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163 Throughout this book I have tried to understand and analyze the tensions between the use of stereotypes and references to local idiosyncrasies in literature as well as the need to describe in alternative ways the people, the circumstances, and the stories of those who participate in narco trafficking. When dealing with images, as shown in chapter 4 in the analysis of the works of the painter Lenin Márquez, the notion and the perception of stereotypes may change, as images provide more stable and concrete references to our senses and imagination. Here I analyze the work of photographer Juan Fernando Ospina, a friend and guide during my trips to Medellín. Ospina is the author of the promotional poster for the film La virgen de los sicarios. The widely known image captured on the poster is of Alexis (played by Anderson Ballesteros), Fernando’s first lover, wearing a white undershirt and the image of the Virgin María Auxiliadora hanging from his neck. The character’s head is slightly leaning forward; his gun rests on it; he holds his hands firmly in a praying position. The same image eventually was used as the cover of new paperback editions of Fernando Vallejo’s novel. Ospina is a self-trained photographer who describes himself as a follower of Benjamín de la Calle (1869–1934) and Melitón Rodríguez (1875–1942), both great photographers who lived and worked in Medellín at the turn of the twentieth century. De la Calle is well known for working mostly in his studio doing portraits. Rodríguez is famous for his depiction of distinctive places and people in the city. These men broke new ground in the development of photography in Medellín and are thus recognized for printing images of some of the region’s most important personalities, events, and places. Like De la Calle and Rodríguez , Ospina is another gatekeeper of the city’s historic archive. His work begins in the streets of Medellín. He likes to capture images of the daily life of common people, especially those living and working in the 9 Playing with Stereotypes 164 PlaYInG WIth stereotYPes downtown area. But he also understands his work as an intervention in the reality he portrays. Ospina told me several times that his work as a freelance photographer has made him a tourist in his own city, which has deepened his perceptions of the reality that surrounds him. Photography , he explained, can take us beyond what is merely there. His photographic works are compositions; they are interpretations of the “real” in the broad sense of the term. He depicts people in the simple daily life of their real situations, but while the people play their actual roles, the situations captured in the pictures are always modified. Sometimes they are even created, and they are hardly ever improvised. When I met Ospina in the summer of 2008, he picked me up from the Hotel Nutibara and we walked along the streets of downtown Medell ín, heading to El Guanábano to have a beer. On our way to the bar, streets musicians and homeless men and women greeted him with sheer enthusiasm. I was surprised to see the familiarity the people showed when running into Ospina, who, after a formal introduction, would share the story that had made them friends: “I met her when I organized a contest of street musicians several years ago; I met him because he worked for me in one of my [photo] shootings.” Ospina’s ease in relating to street vendors, performers, and homeless men and women was not an act; he is a familiar and friendly face to all of them. I even heard some calling him “Juanito.” The relationship Ospina has with the people from this area of Medellín is important to understand the way he relates to the city and to appreciate the depth of his images. The essayist Susan Sontag once said that images have a universal language that can reach wider audiences, but she also understood that this language is never neutral. Ospina’s pictures are not only a product of an improvised shot, they are the combination of factors and relationships with the people who appear in them. Photographers alter, manipulate, and edit the way they present images . The camera is a universal gaze that renders every element of the image a place, and thus the camera appears to be autonomous, representing a universal gaze.1 But...

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