Las Rutas de la Pasión (The Routes of Passion / Les Routes de la Passion)

Las Rutas de la Pasión, listed by booksellers as Mexico 1960’s 1970’s: Les Routes de la Passion, is a retrospective of the Mexican photographer Antonio Caballero, who made fotonovelas and studio portraits of actors in the 1960s.

Toluca published the hardcover in October 2005, according to the French bookseller Hall du Livre, which lists it at 26.5 by 19.5 cm. Setanta Books says the pictures are black and white and date from 1960 to 1970, the years when Caballero was a prolific maker of fotonovelas, a photography-based form of graphic novel built on melodramatic tales of love and betrayal. In its account the images dwell on moments of intrigue and on theatrical exaggeration, staging their artificiality with a light touch.

Setanta describes Caballero as a pioneer of the photonovela genre in Mexico who also made many studio portraits of the leading Mexican actors and actresses of the decade. Hall du Livre adds that he began as a reporter and moved into glamour photography before specializing in the photonovel.