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Óscar Pacheco: San Marcos pays tribute to a master of photography
🇵🇪 Peru /Culture & Society

Óscar Pacheco: San Marcos pays tribute to a master of photography

From La República · () Spanish

Translated from Spanish and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

In-depth Named sources Outcome reported
  • The National University of San Marcos will hold a tribute for photographer and longtime teacher Óscar Pacheco, who died on 18 August.
  • Pacheco trained generations of journalists and taught photography and lighting at San Marcos and other institutions.
  • Students remember his field-based teaching and his view of photography as art, technique, language and a social record.

For Óscar Pacheco, photography was never just a technical skill. It was a way to look at life, understand reality and preserve it as a testimony for future generations.

Generations of journalists, photographers, relatives and friends will pay tribute to Pacheco on Tuesday, 1 September, at the Faculty of Letters of the National University of San Marcos. He died on 18 August.

Pacheco guided many of his students through Peru’s landscapes, from Marcahuasi and San Pedro de Casta to Canta, Cerro Azul, Ancón and Huayllay. He believed photography had to be learned through practice. He joined young photographers on climbs and long walks, while continuing to work with light and shadow in streets and towns.

He taught us to discover photography as art, technique and language, but above all, he taught us to write the reality of our society with light.

— Iris TinocoPacheco’s former student described his teaching and view of photography.

Born in Lima in 1937, Pacheco studied image-making, film history and photography in England, including at the London School of Film Technique, University College London, Paddington Technical School and Ealing Technical College. He also studied at the Polytechnic University of Valencia in Spain. In Peru, he built a long teaching career at San Marcos, the School of Fine Arts and other universities.

His former student Iris Tinoco recalled that he taught students to see photography as “art, technique and language,” while also showing them how to develop film and taking them into the field to discover the country beyond the classroom. Poet and teacher Sonia Luz Carrillo remembered his simplicity, generosity and talent. Pacheco’s work focused on social documentary photography, and he dedicated his career to helping students understand the testimonial power of an image.

I treasure your wonderful simplicity, your limitless generosity and your great talent in photography.

— Sonia Luz CarrilloThe poet and teacher remembered Pacheco as an indefatigable mentor.
About this summary

Originally published by La República in Spanish. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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