Ricky Cohete: “Photography Found Me”

By: Ma. Fernanda Soria @mafersoria

A photo freezes moments in time, it prints them in paper, magazines and even t-shirts. Photography is a profession that uses creativity to create new styles, however creative people have been stereotyped as rare, drug users, lazy or hippies. A profile that is far from the reality since you need discipline and perseverance to be creative and get paid for generating ideas, that is what Ricardo Delgado, A.K.A Ricky Cohete, says.

We (Ecuador Times) contacted him by phone and the next day we met him in his apartment, which is also his studio. There, between murals painted on white walls, t-shirts and a disco ball, we sat on the only red couch in the living room and talked to Ricky.

He is 25 and affirms that photography found him. He lived ten years in the U.S. but that has not taken away his Guayaquilean attitude. As soon as he graduated from high school, he went to college. He wanted to study filmmaking, however, he only attended one semester, “I loved it so much I became self-taught, I learned to edit videos by myself, of course I learned about lighting and image composition in classes, but I went ahead and classes bored me because I had already taught myself what the teachers taught me, so I dropped out,” says Ricky as he fixes his leather jacket. In Miami, Ricky worked for Telemundo, and had the opportunity to direct music videos, one day he found the photography “I had a camera in my hands and I was fascinated.”

“I felt that there were many things to do in Ecuador on a creative level, so I decided to come back,” Cohete says. “I think sometimes people take too much time waiting for the perfect situation to develop either a management, personal, cultural or artistic project. People expect too much to have the perfect scenario for launching something,” says the photographer as he crosses his legs.

Since his arrival to Ecuador, Ricky dedicated himself to his projects, he worked in independent productions, and in 2010 he got the opportunity to create a collection of printed T-Shirts based on his pictures for the Khomo brand, owned by Robert and David Wright . “I’m in charge of the creative direction of the store.” “The first collection was released in August 2010 and this year we launched the second one in March,” he says while he ties his fashonable worn Converse shoe. “It was like an exhibition of my photographs on silkscreen, but I think I’ll wait a bit for the third (collection), I want to do an exhibition of my photographs and focus on Dexter.”

Ricky Cohete Photography Artist T-Shirts are not the only thing that Rick is working on. Dexter Magazine is another of the young photographer’s iniciatives. It is a magazine that blends photography, fashion, music and art, Ricky is the general editor and designer, “It started as a digital magazine, allowing many young people from inside and outside the country to have access to it.” Ricky has been producing Dexter for two years, a new edition is out every two months. The last three editions have been printed, they look like a 200 pages book full of neon colors, fashion, and interesting texts.

The latest edition was a special since it was sponsored by Sociedad Femenina de Cultura Teatro Centro de Arte, “I wanna keep doing special editions, with the theater, we did a makeover on our vision, they were extremely open to our proposal, we took pics of the symphony orchestra, dancers, actors and performers, it was so cool. There are many things in Guayaquil that haven’t been released, I believe that art has been on a very serious, formal and disciplined stage for a long time, it discourages the inner child that wants to fulfill his dreams,” he says.

“The magazine has been very well received, I think it has the potential to go further and I wanna promote it in Quito and Cuenca, because it’s kind of unknown there,” says Ricky with excited eyes. The making of very edition takes about a month and a half “but if you work your ass off,” he says while laughing.

Dexter Magazine is available in Khomo stores (Mall del Sol and Village Plaza) and it is distributed in hotels and galleries but not massively, “I would love to be involved with design houses, small boutiques and galleries to improve the delivery of my magazine” he says while quickly fixing his hair.

Cohete is sure that he would not have been able to do any of his projects if he had thought too much. “Although it sounds contradictory, creatives must also have discipline. If you love what you do, you do it, and nothing else matters, you will not eat, sleep, but you will give everything, your time and energy and it will eventually bear fruit, but you have to have a magnificent faith in yourself and be able to join a group to develop a potential idea or have an own initiative. But more than anything it’s about not thinking so much, if you got an idea, do it.”

“I do things because I like them, because I love them. I try not to cork my creative ideas. If I have an idea, I go and throw myself into it, giving it all I have, that’s what happened with Dexter, the shirts with the pictures I do, I gave it all and now they are a reality.”

In his future plans, Ricky wants to return to videos, movies, and short stories on movement “it takes more time and budget but nothing’s gonna going to stop me from doing it,” he says with confidence.

“If you love what you do, why wouldn’t you wanna do it? I’ve always wanted to be happy, photography found me and I love it,” says the photography artist.

Fun Facts

Ricky Cohete chose his stage name because when he was searching his real name on YouTube, the results featured a stripper. He adopted the “Cohete” from Cohete Rocket, an indie electro pop duo that he is part of.

He voice recorded five songs with Cohete Rocket, and recorded a video called “moneyman”.

Ricky is self-taught, he did not graduate from any university.

His magazine is called Dexter because that was the name of a dog he loved so much.

He thinks grandparents used to dress in a more interesting way in the past and he uses a mustache.

For more information about Ricky, visit www.rickycohete.com or follow him on Twitter @rickycohete