Caicedo, Carlos

Carlos Caicedo was born in Cáqueza (in the department of Cundinamarca). Disputes between the Liberal and Conservative parties in his hometown led his parents to move to Bogotá when he was just six months old. His first encounter with photography was when his aunt got him a job as a messenger at Foto Schimmer, a photography studio in Bogotá, in the 1940s. There, he was given a broken Kodak camera as a gift, which he repaired with tape, and with it, he began taking his first images. Years later, he worked as an assistant in Sady González's laboratory, where he became interested in photojournalism. In 1949, he began his career as a photographer at the newspaper El Siglo, then moved on to Semana, Cromos, and in 1953, he joined El Tiempo; he only stayed there for four months. He worked at El Espectador for a year and returned to El Tiempo, where he had the opportunity to work for 35 years and showcase his great talent. During those 35 years, he captured the political and social events of the mid-20th century. He covered battles of the Liberal guerrillas, accompanied Germán Castro Caicedo to cover the news of prisoners who escaped in 1969 from the prison in Araracuara (in the department of Caquetá). He also captured moments from the Vuelta a Colombia, such as the marriage of cyclist Efraín Forero, the first to win this sports event. And masters of the plastic arts like Alejandro Obregón. His most famous photograph, which not only marked the history of photography in Colombia but also went around the world, is that of Alfonso Romero, the 11-year-old boy who died of poisoning in Chiquinquirá along with 230 other people. Although for Carlos Caicedo, his favorite photograph was the one he took in 1952, which earned him first place in the artistic category in the Circle of Graphic Reporters contest: it shows Arturo, one of his sons, crawling under a ray of light coming through the window.