Omar Z. Robles is a Puerto Rican street photographer whose work grew out of years spent training as a mime under Marcel Marceau. He creates narrative images around gesture and body language. He avoids describing his photographs as things he takes or captures, saying instead that “the photograph did not exist until I made it”.
He worked early in his career as a photojournalist before turning to street photography, which he began in Chicago and continued after he moved to New York. His older brother, also a journalist and photographer, told him early on that “a camera is a weapon” that “can build or destroy”, an idea that shaped how he approaches the people he photographs.He discovered NFTs in New York through artist friends already working in the space and began selling his photography through Foundation and SuperRare.
His NFT series include City, street photographs of New York including The Violence, a picture of a woman tensing as three men look at her on Seventh Avenue. City Dads focuses on fathers in public space, and City Hats follows hats worn across New York as markers of identity and community.With his brother, a novelist, he also created Eloquent Silence, pairing his photographs with fictional narratives.
