Tigre Escobar
- Anna Lilli Garai
- Nov 11
- 4 min read
Tigre Escobar is a photographer working between New York and Mexico City. He mixes fashion and documentary styles, creating images that feel close and staged at the same time. His work focuses on queer Latin communities and how identity can change and be expressed. In the series Proud Humans, he photographs people in their everyday spaces as they step into their alter egos. Collaboration and trust shape the atmosphere of his photographs.
Q: You blend fashion, art, and documentary in one frame. What made you start mixing those worlds?
A: My academic background in art history helped me understand that I had a particular point of view. That realization led me to photography, opening new academic and creative spaces during my school years. Through that process, I developed my own visual language, one that uses photography as a vehicle to tell stories through the intersection of documentary, fashion, and art. This blend became a way to find my voice and to celebrate proud humans through that language.
Q: “Proud Humans” feels like both a celebration and a confrontation. Where did that project begin for you?
A: “Proud Humans” was born from curiosity, from witnessing new ways in which people were telling their own stories, in ways that felt radically honest and self-defined that I had never seen before. It became an exploration of how I, as a photographer, could engage in a dialogue with these individuals and reflect their narratives through my own perspective.
The project is also deeply personal. I visited their homes, met their families, and shared in their daily lives. That process created a space of mutual discovery, they confronted and redefined their realities through performance and identity, while I learned to see through their eyes. Most of the Proud Humans I’ve photographed are Latin people living in New York, Mexico City, or Bogotá. We share that cultural space, and that connection, along with my alter ego, Tigree, allows me to meet them from a place of authenticity and empathy, since many of them also express themselves through alter egos.
Q: Your images often blur everyday life with something fantastical. What draws you to that border?
A: Thanks for pointing this out. That border between reality and fantasy is where the stories truly come alive. In “Proud Humans,” I enter the subjects’ real spaces such as their homes, kitchens, and family environments, and from there, I witness how they transform into their alter egos.
There’s something powerful about seeing those two dimensions coexist: the intimacy of the everyday and the expressive power of their imagined selves. That tension, between the ordinary and the extraordinary, reveals how identity can be both rooted and fluid. It’s what fascinates me and drives the visual narrative of the project.
Q: Color plays a huge role in your work. Do you plan it carefully, or does it come from instinct?
A: Color has always been the first language in my work, it’s actually what drew me to photography in the first place. I realized I could use color as a narrative tool, not just an aesthetic one.
At first, my use of color was purely instinctive, but over time it became intentional. Now I’m very aware of how each palette supports the story I’m telling. I don’t predetermine the colors, but I recognize and use what’s already present in the environment. My experience in fashion photography also shaped this sensitivity, it taught me how color can carry emotion and structure storytelling. In my work, color becomes both an entry point and a connecting thread between fiction and reality.
Q: You work closely with queer communities across different countries. How does trust shape those collaborations?
A: Trust is everything. I’ve been fortunate that my work allows me to enter queer communities and build genuine dialogues with them. What emerges is not just a portrait, but an exchange, a shared process of storytelling.
They invite me into their intimate spaces, their homes, their families, their everyday life, and that openness creates a bridge of trust. I approach each person with the same respect and curiosity I bring to any project, but with special attention to their individuality and their creative power. That’s what makes these collaborations authentic: these creative encounters are built on a mutual interest to share their vision of themselves through their creations.
Q: After moving between New York and Mexico City, what feels like home when you’re creating?
A: I’ve always developed intimate relationships with the places I live in, it’s part of how I build stories. In Mexico, I’ve found a home: as a Colombian artist, it’s a place where I can create, share, and belong.
New York, on the other hand, shaped my identity as an artist. It’s where “Proud Humans” was born, from my desire as a foreigner to connect with people and understand the city through them. Many of the Proud Humans are Latin immigrants who, like me, navigate that dual feeling of belonging and displacement. Exploring that shared experience of migration and cultural identity has been deeply inspiring.
Both cities have given me different creative energies. Through that mix of disciplines, I was able to find my own voice as a photographer. It made me able to tell stories through my own language, my own vision.
