Antonio Olmos

Antonio Olmos
Born	1963 (age 61–62) Mexico
Occupation	Photographer
Website	www.antonioolmos.com

Antonio Zazueta Olmos (born 1963) is a Mexican photojournalist, editorial and portrait photographer, based in London.

Olmos' first book is The Landscape of Murder (2013), photographs of the sites of murders within London's M25 orbital motorway in 2011 and 2012. He won a first place World Press Photo award in 2001 and was a finalist in the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize in 2011.

Biography

Olmos was born in Mexico.[1] He studied photojournalism at California State University, Fresno, United States.^[citation needed]

From 1988 Olmos was a staff photographer on The Miami Herald for three years.[2] In 1991 he went freelance, focusing on Latin American issues, basing himself in Mexico City[2] covering Central America and the Caribbean for the Black Star photo agency^[citation needed] . Since 1993/1994 Olmos has been based in London, focusing on issues dealing with the environment and human rights.[1]

Olmos has worked commercially, creating images for Penguin books, Polydor, EMI, Sony, Adobe, Pfizer; editorially, working for The Guardian, The Independent, The Observer[2][3] and The Daily Telegraph; and for NGOs including ActionAid.[4] His personal work has been published in The Guardian.[5]

In 2013 Olmos' photograph of Sol Campbell was included in the National Portrait Gallery, London's annual exhibition of the best submissions for the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize.[6]

The Landscape of Murder

Between 1 January 2011 and 31 December 2012, Olmos photographed the sites of all 210 known murders within London's M25 orbital motorway for his The Landscape of Murder project.[7][8][9] It includes a photograph of a group of teenagers in Edmonton, lining the garden wall of the house outside which their friend Negus McLean was murdered, which was a finalist in the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize.[1] 79 of the sites photographed appear in his book, The Landscape of Murder, published by Dewi Lewis Publishing.

Olmos has said of The Landscape of Murder that "the subtitle of my work is 'an alternative portrait of London.'"[1]

No, this is not Syria and it doesn't happen on a daily basis. It's not even Chicago or Detroit by any stretch of the imagination. Crime has been going down in London for a hundred years. London is one of the safest cities in the world in an urban area of 10 million. ... One of the points that I wanted to explore was that we don't understand crime or murder. Violent crime has more to do with mental illness, domestic violence, organized crime, too much alcohol… It's rarely a stranger coming through your window.[10]

Sean O'Hagan, writing in The Observer, included The Landscape of Murder among his recommended photography books of the year. He said that it was "by turns melancholy and thought-provoking, it will make you see the city in a different, darker light."[11]

Publications

• The Landscape of Murder. Stockport: Dewi Lewis Publishing, 2013. ISBN 978-1-907893-42-1. With an introduction by Sean O'Hagan.[7]

Group exhibitions

• 2011 – Landscape of Murder (joint exhibition with Sarah Baxter), Woolfson & Tay Independent Bookshop, London[12]

Awards

• 2001 – 1st place, People in the News category, World Press Photo Awards.[13]
• 2011 – Finalist, Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize.[14]

References

1. Morrison, Blake (19 April 2013). "London's crime scenes: murder in the city". The Guardian. Retrieved 22 October 2013.
2. "EPUK Showcase – Nablus protestor – Antonio Olmos, 2000". EPUK. 8 March 2007. Archived from the original on 23 October 2013. Retrieved 22 October 2013.
3. Whitmore, Greg (6 December 2013). "Original Observer photography: November". The Observer. Retrieved 12 December 2013.
4. "ActionAid launches '6 Degrees Project'". The Independent. London. 12 June 2009. Retrieved 22 October 2013.
5. "The Landscape of Murder – picture of the day". The Guardian. London. 20 April 2013. Retrieved 22 October 2013.
6. "Sol Campbell, the model pro of a different kind". London Evening Standard. 20 November 2013. Retrieved 21 November 2013.
7. Padley, Gemma (2013). "Projects – Work in Progress". British Journal of Photography. 160 (7815). Incisive Financial Publishing Limited: 24.
8. "In pictures: Landscape of Murder". BBC. 7 November 2013.
9. Schiller, Jakob (10 December 2013). "This Photographer Documented Every Murder Site in London for Two Years". Wired. Retrieved 12 December 2013.
10. Eiferman, Pauline. "The Landscape of Murder: Q&A with Antonio Olmos". Roads & Kinkdoms. Retrieved 27 October 2013.
11. O'Hagan, Sean (8 December 2013). "Photography books of the year – review". The Observer. Retrieved 12 December 2013.
12. "London Stories". Woolfson & Tay. Archived from the original on 30 April 2013. Retrieved 22 October 2013.
13. "2000, Antonio Zazueta Olmos, 1st prize, People in the News", worldpressphoto.org.
14. Steward, Sue (14 November 2011). "Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize, National Portrait Gallery – review". London Evening Standard. Retrieved 14 February 2015.

External links

• Official website
• Antonio Olmos, The Guardian
• The Landscape of Murder: Q&A with Antonio Olmos by Pauline Eiferman, Roads & Kingdoms
• Sharif Sakr, A guide to street photography: Antonio Olmos and the dark art of manual exposure, Engadget
• 'Antonio Olmos puts Derry in the frame, Hipsta style – in pictures', The Guardian
• 'Murder most ordinary – in pictures', The Guardian