Copyright © Orlando Montes

Orlando Montes Gutiérrez was born in Mexico City on January 30, 1978. He began studying photography in 1999 at the Centro de la Imagen, in 2001 at the Academia de San Carlos of UNAM, and later studied pinhole photography at Estudio Selenium with photographer Daniel Mendoza. Additionally, he studied studio photography at the Escuela Activa de Fotografía. In 2013, he participated in the course “Creative Solutions, Techniques, and Practice in the Development of Photographic Projects,” led by photographers Cannon Bernáldez and Miguel Ángel Ortega.

In 2017, he took part in the workshop on impression and interpretation of the image at the Pedro Meyer Foundation, led by photographers Javier Hinojosa, Gabriel Fogueroa, Agustín Estrada, and Lorena Alcaraz.

His exhibition history began in 2000 with the itinerant exhibition “Distant Gazes” at the Centro Cultural José Martí, Museo de la Revolución, and the Galería La Salamandra as part of Foto Septiembre. In 2001, he exhibited his work at Casa Borda UNAM in Taxco, Guerrero, in the exhibition “Saudade” at the Galería Raúl Fernández Mendoza in Puebla City, State of Mexico, and in “Ruta 307” by the students of the Academia de San Carlos. In 2005, “Diafragma 8” at the Frida Kahlo Gallery in Mexico City; “La Piel de Nix” at the Sociedad Mexicana de Geografía y Estadística; and “Rostros Urbanos” at the Centro Cultural de San Angel. In 2007 and 2008, he collaborated with various print media. In 2009, he was part of the “Proyecto Acompañarte e Interacción Plástica” of the Secretaría de Cultura de la Ciudad de México. In 2010, he taught photography courses at the Museo de Templo Mayor and Museo de El Carmen. In 2013, he was selected in the Bienal Nacional de Artes Visuales de Yucatán, and he won the architecture and landscape photography contest “Patrimonio Arquitectura y Paisaje” organized by the Procuraduría Ambiental y del Ordenamiento Territorial del Distrito Federal.

In 2018, he was invited to contribute to the collaborative collection “19 de septiembre de 2017, memoria histórica de la Ciudad de México” at the Museo Archivo de la Fotografía. In 2019, he participated in the exhibition “Largo por ancho por alto Ciudad sin Dimension” in Medellin, Colombia. In 2020, he was one of the winners of the photography contest of the Reserva de la Biósfera de Tehuacán y Cuicatlán in Puebla. His work has been auctioned in Mexico and acquired by collectors in Mexico, the United States, and France. Currently, he continues his work as a printer and carries out personal photographic projects.