legal name
Luz Camila Gutierrez
known professionally as
Luz Gutierrez
occupation
Photographer & bartender
birthdate & age
19 August, 1986 (30)
hometown
Boston, Massachusetts
current residence
Brooklyn, New York
relationship status
Single
religion
Heavily lapsed Catholic
family
Juan Carlos (father, 49), Daniela (mother, 47), Diego (28, brother), Andres (23, brother)
Born Luz Camila Gutierrez in 1986, Luz is the daughter of Colombian parents and older sister to two boys, Diego and Andres. Her mom, Daniela, had Luz when she was sixteen and her then-boyfriend, Juan Carlos (who would later become her husband and the father of her other two children), was a year older. As a teenager, Luz had it drummed into her that she shouldn’t make the same choices her mother and father had; it wasn’t that her parents regretted having her, they would emphasize, nor that they would change the way that their lives had worked out. It was more a case of not wanting her to have her opportunities in life limited by tying herself down to a family too soon. However they phrased it, it always sounded kind of wistful to Luz, but she knows that they love her, so she figures it’s their prerogative to wonder about and maybe feel slightly sad over what might have been if they hadn’t had her so early in their youths.
She was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and lived there until she graduated from high school in 2004. Her parents were keen for Luz to study something “proper” in college, and she was accepted to Cornell. However, she had pursued creative arts throughout high school, and while she worked hard at all of her classes, her main interest lay in art, principally photography. While her parents - and grandparents, for that matter - had encouraged her pursuit of the art form, and she’d had a pretty decent camera for a birthday gift when she turned sixteen. However, when it came to actually chasing it as her main direction in college education, her parents weren’t quite as keen.
Luz had applied for Parsons The New School, but her parents - particularly her mother - didn’t see a future in photography, and although she wasn’t unkind about it, Daniela did her best to gently dissuade her daughter from following that particular dream. Eventually, Luz went to Cornell, where she studied Education for two semesters before expressing to her parents how depressed she was there and how much happier she believed she’d be at Parsons. They finally relented, and she ended up starting at Parsons as a Photography major a year later than she’d originally planned. It didn’t matter to Luz - deferring a dream, to her, was better than giving up on it altogether.
Since she graduated from art school in 2008, Luz has struggled and at times stalled in her photography career, and she’s not ashamed to admit it. After all, adversity makes triumph taste all the sweeter, and it was only in the summer of 2015 that she began to wonder whether she was ever going to achieve that triumph, or if she’d faced so much adversity that it was time to quit and move on to a different path. Teaching, maybe. That was what her parents had originally envisioned for her, after all. Then, like in all good stories, when Luz stood on the brink of giving up and going home, things fell into place. A friend from art school was holding an exhibition of up and coming photographers, and contacted her to see if she was still shooting, and if so, did she want to be included?
It didn’t seem like a big opportunity at the time, but it proved to be one all the same. Some of her pieces sold, and things sort of snowballed… after a fashion. Nowadays, her career is on the upswing, and although she’s by no means the most in-demand photographer in the world, her work sells steadily to publications as well as collectors. Finally, she’s making money doing what she’s always loved to do, and she only has to work a few extra shifts at a bar near her home in Brooklyn to make her life comfortable enough to thrive in.
She was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and lived there until she graduated from high school in 2004. Her parents were keen for Luz to study something “proper” in college, and she was accepted to Cornell. However, she had pursued creative arts throughout high school, and while she worked hard at all of her classes, her main interest lay in art, principally photography. While her parents - and grandparents, for that matter - had encouraged her pursuit of the art form, and she’d had a pretty decent camera for a birthday gift when she turned sixteen. However, when it came to actually chasing it as her main direction in college education, her parents weren’t quite as keen.
Luz had applied for Parsons The New School, but her parents - particularly her mother - didn’t see a future in photography, and although she wasn’t unkind about it, Daniela did her best to gently dissuade her daughter from following that particular dream. Eventually, Luz went to Cornell, where she studied Education for two semesters before expressing to her parents how depressed she was there and how much happier she believed she’d be at Parsons. They finally relented, and she ended up starting at Parsons as a Photography major a year later than she’d originally planned. It didn’t matter to Luz - deferring a dream, to her, was better than giving up on it altogether.
Since she graduated from art school in 2008, Luz has struggled and at times stalled in her photography career, and she’s not ashamed to admit it. After all, adversity makes triumph taste all the sweeter, and it was only in the summer of 2015 that she began to wonder whether she was ever going to achieve that triumph, or if she’d faced so much adversity that it was time to quit and move on to a different path. Teaching, maybe. That was what her parents had originally envisioned for her, after all. Then, like in all good stories, when Luz stood on the brink of giving up and going home, things fell into place. A friend from art school was holding an exhibition of up and coming photographers, and contacted her to see if she was still shooting, and if so, did she want to be included?
It didn’t seem like a big opportunity at the time, but it proved to be one all the same. Some of her pieces sold, and things sort of snowballed… after a fashion. Nowadays, her career is on the upswing, and although she’s by no means the most in-demand photographer in the world, her work sells steadily to publications as well as collectors. Finally, she’s making money doing what she’s always loved to do, and she only has to work a few extra shifts at a bar near her home in Brooklyn to make her life comfortable enough to thrive in.
FACTS … Coming soon