Up close and personal: Fabian Alzate

By Peter Rockstroh

*Odontoglossum* (*Oncidium*) *gloriosum*. Unfortunately, many big and showy-flowered Colombian orchid species like this persist only in National Parks and private reserves. ©F. Alzate 2021

Fabian Alzate was the first photographer I met when I returned to Colombia eight years ago. Efraín Gómez, owner of El Poder Fotográfico (The Photographic Power), the last bastion of analog photography in Bogotá, recommended him as an individual who could print great digital enlargements from large format negatives.

Fabian visited me one Saturday morning and rang the bell at the exact time we had agreed to meet. When I opened the door, he introduced himself and after seeing my surprised expression, said, “I am not from here,” meaning he did not favor the almost proverbial tardiness of Bogotá-born Colombians.

He came in and immediately homed into my study and started scanning the bookshelves.

“Efraín told me that you brought your entire library from Guatemala to Colombia. Two thousand books on photography.”

I was almost expecting his next comment to be: “…But I only see seven hundred and eighty-three.”

“Yes, I brought my library, but it includes books on biology, natural history, graphic arts, esoteric subjects, music as well as photography. And I haven’t quite reached 2,000 books yet,” I replied.

“I see.”

A few years later Fabian confessed at having got up very early that day, wondering what a house with a 2,000-title collection of books on photography would look like.

We had coffee, a short chat, and then I handed him a box of 8”x10” negatives. We agreed to meet the following Saturday.

I don’t know how many hours he must have spent mechanically and digitally cleaning the negatives, some of them 20+ years old, but the copies turned out fantastic. I commented on them as I checked the stack and asked him for a few additional prints. On Monday I dropped off these new negatives at his apartment/office/darkroom and, as I stepped in, I was greeted by shelf after shelf after shelf stacked with books. It looked like a giant Jenga tower, with the spines of all his books neatly aligned in every level.

Fabian has an encyclopedic knowledge of all things photography, especially all things photography as related to Colombia. His main areas of interest are Colombian photo books and the development of local photogravure. While we talked, he scanned the shelves, as if he had to look for his favorite titles and picked out a few beautiful examples of this work. As I slowly leafed through some fascinating historic books on the golden age of riverboats of the Río Magdalena and geographical explorations of Colombia’s vast territories during the first half of the 20th century, I was curious to learn how he had decided to become a photographer.

“I studied philosophy,” he replied nonchalantly, as if I should know that every photographer must first study something solid to fall back on before taking on this crazy career.

“I studied biology,” I responded almost automatically in a tone that was supposed to hint, “Great minds think alike,” but somehow ended up sounding more like, “Been there, done that.”

*Coryanthes mastersiana.* A black background is a great choice when you want to emphasize plant characteristics, but it leaves the viewer clueless about how the plant is integrated with its environment. ©F. Alzate 2021

Curious as to what a philosopher turned professional photographer does, I asked if I could see some of his work. He turned and pulled a few magazines and books from a shelf behind and handed them to me.

I don’t know what I was expecting. Maybe I thought I’d see some interpretation of Rodin’s The Thinker, Colombian version, or maybe images of the seedy parts of local towns with profound social comments attached.

Instead I opened a special edition of a local magazine, dedicated to Colombia’s orchids. Page after page showed impeccable studio portraits of local orchids that were all hard to find, hard to grow and hard to photograph.

“Congratulations!” I said, still flipping through his publications. “Very nice job!”

“I don’t like it,” he replied. “They’re static and boring and don’t tell a story. I don’t think I would publish something like that today.”

“So, how would you publish images of native orchids today?”

Fabian shown with one of his favored pieces of equipment, a Hasselblad 503C medium format film camera. Image: ©P. Rockstroh 2021.

Fabian spends a lot of his time hiking the parks surrounding Bogotá. Together with local photographer Wilson López they have crisscrossed the high páramo regions of this country, occasionally walking for several days while taking photographs of native flora. It is during these walks that Fabian realized why he didn’t care for his studio portraits of orchids anymore.

“They’re missing all the aspects that make these plants so fantastic. The surprise of discovery, when you suddenly bump into one of them and they shine with an unexpected glow. When you are scanning what seems like a dull landscape and suddenly there pops out a flash of color. Or when you are climbing up a tree, and there, right in front of where you MUST put your hand or else you’ll fall flat on your ass, is a species of orchid that you’ve never seen before; poking out of the moss, barely enough to let you know its new to you. I just don’t want to take any more photos that look like a prop that is part of a backdrop for a face cream advertisement.”

So there was the philosopher once again, returning to the essence of his photographic subjects.

“Shortly after publishing the book on orchids, I decided to start a new project. I’m photographing the orchids of the Bogotá plateau and surroundings, all with natural light. With good optics I can separate the flower from its surroundings with a bokeh effect, and still get the mood of the scene,” he explained.

Over these past years we have shared many field trips to photograph wildlife, landscapes and obviously many, many orchids. It is definitely much easier photographing orchids with a flash unit and isolating them from the environment for perfect portraits. For some photographers, the difference in detail and the isolation from the surrounding visual clutter is essential to recognize every trait that distinguishes the species. For other photographers, such as Fabian, the plant’s essence is much more important.

“I always include at least one flower in perfect focus in every image, for taxonomists and the obsessive detail hunters,” he noted as was going through his files one afternoon, neatly organized by day and name and place. “I usually have a long series of every species, to suit every publishing preference,” he said pointing at his computer screen.

Fabian’s images of Colombia’s National Parks, some of them over 30 years old, show very clearly the impact of human influence on the region, gnawing at the edge of the elfin forest, pushing its limit to the limit. And still, with original vegetation receding everywhere on the plateau, yielding to potato farms, goats and sheep, he looked again at the screen and commented: “Amazing, with all these conflicts, deforestation, new roads being built and forest fires, I still add about five or six new orchid species every year to my list.”

My logical response was: “And how many species have you catalogued until now?”

Without lifting his head he responded, “I don’t know. Remember, I’m a philosopher, not an accountant.”

Above, Fabian is shown giving pointers during a field course on nature photography we gave during 2016 in Chingaza National Park, Cundinamarca Department, Colombia. Image: ©P. Rockstroh 2021.