ENRIQUE LEYVA

I am a photographer born in Oaxaca, Mexico I have been taking photos professionally since I was 16 years old, at the age of 23 I ventured into fashion photography in a contest where I won second place sponsored by Fashion Week Mx and Niko, at the age of 24 I had the opportunity to to do my first commercial campaign in fashion, when I entered this world in Mexico I realized that I did not feel identified with the visions and the message that was being sent, because there were no people who had my physical characteristics or those of my family and friends from Oaxaca, that is why I began to do recognition work together with models who were not being called to occupy those spaces in fashion, later I also began to realize that apart from not being shown physical beauty, the stories of characters were not being told in different areas of creativity and who inhabited the south of this country. My work since then has been based on the inclusion of characters, creatives, models of color to tell those stories that were not previously shown on platforms and fashion magazines. I have worked in this industry from local brands in my state with which I have been allowed to tell more intimate stories, also national campaigns from commercial to magazines like Vogue Mexico, international brands like Dior, Valentino Make up, Pandora, Tifanny among others and international magazines such as Vogue Magazine, lastly and most recently I have been selected for the PHOTOVOGUE festival in Milan where they talk about the new beauty standards.

I refer to my style of photography as “fashion documentation” since my work goes beyond just showing off clothes, hair or makeup. My work is based on telling those stories with which I grew up as a child, about the empowerment of the women in my house, the places I visited to see my family, the cultural and ancestral heritage of my grandmothers and even the stories of my uncles, friends, grandparents and dad. Being a person from the south of Mexico, I grew up surrounded by different scenarios that I could see were not being shown in fashion, advertising, or movies, just as the beauty of the people I was with was not shown. I had grown up, people who previously lived in anonymity due to the racism that was lived in these media and that I was not observing them in the entertainment industry in general, that is why my career in fashion has been based on showing these beauty and Inspired by my roots, past, stories and the intellect of these characters to tell new life stories through fashion and inspire those who have been growing up to recognize and empower their roots and beauty.