Camillo Ramirez

With widespread polarization and rancor erupting throughout the United States this election season, it is particularly refreshing to see subtle and insightful visual interpretations of cultural contradictions that have plagued a particularly fraught region of our country for generations. In The Gulf, Camilo Ramirez photographed the impact of the BP oil spill on the residents of the southern edge of the Gulf Coast in 2010, returning in 2014 to cover its entirety from Florida to Texas. Born in California, raised in Bogota, Colombia, California, Texas and Florida, Ramirez’s multicultural background seems to have deepened his awareness of the split attitudes of Gulf Coast inhabitants toward an environment that regularly sustains and fails them. His clean, colorful compositions feature the land, animals and natural resources ubiquitous to the region, employing arrangements that pit them against one another in poetic metaphors. In mindfully framed industrial and recreational scenes, Ramirez favors the depiction of disruptions in the landscape and evidence of human exploitations as exposés. His long perspectives, uncluttered compositions and astute exploitation of palette accentuate a sense of displacement. Ramirez’ nuanced images hint revealingly at the underlying traditions and ambivalent attitudes of Gulf residents, sentiments shaped by ever threatening physical and cultural conditions.

by Elin Spring, Writer Blogger, Contributor to the Initiative.