Biography: People/Portrait photographer Pedro Luis Raota | MONOVISIONS

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Pedro Luis Raota (1934-1986) was an Argentinian photographer.

At a young age he sold his bicycle to buy a camera, determined to learn the art of photography. He quickly took up portrait photography in Santa Fe de la Vera Cruz and later moved to Villaguary where he enthusiastically set up his own studio. Since his first recognition in 1958, he won over 150 international awards and honors for his exceptional work in the humanitarian genre.

His photographs have been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and are included in public and private collections around the world. Raota’s unique and memorable talent for capturing the depth of human spirit in his photographs has brought him comparisons to other legendary photographers. Like Dorothea Lange or W. Eugene Smith, this Argentinian master presents haunting portraits of a stricken humanity. Other photographs are filled with joy or comical confrontations, spontaneous “decisive moments” akin to Cartier-Bresson or Robert Doisneau. There is a rare focused intensity of spirit in nearly all Raota’s portraits, which has been compared to the work of Paul Strand. In the final analysis however, these extraordinary images step beyond comparisons to other photographers and stand apart as powerful masterpieces, unique and singularly moving.