I first met, Paolo Escobar, while living in Medellin, Colombia back in 2010. Video Below
Paolo is the nephew of the most famous Colombian drug lord of all time, Pablo Escobar. I had just moved to Medellin and some mutual friends introduced us. "Would you like to meet the nephew of Pablo Escobar?" my friend, Sara, asked. I wasn't sure who Pablo was at the time, vaguely I remember his name from the Johnny Depp movie Blow. The reason for the meeting was Paolo is a parkour athlete and it would be a good opportunity for me to shoot something totally different.
Paolo Escobar is one of the nicest guys I have ever met.
We immediately became friends and he invited me to his finca which is a on a big lake outside of Medellin a couple of hours. I consider him a good friend, he is also one of the most talented musicians and athletes I have ever known as well.
"Hey Paolo, jump high in the air and pretend your buddha" "Okay man!"
The images and video from this post were taken at the Castillo in Medellin. Back in the 1930's a doctor from Germany, living in Medellin at the time, built the house for his daughter who wanted to live in a castle. The architecture was influenced by a French Gothic design.
I someone how managed to get access, which is now a museum, to the castle for a photoshoot. Paolo needed images for an upcoming album release and I needed images for BlackRapid who makes camera straps. So I pulled it off. So I show up with my crew which consisted of a photography assistant and my Colombian girlfriend at the time, Johanna. You can see her in the video. Paolo shows up with his wild looking parkour buddies who almost immediately began climbing on the roof castle and jumping off like super man. Watch the video!
Parkour is a sport where the athletes run, jump, swing, climb, fly, vault and other movements as a mean to escape. Paolo explained it to me "like when you see a wild animal escape through the woods, flying and jumping to get away from you." It's an incredible sport and amazing to photograph.
One of Paolo's parkour friends flying off the castle above
The photoshoot lasted about 20minutes because the curator at the museum saw Paolo and his buddies flying off the roof. They weren't very happy with me and politely asked all of to leave and to never return. I did manage to get a few shots so who cares. :)
Be sure to watch the video to see Paolo perform parkour and there's some footage of my beautiful girlfriend at the time, Johanna. She's always a pleasure to watch.
Johanna
I hope you enjoy the photography and video. It was one of my favorite shoots and a nice friendship was formed with the nephew of one of the most notorious mafios in the world.
PS Paolo is in no way shape or form involved in the underground cocaine world. But he did share a few interesting stories of his uncle. Note: I refer to Paolo as Paul Andrews in the video - I think Paolo wanted to be known for his music and talent as an athlete, and for a short time he used a different name