"Bolivian buses": Pop culture on wheels

EVERY DAY PHOTOGRAPHERS AROUND THE WORLD looking for new ways to tell stories or to capture what we previously did not notice. We choose interesting photo projects and ask their authors what they wanted to say. This week - a series of German photographer Daniela Hofer "Bolivian buses", the name of which seems to speak for itself. But you can’t even imagine what they are (we had no idea).

At the age of 14 I got my first internship as an assistant commercial photographer who was involved in advertising. He lived in our neighborhood, not far from Düsseldorf. At that moment everything was decided - it became clear that I would be a photographer. I have a specialized education - I graduated from the Faculty of Communication Design at the University of Applied Sciences Dortmund, specialized in photography.

Once I went to Bolivia to work on one of the photo projects, called SALAR. I happened to spend about 10 weeks in the Bolivian La Paz, and, in order to document the city, I just wandered for hours in the districts and filmed. During one of these walks, I came across a bus station, from where routes throughout the country diverge. And there I saw these magic buses and then I could not stop taking them off. Why do they look like that? I have no idea. Literally all long-distance buses are so painted, but I can’t even imagine who launched this fashion. Ordinary city buses look quite ordinary, but public transport that runs throughout the country is such a beauty.