Luis Mejía was the first Ecuadorian photographer to collaborate for an international media outlet. His camera captured key moments in Ecuador’s history.
Capture the world in an instant. Count a moment that will not return. Steal a second from time. Give the world indelible memories.
This is what he did Luis Mejía Cevallos over 50 years with the thousands of photographs that immortalized in Ecuador, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina, the United States and Russia.
Reform to the IESS proposes retiring later in exchange for a higher pension
This renowned photographer, born in Guamote on July 26, 1938, He arrived with his family to Quito at the end of the 50s in the middle of the internal migration wave that Ecuador faced at that time.
Remember exactly that the love of photography He began in his childhood with drawing and with the images he saw daily in the newspapers.
But had to wait until turning 16 years old to have his first approach to the world of cameras. It happened one afternoon in 1954, when one of his friends showed him what would be your first camera: a German Agfa Sillete.
With it he made his first photographs: funeral transfers, landscapes, portraits and the daily life of ancient Quito.
Since then they were few days in which Mejía He went out into the street without a camera hanging on his chest.
Thus he captured dozens of photographs that were published in the covers of the main print media of the country and some of the world. His images made him one of the best photographers in the country and the first to collaborate with a international agency: the Associated Press of the United States.
Still retired from the profession since 2010, Luis Mejía continues adding awards and recognitions. The last one was received on April 20, 2024, from the Association of Ecuadorian Photographers.
The group gave him the Professional Career Award, which is added to the five he won in the contests organized by the National Union of Journalists in 1967, 1970, 1973, 1980 and 1984.
History in photographs
Luis Mejia lives in San Carlos citadel, in the north of Quito, in a house full of photographs, recognitions and awards.
At 86 years old, it is difficult for him to walk and listen, but he easily remembers the photographs that left their mark in Ecuadorian history.
Sitting on one of the sofas next to his son Iván, who followed in his footsteps as a photographer, he says that the 10 cameras that accompanied him in the trade They captured some of the country’s most important moments.
One of the ones he remembers the most is coup suffered by former president Carlos Julio Arosemana Monroy, on July 11, 1963.
“A cousin tells me that in the Independence Square There was an unusual movement of soldiers. I took the Agfa camera and from the steps of the presidential palace I took the photo,” he says.
The curious thing is that this photograph was published in the newspaper El Comercio without its authorship being recognized, but “it was the gateway to photojournalism,” he adds.
In the following years, Mejía witnessed other momentous events: the parade of first barrel of Ecuadorian oil and in the four overthrows of the former president José María Velasco Ibarra.
He was also present at the last act he led León Febres Cordero before the Taurazo, in 1987, and he was one of the first Ecuadorian photographers to attend a soccer World Cup.
“I was in Argentina for a month, in the 1978 World Cup,” he says proudly. And with that same pride he confesses one of his secrets when taking photographs.
“A single shot for each photo. Not two or three. I took one because “I knew what I was going to do,” He says while looking at the books that compile his works.
When an image appears showing some of his media colleagues, he smiles mischievously.
“I always placed myself in a different place. If I put myself in the same space, I would never have had good photos,” she notes.
And he adds that this technique “allowed me to differentiate myself and have the recognition that I now have.”
Luis Mejia and his magical realism
Another facet that Luis Mejía explored throughout his career is what his son now defines as ‘magical realism’, in reference to the literary movement driven by Gabriel García Márquez.
And Mejía not only dedicated himself to taking photographs of social events or for the media. He also used her gaze to portray the social injustice and poverty that Ecuador has suffered over time.
“I never or almost never used flash. He wanted the photos to be real. The key was to find the right place for the image to come out well day or night,” he explains.
These photographs are part of the 8,000 files that the Mejía family keeps and that helped the country to know him as ‘The Eye of Quito’.
“Since I was little I saw his work. That’s what led me to become a photographer,” says his son Iván.
Although he happily admits that on this occasion the student will not surpass the teacher.
