# Pablo Corral Vega > Pablo Corral Vega ## Posts - [Opening into life](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/opening-into-life/): About a month ago, I stepped into my garden and was met by a vision that moved me deeply. My arupo tree—a companion of my life since childhood—was in full bloom, its branches covered with hundreds of pink blossoms that seemed to catch fire beneath the intense blue sky of Quito. The sight filled me with a joy difficult to describe, and in that instant a question took root in me, the same question that gathers us here today: What would it be like if we, as human beings, could blossom with the same spontaneity, the same natural grace, strength, […] - [Talk at the Blaye Contemporary Art Festival](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/talk-at-the-blaye-contemporary-art-festival/): By Pablo Corral Vega My doctor once told me, while writing out a prescription by hand, that he didn’t get along well with technology. I told him he was wrong: writing, I said, is the most precious and advanced technology ever devised by humankind. Our civilization stands upon the foundations of language and writing. I would even dare to say that time itself—the perception of time—is bound to language. Imagine a homo sapiens who has not yet acquired speech, trying to explain with grunts the first experiences of childhood, or to share with another being his desires, his hopes for […] - [A Photographer Who Writes About Philosophy](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/a-photographer-who-writes-about-philosophy/): A story about life, wonder, and what makes us human in the age of intelligent machines. - [Photo Magazine](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/photo-magazine-3/): Interview with Pablo Corral Vega published in the French magazine Photo, accompanied by his most recent work on artificial intelligence. - [A discussion on AI](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/a-discussion-on-ai/): If there is a machine that talks and apparently thinks, then it is not language that makes us unique. What makes us unique? The more pressing philosophical question is what makes us human? - [Gestión Cultural](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/gestion-cultural/): El concurso POY LATAM En el año 2011, junto con mi querido amigo Loup Langton, creamos el concurso de fotografía POY Latam, con el apoyo de Pictures of the Year International. Quito, Fortaleza, San Miguel de Allende y Barcelona han sido sedes de un concurso que con los años se ha convertido en el más grande e importante de Iberoamérica. La revista REVISTA POY LATAM Durante la pandemia de 2020, se creo la revista del POY Latam  (de la que soy el editor en jefe) con la intención de generar una reflexión sobre los tiempos que nos han tocado vivir y de acercar […] - [American Bestiary](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/bestiario-americano/): Since I was a child I have been fascinated by bestiaries, especially medieval ones. The hybrid animals that all cultures have generated are symbols of our shadows, representations of the monster that the whole of humanity breeds in its entrails. - [Octopus skin](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/octopus-skin/): Sometimes art is so powerful that it blends with life. After 100 minutes of contemplation, of poetic brushstrokes, I have been left with the certainty that to overcome meaninglessness, abandonment, we only have skin and poetry. - [The man who made people happy](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/the-man-who-made-people-happy/): My friend Jean Francois Zurawik was the man who made people happy. It was his obsession, his reason for living. He was the visionary who made the Fete des Lumieres in Lyon the most visited mass event in Europe. - [A powerful and kind mirror](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/a-powerful-and-kind-mirror/): A few hours ago, my much-admired friend Margaret Sayers-Peden, or Petch, one of the great Spanish to English translators, died. She never got to read this letter. - [I am a soldier](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/i-am-a-soldier/): I am a soldier, and I’m proud of it. If ten years ago you had told me that one day I would be going around with my head shaved, and wearing a uniform, I would have burst out laughing. Me? A soldier!   What I liked was going out at night, drinking, dancing, and especially…girls. - [Mister Muscles](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/mister-muscles/): It has cost me blood, sweat, and tears to build these biceps and pectorals. By that I mean hour and hours of working out in the gym, following a strict diet, and giving up cigarettes and alcohol. If you want a physique like this, worthy of a body-building contest... - [Virgin among sinners](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/virgin-among-sinners/): There was not the slightest intention of sacrilege on the part of the woman who owns this small whorehouse bar in a tough neighborhood of Medellín. This city is known throughout the world for the drug cartels that operate there, and for the violence that often fills its streets with blood. - [Aracataca is a universe](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/aracataca-is-a-universe/): Aracataca is not some lost town choking in heat and overlooked by God and man, stuck down among the deserts, and ocean, and mountains of Colombia. Aracataca is a universe, and behind those fragile wood and corrugated tin walls sparkle a thousand and one adventures and the most extraordinary characters in creation. - [Life is beautiful... and so I'm I](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/life-is-beautifuland-so-am-i/): This mountain stream wetting my feet grows as it flows down the mountain; it gets wider, and leaps around, drops over cliffs, forms lakes, and turns into a big, big, river that after it crosses the jungle “proudly dies, repelling the sea,” as the poet wrote. But I wouldn’t trade this spot for any in the world–the water, and the rocks, and the reeds, and the trees. Why, I’ve come here to bathe every since I was old enough to remember. Even then everyo0ne said I was a beautiful little girl. In school they always chose me to play the […] - [Earthquake](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/earthquake/): The earthquake itself isn’t the worst part, it’s what comes before and after. What comes before, minutes or seconds before the shaking starts, is the sound, a deep, muffled moan that rises from the depths of the earth and paralyzes people with terror. - [The Puna's no place for turkey buzzards](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/the-punas-no-place-for-turkey-buzzards/): There is this stupid, racist saying that goes, “The puna’s no place for turkey buzzards.” They invented that to mean that us Blacks can’t live in high places—that’s what the puna is, you know—because we can’t take it... - [A modern girl](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/a-modern-girl/): I have been at the University all day, attending my law classes, and then at the library, studying and preparing for exams. Now I am going to go home, take a cold shower, change my clothes and go to work. I work at a nightclub near the Plaza de Armas, where a lot of tourists come. - [Mourner in Arequipa](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/mourner-in-arequipa/): Eyes closed, contrite expression, prayer book in hand, and a rosary of white beads around her neck, this señora is praying before a small, modest tomb in the Arequipa cemetery built by the poor on a strip of sandy ground at the foot of the volcanoes. She is praying to ask God... - [Cuzco Cemetery](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/cuzco-cemetery/): As we are born to die, death lasts much longer than life, and the cemetery, where we go to rest through all eternity, is our true home. Our house, our neighborhood, our village, are merely temporary stopping places, inns or hostels along the way. The cemetery, on the other hand, is a permanent residence, the one where a Christian will lie forever. We are not afraid of death. Why would we be? Fear is for those who live very well here on earth, with no worries or misfortunes in this all-too-quickly-passing life. It is easy to understand why for those […] - [Death of a dancer](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/death-of-a-dancer/): A dancer has died, a celebrated and familiar figure who for many years enlivened village fiestas and spread happiness with his agile steps and mysterious gesturings, and the crich! crich! of the scissors blades striking sparks as he slashed the air above his head. - [The stones of Sacsayhuamán](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/the-stones-of-sacsayhuaman/): This is not an abstract by a great modern painter maddened by geometry and symmetries and wild to capture on canvas the blue-violet light that glorifies the evening as the sun says goodnight behind the mountains of Cuzco. Nor are these the bold inventions of a great contemporary sculptor... - [Woman with no name](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/woman-with-no-name/): I don’t know what my name is by now, I’ve forgotten over the years. Because–just take a look at me–I am a tired old woman. I don’t remember how old I am, either, but who’s going to care? The important thing is that I was born here in Paucartambo, and here I am going to die–if in fact I die some day. Sometimes I think that God Our Father has had me live so long because he wants me to be immortal like Him. You see this hat I’m carrying in my left hand? I made it myself, when I […] - [Miner from Potosi](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/miner-from-potosi/): Working in the mines of Potosí is a man’s job. A poor man, because we will always be poor. A miner’s wages barely stretch far enough to make ends meet, but miners are very macho men, not afraid of anything, not even the devils that superstitious people think hang around... - [The dream of Icarus](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/the-dream-of-icarus/): Patrolling the invisible borderline that separates Bolivia from Chile, in such frozen solitudes, is very boring duty.   There is almost nothing to do but try to keep warm in your khaki uniform, stick your hands in your pockets, and remember what a blessing your life was back... - [The village of Chaltén](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/the-village-of-chalten/): Down there, to the right, in those small white houses that look like snowflakes at the foot of the mountain, is where we live, we women and men of the village of Chaltén. You don’t see us, of course. We are insignificant, invisible, compared to the cordilleras... - [Oruro Carnival](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/oruro-carnival/): Carnival is fiesta: pagan, Christian, religious, secular, provincial, universal. And Carnival in Oruro, Bolivia, is the best in the world.   Carnival time is more than having fun: dancing, playing, singing, and dressing in costume and eating and drinking. - [The man who makes people happy](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/the-man-who-makes-people-happy/): He paints and sketches portraits, but if someone should ask this man what his true vocation is, he would immediately reply, without hesitation or doubt, “Making people happy.” In fact, nothing is so rewarding to that heart that has been beating for more than seventy springtimes... - [The flirt of Toledo](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/the-flirt-of-toledo/): Why am I covering my face with my right hand?  Not because I believe that by taking my photograph you are stealing my soul.  That’s what people who are ignorant believe, and I’m not ignorant.  I’m covering my face because I don’t like it that a stranger is taking my picture... - [Man, cities, and condors](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/man-cities-condors/): In the Andes, human beings have the condor’s vocation: rise upward, climb the stairways of air, soar above the clouds, scan the earth below, far below. Why else would cities like Quito, La Paz, and Cuzco be so high that more than clusters of human dwellings they resemble the nests of those large... - [Above the clouds the world remains undisturbed](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/above-the-clouds-the-world-remains-undisturbed/): When I can return to the sea, to my mountains, to my cloud forests, I hope I will be able to feel that same amazement. - [Nostalgia and Utopia](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/nostalgia-and-utopia/): My utopia has become simpler... I now have nostalgia of the loves that will come, of the trips I have not yet taken, of health as power and capacity. Saudade of the future skin, of the perfect utopia of dialogue and learning, of the music that saves and lifts us up, of being free from fear. - [Without memory there can be no identity](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/without-memory-there-can-be-no-identity/): Speech by Pablo Corral Vega, Secretary of Culture, on the Day of Interculturality. I maintain that identity is built around three great forces: memory, intimacy and the encounter with others. - [We speak to connect with one another](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/we-speak-to-connect-with-the-other/): Speech at the 2018 Quito Book Fair and portraits of Haruki Murakami during the event. We speak to connect with one another, language is the mirror in which we discover ourselves. - [Election of Miss Rurality](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/election-of-the-miss-of-rurality/): Speech during the election of the queen of rurality in Calacalí. It was especially difficult to write this text because I am opposed to beauty pageants but I consider it important to respect the traditions of rurality. - [Culture is everything we do](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/culture-is-everything-we-do/): Interview with Pablo Corral by Angel Jaramillo on public cultural management for the magazine of the Chamber of Book Editors. - [From the wonder of the light to the sway of the city](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/from-the-wonder-of-the-light-to-the-sway-of-the-city/): Interview by Milagros Aguirre to Pablo Corral Vega for Diners Magazine of Ecuador, January 2018. - [Intimacy is political](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/intimacy-is-political/): Speech at the opening of the exhibition of the same name. When we allow ourselves to observe the political dimension of intimacy we are forced to be defenders at all costs of tenderness, of consent. - [Cultures do not dialogue, people dialogue](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/cultures-do-not-dialogue-people-dialogue/): Speech for the day of multiculturalism. Indians do not dialogue with mestizos, nor do blacks dialogue with whites. It is human beings who dialogue - [My Garden in the Wilds](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/my-garden-in-the-wilds-3/): This book is a personal, an extremely personal, portrait of Ecuador, of my country, of my homeland. I have traveled its roads in an attempt to find healing following the death of Carolina, trying to find a formula for converting grief into beauty. - [Photography as language](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/photography-as-language/): Professional photographers have lost the exclusivity of photographic language. Billions of people can now take high quality photos and also share them, that is, use them beyond the private sphere. - [Remembering Harvard](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/remembering-harvard/): In the summer, one sheds all extra clothing, casting off one’s belongings to the point of near-nakedness. Without memory. Without dreams. Without knowledge. - [Gabo is not dead](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/gabo-is-not-dead/): I've heard a terrible rumor. They're saying that Gabriel Garcia Marquez is dead. Who could think up such a hoax? To say that Gabo is dead is the same as saying that Aureliano Buendía never existed. - [I don't wish you happiness](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/i-dont-wish-you-happiness/): Happiness is a glass of fresh water on a hot day, the breeze on your skin, the evening light that kisses everything with its honey. - [Luigi Stornaiolo](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/luigi-stornaiolo/): The great master Luigi Stornaiolo, one of the most important plastic artists of Ecuador, has fun while painting a picture in the Seseribó Salsoteca in Quito. - [This is my Tango](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/this-is-my-tango/): This is the text I wrote in October 2012 as an introduction to the book Tango, published by Dinediciones. It is a postcard taken halfway through, from a project that has taken me decades. - [Eros](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/eros-2/): Nothing as important as love. Nothing that touches us so intimately. Nothing that expresses more fully the desolation of solitude, the abyss, doubt. - [Tango](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/tango-3/): Nostalgia and sensuality need one another and nourish one another. It’s a virtuous circle: to overcome nostalgia one must declare the triumph of the senses, assert the concrete importance of the here and now. - [Cambodia](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/cambodia/): The waters of the Tonle Sap River look still, almost motionless. The river is in no hurry. This is the city of Phnom Penh, flowing alongside the river. Fishermen drift by with their precious cargo. - [Australia](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/australia-2/): The plains of central Australia are a horizontal chasm. One’s eyes can travel no more than a few yards across the flat continent, and they find relief only in the immensity of the sky. - [The Andes](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/the-andes/): When you climb up to those peaks, far off in the distance you see mountains that are even higher yet — mountains surrounded by dark forests, terrible and mysterious mountains impossible to climb. - [Photography is the shape of silence](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/photography-is-the-shape-of-silence/): Prologue for the book '25' written in June 2007 by Susana Cordero de Espinosa - [Landscapes of Silence](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/landscapes/): This is a project I began in 1985. Every weekend I would drive out to the mountain. On those trips, I grew to know the wind. The wind is the voice of the mountain. - [Romania](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/romania/): Romania is a country that suffered for decades under the black hand of a messianic government whose mission was to re-found the nation. In the name of utopias, governments have created poverty. - [Rio Carnival](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/rio-de-janeiro/): The first time I went to Rio, I was captivated — changed, in fact — by the city’s charms. “What are these uncomplicated people made of, that they smile so spontaneously, walk so self-confidently? - [Introduction to the book '25'](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/introduction-of-the-book-25/): When we press the shutter, we are saying Here I am; This moment matters, I matter; These are the people I love; I wish this moment would last. - [The invisible camera](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/the-invisible-camera/): Presentation of the writer Abdón Ubidia at the Andes exhibition at the Alliance Française in Quito in 2003. - [The Andes of Pablo Corral](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/the-andes-of-pablo-corral/): Foreword by Mario Vargas Llosa for the book 'Andes', published in 2001 by National Geographic. - [Balcony of the Clouds](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/epilogue-by-pablo-corral-vega/): Sometimes when I need to go back to the house of my beginnings, the house that is center and point of reference, the place where identity is formed, I travel to a place in the mountains that is far above the clouds.  There I forget for a moment the daily struggle, the fear of death... - [The heart when it hurts](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/the-heart-when-it-hurts/): ¿You ask me what the Andes are? Let me tell you. In Quechua, the eastern Cordillera is called Antis or Antisuyo. When you climb these peaks you see in the distance much higher mountains, mountains surrounded by jungle, impossible to climb, terrible and mysterious. - [Questions without an answer](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/questions-without-an-answer/): How does the last orange taste? What becomes of an island that knows no poetry? How much is a tear worth in the desert? - [From Patagonia to the Caribbean](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/from-patagonia-to-the-caribbean/): South America is a continent of geographic extremes. There we find the largest tropical rain forest on the planet and the driest desert, and on its west an entire coastline, from Patagonia to the shores of the Caribbean, is dominated by the Andes. ## Pages - [Cultural Management](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/cultural-management/): BEYOND PHOTOGRAPHY CULTURAL MANAGEMENT An essential part of my work during the last decades has been the construction of cultural projects, most of them related to journalism and community: The photo contest POY LATAM In 2011, together with my dear friend Loup Langton, we created the POY Latam photo contest, with the support of Pictures of the Year International. Quito, Fortaleza, San Miguel de Allende and Barcelona have been the venues for a contest that over the years has become the largest and most important in Latin America. The magazine REVISTA POY LATAM During the 2020 pandemic, the POY Latam magazine (of which I am […] - [Articles on Pablo](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/articles-on-pablo/) - [Articles by Pablo](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/articles-by-pablo/): Visit my Substack - [Inicio en](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/): THE ARTISTIC CONCERNS LONG-TERM PROJECTS These are projects that have marked the life of Pablo Corral Vega. “Paisajes del Silencio” was the book he created during his career as a lawyer in the late 1980s. He would escape to the mountains on weekends and slowly photograph with his tripod and Hasselblad camera. This was his way of rebelling against the logical and rational world of law. He dedicated more than five years of his life to “Andes,” which was published by National Geographic in both their magazine and a book, for which Mario Vargas Llosa wrote twenty short stories. He […] - [The heritages of Quito](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/the-heritages-of-quito/): Quito's heritage must be understood in its various dimensions: architectural, historical, geographical, natural and cultural. That is why in this book we speak of heritages, in plural. Without a doubt, the greatest wealth of our city is its creative and diverse people. - [Fiesta de la Luz (English)](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/fiesta-de-la-luz-english/) - [Emmanuel Honorato Vázquez](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/emmanuel-honorato-vazquez/) - [Fluz](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/fluz/) - [Visible Cities](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/visible-cities/): In this book published in English by the Ministry of Culture of Quito we reflect on the Latin American city from a journalistic perspective. We have worked closely with the Fundación Gabriel García Márquez para el Nuevo Periodismo Iberoamericano. - [Tearsheets](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/tearsheets/) - [Home English](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/home/) - [Interviews](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/interviews/): [vc_row row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”full_width” text_align=”left” background_animation=”none” css_animation=””][vc_column][latest_post type=”boxes” number_of_columns=”4″ number_of_rows=”5″ order_by=”date” order=”DESC” title_tag=”h4″ display_category=”0″ display_date=”1″ display_author=”0″ category=”interviews”][/vc_column][/vc_row] - [Texts on Pablo](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/textos-on-pablo/): [vc_row row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”full_width” text_align=”left” background_animation=”none” css_animation=””][vc_column][latest_post type=”boxes” number_of_columns=”4″ number_of_rows=”5″ order_by=”date” order=”DESC” title_tag=”h4″ display_category=”0″ display_date=”1″ display_author=”0″ category=”textonpablo”][/vc_column][/vc_row] - [Photography](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/photographygallery/) - [Texts](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/texts/): [vc_row row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”full_width” text_align=”left” background_animation=”none” css_animation=””][vc_column][latest_post type=”boxes” number_of_columns=”4″ number_of_rows=”5″ order_by=”date” order=”DESC” title_tag=”h4″ display_category=”0″ display_date=”1″ display_author=”0″ category=”textopablo”][/vc_column][/vc_row] - [Contact](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/contact-2-2/): A VERSATILE CREATOR AVAILABLE FOR ASSIGNMENTS AND PROJECTS Cover by Pablo Corral Vega for Nat Geo - [sidebar_blog_ingles](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/sidebar_blog_ingles/): este es el sidebar del blog en inglés - [galerias_ingles](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/galerias_pagina_ingles/): Esta es la pagina de arriba de galerias en ingles - [publicaciones_ingles](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/publicaciones_ingles/) - [The fictions of Mario Vargas Llosa](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/andes_pagina_ingles/): The fictions of Mario Vargas Llosa Word to the reader The vignettes that follow are not objective descriptions of the photos they accompany. They are fantasies, fictions, and inventions inspired in images taken by Pablo Corral during his travels through the Andes. They are not intended to provide exact information, but to recreate, with the help of imagination, the psychological, social, and cultural context that inspired the artist. In writing these word pictures I have worked with the same freedom I enjoy when I write a novel, interrelating the photographed reality with my own visions and allowing that alliance to […] - [publicidad_ingles](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/publicidad_ingles/): This is the advertising (publicidad) page in english - [inicio_ingles](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/inicio_ingles/) - [Bio](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/bio/): Bio He is an Ecuadorian photojournalist, writer, artist and cultural manager who has published his work in National Geographic, National Geographic Traveler, Smithsonian, New York Times Sunday Magazine, Audubon, Geo in France, Germany, Spain and Russia, and other international publications. He was a judge for Pictures of the Year International and World Press Photo, the two most important photography competitions in the world. He was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. He was the founder and is the co-director of the POY Latam photography contest, the largest in Latin America. He is the editor-in-chief of POY Latam magazine, a space […] - [sidebar_inicio_ingles](https://pablocorralvega.com/en/sidebar_inicio_ingles/): The fictions of Mario Vargas Llosa For Andes, a book published by the National Geographic Society in 2001, Nobel Prize winning author Mario Vargas Llosa wrote twenty short stories inspired by my photos. He authorized me to publish his texts along with the photographs, in this website. In the introduction to Andes he wrote: “In Pablo Corral’s photographs there is always hope, an affirmation of life, a will for survival in even the worst adversity, that is seen in the most humble and mistreated–whether by their fellows or by natural catastrophes. And perhaps the images depicting the ability to survive, […] [comment]: # (Generated by Hostinger Tools Plugin)