Photoshoot of Pablo Escobar's Nephew in Colombia and BTS Video
I first met, Paolo Escobar, while living in Medellin, Colombia back in 2010. Video Below
Paolo is the nephew of the most famous Colombian drug lord of all time, Pablo Escobar. I had just moved to Medellin and some mutual friends introduced us. "Would you like to meet the nephew of Pablo Escobar?" my friend, Sara, asked. I wasn't sure who Pablo was at the time, vaguely I remember his name from the Johnny Depp movie Blow. The reason for the meeting was Paolo is a parkour athlete and it would be a good opportunity for me to shoot something totally different.
Paolo Escobar is one of the nicest guys I have ever met.
We immediately became friends and he invited me to his finca which is a on a big lake outside of Medellin a couple of hours. I consider him a good friend, he is also one of the most talented musicians and athletes I have ever known as well.
"Hey Paolo, jump high in the air and pretend your buddha" "Okay man!"
The images and video from this post were taken at the Castillo in Medellin. Back in the 1930's a doctor from Germany, living in Medellin at the time, built the house for his daughter who wanted to live in a castle. The architecture was influenced by a French Gothic design.
I someone how managed to get access, which is now a museum, to the castle for a photoshoot. Paolo needed images for an upcoming album release and I needed images for BlackRapid who makes camera straps. So I pulled it off. So I show up with my crew which consisted of a photography assistant and my Colombian girlfriend at the time, Johanna. You can see her in the video. Paolo shows up with his wild looking parkour buddies who almost immediately began climbing on the roof castle and jumping off like super man. Watch the video!
Parkour is a sport where the athletes run, jump, swing, climb, fly, vault and other movements as a mean to escape. Paolo explained it to me "like when you see a wild animal escape through the woods, flying and jumping to get away from you." It's an incredible sport and amazing to photograph.
One of Paolo's parkour friends flying off the castle above
The photoshoot lasted about 20minutes because the curator at the museum saw Paolo and his buddies flying off the roof. They weren't very happy with me and politely asked all of to leave and to never return. I did manage to get a few shots so who cares. :)
Be sure to watch the video to see Paolo perform parkour and there's some footage of my beautiful girlfriend at the time, Johanna. She's always a pleasure to watch.
Johanna
I hope you enjoy the photography and video. It was one of my favorite shoots and a nice friendship was formed with the nephew of one of the most notorious mafios in the world.
PS Paolo is in no way shape or form involved in the underground cocaine world. But he did share a few interesting stories of his uncle. Note: I refer to Paolo as Paul Andrews in the video - I think Paolo wanted to be known for his music and talent as an athlete, and for a short time he used a different name
Wow I followed you after seeing this seeing this! Wow so cool he is becoming famous again even after being dead for decades thanks to narcos and season three will keep the dream of a drug empire on the darknet alive as young peopoe see how much money is in the darknet online drug trade
Agreed. But Colombians are tired of being known only for Pablo Escobar and cocaine. There is more to their incredible and diverse country than cocaine.
Oh i didnt know u were Columbian too! yes i have been to bogota airport for a few hours when flying from ecuador back to LAX...i have been to peru and ecuador and lived in vilcabamba ecuador for 3 months in 2011 and 3 months in 2014 and I hard how expensive columbia is compared to ecuador and how much money is still in columbia and how nice it can be but just expensive even the buses are exppensive cmpared to cheap buses in ecuador.
anywway ddont worry people will know about columbia moe than the narco culture
BUT is a smal country an you shoould just be happy to have any sort of representation in westernglobal media!
sorry to be so harsh no dispresect and i know how beatiful columbia is and the amazing culture and music and movies and the women wow yes even your genetics are a gold mine! haha but seriously u should just milk the nrco pablo escobar stuff!!!! Its betterthan nothing! hha and peopel will eend up coming to columbia to have a tour of pabo escobars mansions etc, and I have heard that colmbua was even safe as far backk as 2011 I was shownpictures of columbia by man tarvelers and mett many columbians lots of hippie rasta dreadlocked kidds selling very fine emeralds and even cheap rough emerals, i should have bought as many emeralds as i could from them an then brought tjem back to the US to ell, mani could still go back down there and get stiff like organic Cofee that i could buy DIRECTLy from the darmer who made it and ground thee beans and baked them all huimself, and it was super cheap even with the gringo prices (higher prices for americans lol) and i ccould sell thatstuff back in america for so much it was the best tasting cfee in the world and everyone i gave it too agreed like my dad who is a cofe connoisseur and said it was thee best coffee he had ver had and man U can now buy coffee directly from south american farmers at coinsource bbitcoin ATMs in certain places
yeah i want coolumbia to show venezuela how bitcoin iss the future
people will love to finally have one currency for all of south america
and ecuador uses the US dollar so that will help with fiat to bitcoin exchanges but yeah the sooner columbia ecuador and peru all get into bitcoin the sooner venezuela will just give into it
Great shots; and I have to say your videos are more enjoyable that most television shows.
Another wonderful comment from Twirble! Thank you, you're too kind
Wow!
I once asked myself, is the photographer the creator of the moment or is the moment creating the photographer?
As a huge fan of Anton Corbijn (he's also a great director & storyteller) I like B/W photography a lot... - the depth it's creating catches me and keeps me to stay!
"Buddha up in the air!" - what an amazing idea!
THNX a lot, looking forward to your next post...- Cheers!
Not too many people can jump that high! There is a moment created between the photographer and the subject for sure. I usually instigate the situation, but I also look for the spontaneous. These were taken 7 years ago when I first got into photography. My style has definitely evolved but I had some chops starting out...lol!
zooropa -do you have any favorite photographers on Steemit? I'm trying to find the best photogs on here for an interview.
The idea that you as a pro are interviewing other photographers is a very interesting one and I would like it a lot to read those! I'm not too deep into other photogs but whom I like on steemit is @foxkoit; he's attached to B/W. I like the different moods he's creating.
In everything we do, we have to walk through the opposites, the lefts and rights, the stabil and the flexible to find our balance inbetween.
Zooropa - I'll check out his work. Yes, I like interviewing other creatives and find out how they thing. If you can pick up one tiny nuggest of an idea or get inspired then it's worth it for sure. Thanks for the encouragemnt
I guess you can find inspiration in everything you see, in every experience you make, even in the worst ones.
A good friend of mine told me over and over again that everything that passes your way throughout life has a meaning and it was only made to let you grow!
It only depends on how we want to see, how we were educated to.
Everything we give is what we get... - and that feels great, because it's turning our inside out. Your art, your special kind of an approach gives me/us each time a different perspective, a new way to see, to look at, to think about - that's real greatness and therefore I'm thankful!
Looking forward for any new inspiration coming!!!