There is a place where commercial activity is carried out on top and not necessarily because of its transactions of considerable value, but you can literally run out of air so you don’t buy anything, usually crowded with people, this place contains daily aspects that partly reflect the society it represents.
Many times the peasant who brings his products to sell, the people who live on the street, working mothers with their little ones, families of artisans, all absolutely all with a specific purpose; survive.
At 4,000 meters above sea level is El Alto, a city very close to the capital La Paz, very young but that since its inception was marked under a commercial model, mainly due to its heritage of immigrants from the Bolivian and Peruvian highlands with a population profile. mainly indigenous. In El Alto there is the 16th of July Fair, one of the largest popular markets in Bolivia, spaces like this allow vendors to group together, who also have an internal union-type organization with defined functions and financial mechanisms for their sustainability.
To get there it was very difficult, only until the government of Evo Morales, a cable or cable car system was built that makes the visits of the citizens of the capital even more crowded.
About Gillmar Villamil
Colombian photographer. He studied Industrial Design, devoting several years to teaching in this field, which was alternating with his passion for photography, with which he configured his own creative identity. For several years he has been working as a documentary maker and videographer for public institutions, where he has had the opportunity to tour the country, building a historical document of the populations and their relationship with the environment.
His photographic essays and some of his images have been published in print media such as Archivo Latino, Esquire Latin America and El Tiempo, Colombia’s main printed media. As well as on digital platforms such as Getty Images (@gettyreportage). His work in documentary video has been nominated for the India Catalina Awards as the best documentary program in Colombia with the Documentary series; Our Footprint In this field he was also director of photography of “Salobre”, a documentary driven by an educational institution in the United Kingdom; University of York, which addresses the problems of fishermen in the Ciénaga Grande de Santa Marta. In 2019 he obtained special mention of the jury in the Visual Storytelling Awards, from the Lensculture.
He has specialized in the area of graphic and documentary reporting, although not neglects the other fields of photography, such as architecture, landscape, portrait and fashion, in which he has also worked.
In the last 5 years his life and his perspectives towards this have been transformed knowing the most distant places of Colombia, sharing with their people, living with them and managing to transmit through their work, customs and feelings of many people and situations in the country. [Official Website]
