William Camargo takes photography personally
- Kristine Schomaker
- 11 hours ago
- 3 min read
By William Moreno
The painter constructs, the photographer discloses. Susan Sontag, “On Photography”
William Camargo’s current exhibit of twenty-four plus works, dated 2019 through 2025,
reads as a mini survey, with photographic images and installations thematically placed throughout the modest gallery. It’s his largest showing of works to date. Early in his career, the Anaheim native considered fashion and product photography, photojournalism and conflict reportage, finding the latter insightful but unfulfilling – and risky.
He subsequently turned his attention to social justice issues in his home city and the humble neighborhood subsisting in the shadow of Disneyland. Over the years the low-income community had morphed and become more costly – a result of the city’s ongoing development and gentrification – a highly contested phenomenon. His early self-portraits mark the ephemeral memories of those changes - the stark images commentaries on displacement, erasure and commemoration. We Gunna Have to Move Out Soon Fam!, 2019, is a photograph of the artist hoisting an unambiguous sign: “This area will gentrify soon,” in front of a development site – marking the beginning of the end of the neighborhood as it had existed. The powerful yet poignant composition imbues the image with the intractability and unrelenting nature of “progress.” The image Yo, There Is A Bunch of Brown Folks on This Side!, 2019, pictures Camargo hoisting a bluntly worded hand-made sign in front of a stone fence, wryly capturing the often implicit racial and economic segregation that plays out across the region. With A Colonist is a Colonist is a Colonist, 2022, the artist stands in front of a high-school banner titled, oddly enough, “The Colonists,” his sign signaling the school site’s indigenous history. Other images such as, On becoming a Cholo, Cholo Actor or Brown #1, 2025 takes a slight shift, displaying a page of temporary tattoos from a widely used catalog with images that take cues from gang life – a kind of segregated, visual taxonomy.
Some contemporary photographers have begun approaching their work in a more personal manner, utilizing family histories as significant inspiration and an impetus to engage social commentary. Camargo’s photos eschew shrill didactics and are anchored by the patina of familial proximity and intimacy. It’s work with a sense of place, humanity, and a bit of sardonic commentary – this isn’t traditional studio-bound portraiture. With the series, All That I Can Carry, 2025 Camargo points his lens to familial aggregation – again posing as a de facto corporal sculpture with the contents of his family’s storage units – markers of memory, tenacity and economic resourcefulness. It’s an unlikely, witty and earnest homage.
Camargo’s most recent project, Take a Portrait with Me, 2025, injects an element of risk. Largely initiated during a residency in Costa Rica, he wanted to test notions of machismo and the foibles of masculinity. In preparation, he solicited volunteers to take impromptu photos – most of the subjects were unknown to him and each other - and in a last minute, disarming twist – asked them to remove their shirts. Most agreed, with some hesitant due to body image issues– but the resulting pictures are fascinating studies of near strangers plunging into tentative, if furtive, bonds. Yet the subjects were given a modicum of control by allowing them to trigger the camera’s shutter. In these informal compositions, many of the men smile, touch and project unreserved confidence – others appear more circumspect. Ultimately, it’s an affecting series exploring trust and the masculine condition.
Camargo is often as much a part of the scenery as his subjects - a messenger of sorts - adroitly melding aesthetics as the message.
William Camargo: All That I Can Carry Hannah Sloan Curatorial & Advisory 5613 San Vicente Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90019 April 11 – May 30, 2026 Wednesday – Saturday, 11 AM – 5 PM hannahsloan.com
William Moreno is a Los Angeles native and an independent art advisor, writer, critic, and curator. He was previously the Executive Director of The Mexican Museum, San Francisco, and the founding Director of the Claremont Museum of Art. Currently he is a consultant for the Los Angeles County Arts Department. He has written for Artillery magazine and CALO News, among other publications.
