The help.

This week:  photographer Gio Alma.

By Gonzalo López Martí – LMMiami.com

• In this business we rarely ask the opinion of the artists-for-hire who help us bring to life our lofty, world-changing, award-winning ideas.
• Namely film directors, photographers, web developers and so on.
• Marketing execs, account execs, agency creatives, media planners, we spend hours in conference rooms or cubicles filling out timesheets, padding our expense reports and writing emails nobody will read, yet we seldom pay attention to the POVs of the people who turn our psychobabble & PowerPoint presentations into real, tangible executions.
• We expect from them to hit the ground running, give us exactly want we want, when we want it, at the price we set, no questions asked.
• This article will humbly attempt to right this wrong.
• Gio Alma is one of America’s busiest & most prestigious Hispanic photographers*. He’s done advertising, editorial, fashion and a lot of celebrity portraiture for all sorts of brands & publications (check out his Instragram feed @GioAlmaPics).
• Needless to say, Mr. Alma has a keen eye and is in a privileged position to shed plenty light on the pop cultural trends coming our way in the Hispanic sphere.

Let’s see what he has to say.

Q: Do you see increasing crossover potential for Hispanic professionals? For example, are Hispanic photographers being hired by mainstream agencies, brands or publications?

GA: Absolutely. Peruvian Mario Testino is the biggest fashion & celeb photographer working today. He is responsible for some of the most memorable ad campaigns of the last two decades. He took the A-list by storm when he shot Princess Diana in 1997 for the cover of Vanity Fair. He pretty much opened up the door for Hispanic photographers to cross over to the mainstream. Follow him on Instagram: @Mariotestino. Most of his posts are bilingual. A very talented and generous guy.

Q: Mention the best campaigns you have seen recently.

GA: I personally love portraits and fashion. My favorite campaign is Dolce Gabbana’s Spring 2014 collection, shot in Sicily by Domenico Dolce, with Eva Herzigova, Bianca Balti and Catherine McNeill. The hair was done by Oribe, a Cuban American artist who is one of be the biggest names, if not the biggest, in the world of A-list hair styling today.

Q: Mention the worst campaigns you have seen recently.

GA: Nissan print for the FIFA World Cup: a clear example of how Photoshop overkill can mess up good photography. Maybe they ran out of budget (as is often the case) but it is hard to find something uglier to look at.

Q: What’s your take on social media?

GA: A vast and challenging universe where billions of bad and good images live together as one. Social media can numb your brain if you don’t stay focused. For us photographers it is a big opportunity. The social media beast is a hungry one, it demands to be fed with constant quality content to stand out among the mediocrity. I like to think this is precisely what I help my clients achieve: outstanding quality content.

Q: How are Latinas portrayed in the media today? Are we progressing?

GA: The voluptuous airhead stereotype is still a big part of our reality but it’s no longer the norm. Depending on the media outlet and what the client is looking for, Latinas are increasingly being portrayed as stylish, classy, educated, empowered or simply regular persons. But we have a long way to go to debunk the stereotype of the slutty, undereducated sexpot.
For instance, Home Depot and Publix have depicted Latinas really well in their recent campaigns.
Our main problem seems to be that a lot of decisions in our industry are still made by immature, insecure men: a couple of years ago I saw a Toyota TV spot that depicted Latin culture as sexist and stupid. The ad shows a Latin dude at the wheel of his new Toyota. Riding shotgun there’s an Anglo-looking girl eating an ice-cream cone. The guy suddenly and aggressively turns the wheel of his Toyota in such a way that makes the girl’s ice-cream fall in his lap. She quickly stoops over his lap to clean it up, making it look as if she is “going down” on him. Adding insult to injury, the guy flashes a lecherous smile at the camera. That day I decided I would never buy a Toyota in my life.

Q: What about the self-image &/or projected image of Hispanic men? Are Latinos finally dropping their tough macho guard?

GA: Both men AND women in our culture are still very driven by machismo. It is not easy for Latin dudes to show their sensitive side. Imagewise, in the editorial & fashion territories, stylists, artists & celebs in general have steered the depiction of Latin males a bit toward a more “metrosexual” place. However, it might still be a tough sell to feature a Latin dude wearing a pink jacket in People En Español.
I shot Ricky Martin for the cover of USA Today some time before he came out and what most Latinos asked me about the experience was “is he gay?”  They could’ve asked so many questions, gossipy or otherwise: “is he shorter than he looks?”, “is he taller than he looks?”, “did he sing during the session?” Nope, most Hispanics in my social circle just wanted to know about his sexual choices.

*GioAma.com – Gio Alma’s snapshots have illustrated the pages of Harpers Bazaar, Cigar Aficionado, ELLE, InStyle, Cosmopolitan, Lucky, People En Español, FHM, Maxim, People, Ocean Drive, Palm Beach Illustrated, USA Today, Hola, Quien, Siempre Mujer and many others, for clients such as Nestle USA, Colgate, American Airlines, Got Milk, General Motors, Pontiac, Miami City Ballet, Apple iTunes, Cohiba, GlaxoSmithKline, Transatlantic Bank, A&E Television networks, Univision Networks, Telemundo, Aflac, Sony Music, The Dog Whisperer (Nat GEO), Segafredo Zanetti, The O’Neill Group and Emeril’s Restaurants.

He’s trained his lenses on multiple celebs counting Tommy Lee Jones, Roberto Cavalli, Gloria Estefan, Shaquille O’Neal, Andy Roddick, Ricky Martin, Philippe Starck, Bill Paxton, Ashanti, Betsey Johnson, Dwyane Wade, Juan Luis Guerra, Emeril Lagasse, Alejandro Sanz, Cristina Saralegui, Chayanne and Emilio Estefan.