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Rangefinder Magazine
July 2003

Rƒ Cookbook by Peter Skinner
Oscar Lozoya’s Jugando con La Muerte

Parody, humor and a cautionary tale are intertwined in this superb black-and-white image from Oscar Lozoya’s La Muerte series. The title, Playing with Death, says it all and one only has to study the photograph to see the array of vices that tempt the hapless “victim” on the right.

Based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Lozoya began his La Muerte series several years ago, infusing his images with Hispanic humor that mock and have fun with death. The “dead,” their faces made up as skeletons, play everyday roles (albeit not exactly normal roles) as they spoof the afterlife. In Jugando con La Muerte, the cautionary message comes through loud and clear with vices such as gambling, boozing, drugs, smoking and sins of the flesh all being flaunted before the intended victim as he plays with the dead. And at the apex of the triangular composition, a portrait of the patron of vice “Dona Vismuerte” gazes down on the smoke-filled den of iniquity.

This well planned and brilliantly executed image was enhanced by a stroke of luck. Even though Lozoya says he’d like to say he planned for the rising cigar smoke to fit perfectly with the triangular composition, it was pure luck. But, given the subject matter, maybe some supernatural force was at work (or play)? No way! That couldn’t happen, could it?

The lighting was fairly complex and Lozoya placed the main light directly above the camera and a fill light beneath the lens to direct light under the accordion player’s hat and illuminate detail in the shadow areas. A spotlight to the right was directed at the photograph on the wall in the background. A hair light and two skimmers illuminated the models’ shoulders and hair, and also backlit the cigar smoke, making it stand out against the darkness of the unlit areas of the room.

This image is included in the La Muerte section of Oscar Lozoya’s new book, The Art of Black and White Photography, published by Amherst Media.