Professional Photographer - USA (2019-12)

©TODD ANTONY

FOREGROUND by Amanda Arnold

PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER | DECEMBER 2019 13

“Each year I try to undertake one to two personal projects to keep

myself fresh from a creative standpoint,” says commercial photog-

rapher Todd Antony. Often these projects highlight a subcultural

group he finds intriguing, e.g. his recent series on Bolivia’s Flying

Cholitas, a group of women wrestlers who wear traditional dress

while engaging in their sport. The Cholitas first began wrestling

in the early 2000s, says Antony, partly for recreation and partly as

a way for women who’d suffered domestic abuse to draw strength.

Antony collaborated with local producer Esteban Barriga Prado

to arrange for the photo sessions, which took place in El Alto, a

plateau village 1,600 feet above La Paz, whose brick homes seem to

defy physics by cascading down a cliff’s face, Antony explains. The

13,615 altitude was his biggest foe—thin air made it difficult to lift

equipment let alone think at times, he says. But thanks to the Cholitas,

Prado, and his own meticulous planning and lighting techniques, he

was able to create exciting photographs with compelling backdrops.

“There is such a saturation of images being produced in the world

at the moment that whatever you’re going to shoot and put out into

the world needs to have some sort of visual impact that separates

it from what is around it.” •

GRAVITY-DEFYING

DOCUMENTING BOLIVIA’S FLYING CHOLITAS