A TALE TO TELL
Photographers, according to Lope Navo, are storytellers. Born in the Philippines and trained initially in painting, Navo has always had an eye for visual storytelling. Eventually, he traded his paintbrush for a camera and became a master of capturing the beauty of the male human form. Navo would then travel around the world. At the age of 20 he migrated to the Middle East for more than four years, then Berlin for six long years, New York City for five, followed by Los Angeles, Singapore, Rio de Janeiro and São Paolo. Wherever he went, he would create stunning images featured in campaigns of major fashion brands and editorials in major publications. Below and in the following pages, the storyteller shares some insight into the mind of a top-notch photographer.
DAMAN: Great to have you with us. What keeps you busy these days?
Lope Navo: For the past three months, during the whole unprecedented quarantine period, I was busy working on my new online magazine called MAN. On top of the magazine I was busy curating and selling my photographs as fine-art prints finally.
I am also working on my pop-art collages that I started so many years ago when I was living in Europe. Before I moved there, Instagram was fairly new. Around 2013, a magazine editor friend in Manila asked me why I’m not on Instagram; back then it was just like totally a new thing. So, I joined and posted backstage photos of my photo shoots during Men’s Fashion Week in Milan and Paris, where I’ve visited many times, as you know. Then I started creating this pop-art simply by putting two usually disconnected ideas online. A photo and a brand logo, and putting them together, as if I’m the advertising director of each brand and this is my take on how I would I interpret their products as an artist. There’s a touch of Andy Warhol in it, and also a lot of
