one way or another, through his gaze.
Alex Webb — Magnum Photos, New York
A master of color, dense light, and layered composition. I've participated in several of his online and in-person workshops in NYC. From him, I learned to wait—to let the scene arrange itself in the viewfinder, and that often the best photo is taken a second before or after the obvious moment. I began to understand "the art of editing."
Rebecca Norris Webb—New York
Photographer and poet. Her work unites image and word as two forms of the same quest. I have participated in several of her online and in-person workshops in NYC, sharing the classroom with Alex. From Rebecca I learned that documentary photography can also be intimate, silent, and honest—that looking, sometimes, is a form of caring.
Nelson Garrido — Caracas
Nelson Garrido, winner of Venezuela's National Photography Prize and founder of the Nelson Garrido Organization, one of the most influential schools of photography in Latin America, has been a student in his workshops for years and has been a constant supporter of my projects since 2022. He teaches photography through questioning, not comfort—to ask questions before pressing the shutter and to work without any creative limitations.
Ricardo Armas — Caracas
Winner of Venezuela's National Photography Prize and a leading figure in Venezuelan documentary photography, Ricardo's work, built over decades, revolves around memory, identity, and the street. I had the opportunity to train with him in the development and completion of personal photographic projects, starting in 2025. From Ricardo, I learned that photographing a place is, first and foremost, learning to listen to it.
With Ricardo I again felt the need to revisit the great masters to find what I had seen in them but had not yet understood.
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Erik del Bufalo — Caracas
A philosopher and essayist, he is a leading figure in critical thinking about images in Latin America. I have regularly participated in his seminars on the theory and philosophy of photography since 2021. From Erik, I learned that an image thinks—and that the photographer must also think before, during, and after the click.
Wilson Prada — Maracay, Venezuela
Biologist, photographer and image thinker.
His most unique contribution lies not only in his images, but in having turned reflection on photography into his own profession: he is the author of the book Miradas Ajenas and co-author, along with Johanna Pérez Daza, of La diversidad de la Mirada, a compilation that considers photography as a cultural problem and not as a technique.
From Wilson I learned that a photograph does not exist alone — it exists in dialogue with others, within a body of work, and that the serious work of the photographer begins after the shot: in the selection, in the order, in the thought that turns a collection of images into a gaze.