Unpublished photos of Nicolás Maduro – 18/03/2019

José Carlos Gómez is a photographer, but now he works replenishment in a warehouse at Hospitalet de Llobregat with a busy schedule of rigor. I would prefer to practice what he likes, as in Venezuela, but he does not seem to feel unhappy either. Do not lose faith. He does what he does for his family for a moment, he says. He worked very closely with the two men who aroused more pbadions and hatreds in the recent history of the now Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. He was a photographer of the electoral campaigns of Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro.. He was a privileged witness of the management of the regime.

He arrives with his mother's computer under his arm with a collection of this photographic equipment, a great reserve that he cherishes. "These are the photos that I took from Maduro for the last campaign.They said that they had to be to make a map and then for an irregularity more than the thousands that. there is, it turned out, without my knowledge, the official campaign picture because it has re-billed one of the many agencies that exist among those of the top government. They remake his picture and turn it into thousands of dollars. "

Look also

The photos from this session for the 2013 election campaign are a catalog of poses from a Maduro that demonstrates a polyhedral ability. In them he is shown without inhibition. He adopts effeminate semblances to others in a marked authoritative gesture, but jester. It's easy for many, seeing them for the first time, these images cause feelings of pathos. Venezuelan citizens are not for jokes. Your country is going through an acute economic and institutional crisis.

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"During the session, the session was relaxed, but no line had been drawn to me, nor those who had directed it. It was just as it is. It's like that or how I see it. The poses were as he is. Improvised poses. Burlesque He said: now I'm like Pinochet, now as a candidate, now as gay… nonsense. And as he was joking and taking poses, the cohort still at his disposal began to laugh. Those who laugh and applaud everything make fun of the Lord's thanks, "says José Carlos in the improvised photography workshop in which the cafeteria became what explains its history.

José Carlos remembers well that this photographic session was dispersed and improvised like almost everything, he explains, with regard to image problems in the case of Nicolás Maduro. "Here, what really matters," he says sharply, "more than images, well, yes, seduce, sell what you want to sell … But more than that, what matters is the company that is a campaign. There were no contracts. There were no bills. Everything was black. Briefcases in bolivars or dollars that come and go. "

"He said: now I'm like Pinochet, now as a candidate, now as gay … nonsense"

José Carlos Gómez

The photograph

"While I was there, I know all their direction, how they move, the barbaric irregularities, the privileges they have … I did my technical work the best I could, but obviously, as I was there, I was in the pot as they say in Venezuela, I've seen thousands and thousands of irregularities. I clearly and strongly disagree for quite a while, especially with this government. With the precedent too, but especially with that, "he says liberally and remedying some ideas, knowing that people may wonder how he has spent so much time testifying to everything that matters.

This slow-talking photographer was known to the leaders of the Chavez regime because he had not only worked during Hugo Chávez's election campaigns, but also at the Ministry of Communication. He followed the commander who wrote the Bolivarian constitution in all those red tides during which his visits were converted by Venezuelan territory while his charisma was in better shape than the price of oil, which testified to the weaknesses of the regime.

"I was not a furious supporter of the government, he was just a technician who covered what he had to cover," he says during his international tour following Chávez in countries such as than Syria, Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and Libya. "The last embrace between Chavez and Gaddafi was recorded by me, I had to be there, and a year later, Kadafi was dead," he said.

It was his job, he insists. For this, for example, and for those who have already done so, that's what they came looking for to join the Maduro campaign as a photographer. The same one in which the one who today is fighting the leadership of the country with the self-proclaimed President Juan Guaidó was accompanied by Diego Armando Maradona during the electoral evening. José Carlos says that these appearances of the Argentine star and those of other characters known as Sean Penn, Danny Glover or Oliver Stone they are remunerated in Venezuela. "People eat it with potatoes, as they say here, they believe this artist supports the commander and supports Nicolás. This is an advertising guide"He explains bluntly.

The interview started at eight in the morning and must end. José Carlos has to go to the winery where he works. He left his country like other hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans because the situation has deteriorated.

Having a Spanish pbadport because of its roots gives it a certain advantage over other emigrants. This bloody legacy allowed him to study photography in Barcelona in his youth and to return to the city where he currently resides. We will see for how long.

By Enrique Figueredo, Barcelona

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