These young girls were heading home after doing their chores to take a break. Even though I haven’t worked nearly as hard as them, I’m going to take a break as well. I’ll be back with more posts once I feel that I have something worth communicating. Could be a couple weeks, could be months. Thanks for your interest and please do check in periodically.
Statue of Liberty, 2020
“It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there.”
-Bob Dylan
Wanderings
Have you wondered what it’s like to spend time in unknown places looking for photographs? This is an area of Medellín (note that Medellín also has neighborhoods with gardens, cafés, modern conveniences, security and all the trappings of affluence) where I spent a few afternoons. Go for a virtual stroll and you’ll have some sense of what my experience was like.
Ramón
Ramón was full of spark. I remember him playing cassette tapes of “sentimental” Mexican music on his boom box and, as can be seen in this photograph, singing along. I relished his energy and abandon both personally and photographically and spent many hours alongside him and his family in their crumbling home. One of the stories he told me of his childhood was how, growing up in abject poverty, he had been bedazzled by the activity at a “cabaret” located on the outskirts of town near his home. He would sneak over and peak through any opening he could find to see the festivities inside -dancing, coquettish women, music, drink, money being spent. Eventually, as he grew older, he found his way into the cabaret as a musician with a band. Predictably, the music gig didn’t last forever, so he became a house painter - making him one of the better paid people on his block. But by the time I met him, habits he had formed during his partying youth had won out, and with no savings he depended on his children and grandchildren for survival.
Colón, Panamá
Even before my departure to Panama, people began to tell me not to go to Colón, and the warnings only intensified as I got closer. Having previously had little sense that Colón even existed, my interest was piqued by such a formidable reputation, and a few days after my arrival in the country I set off from Panama City for the Caribbean coast where Colón is located.
Colón first took on international significance in the 1800’s as a result of being an important terminus for the Panama Railroad Company. Apparently the railroad was built by Chinese and Indian workers, amongst others, and remnants of those communities remain in town to this day. But the most significant ethnic/racial lineage of the town can be traced to West Indians, who were instrumental in building the Panama Canal (which lets out nearby). Their descendants still make up the majority of the population, and a West Indian-inflected English, rather than Spanish, is the dominant language. It is unclear to me whether economic depression swept over Colón as the result of a single event like the completion of the Canal and subsequent unemployment or through a gradual drying up of resources, but at some point between the Canal’s conclusion in 1914, and the withdrawal of the American administrative and military contingencies on or before January 1st, 2000, Colón sank into dilapidation and neglect. Around 15 years ago, at the time of my visit, the expansion of a large duty-free shopping area held promise of economic rebound, but there was deep skepticism about whether the benefits would reach the local population.
Getting off the local bus and making my way out from the parking lot terminal, I scanned the streets for places of refuge should one be needed and settled on a couple of two or three story hotels with mirrored windows and guards in front that contrasted starkly with the derelict, concrete high rises around them. Continuing to what may once have been a grand main street, I decided to sit in the park-like median to observe the pedestrians. Before long, a middle-aged man came and sat down beside me and began to chat. The conversation quickly led to an account of a “tragedy” that had transpired the week before when a local had asked a tourist for a dollar and the tourist, refusing to part with this paltry sum, had received a savage beating. “Terrible, terrible…” I commented and, anticipating the next portion of the conversation, stood up and said it was time to be on my way. As I was leaving, I heard the man asking if I could spare a dollar.
I hadn’t gone more than a block when a young man in a doorway asked if I was okay, looking genuinely concerned. Some people project an aura of good will that immediately inspires confidence. Adding to this impression was the fact that he was monitoring younger siblings as they happily played on the sidewalk. The young man offered to show me around, and I gladly accepted. He turned out to be a boxer, known and respected by the entire town, as could be seen by the frequent complimentary words of passersby. During our “tour,” two small groups of young men asked him in a fast-paced English dialect that I could hardly understand if they could rob me. The police also stopped us to recommend that the tour be limited to the duty-free shopping mall. But overall our wanderings were undisturbed and we had an enjoyable time strolling, eating lunch, chatting, and viewing Colón.
As the afternoon began to turn to evening, he advised me it was time to get off the streets. He walked me past the hotels I had noted earlier and watched to make sure I got on the right bus to the small town where I was staying. Encountering this sort of generosity is what makes travel worthwhile for me - getting to know a place in the company of someone willing to step up to help a stranger.
Forever a Question
The photographer Mariana Yampolsky avoided taking pictures of people’s most intimate moments, sacrificing what would have certainly been compelling photographs to respect the emotions of the people around her. Similarly, the painters of the Ashcan School explicitly deemed it more important to be a person of good conscience and deeds than to produce great artwork (though they achieved both). I feel similarly compelled to prioritize my effect on the people around me over my artistic or documentary work.
As the last rays of afternoon light were falling over a picturesque mountain town in Venezuela, not far from where I stood I spotted a group of children egging on two boys who were locked in combat, wrestling and ferociously striking one another. Since the path was narrow, the fighting boys were fully visible, as were the expressions and body language of the spectators - all illuminated beautifully by the setting sun. Thinking both of the damage the boys might inflict on one another and the impression an outsider photographing the discord would leave on anyone within eyesight, I refrained from taking any shots and instead hurried over to break up the meleé. The beauty and violence of the scene remain etched in my memory— but are not imprinted on a single negative.
More recently, I went out riding for a few hours on my bike, looking for inspiration. Finding little, I was almost home when I noticed perhaps a hundred burning candles on a street corner: a community memorial to a deceased neighbor. Gathered around the candles were some half dozen people, their silhouettes set off by the candles and tawdry lights of the storefront behind them. I think I could have framed the scene interestingly, but again held back. Instead, I bring this image (taken the same evening) to share. While I’m reasonably pleased with it, I can’t help but to feel that the picture of the memorial would have been much better!
Alchemy
For perhaps ten years, I spent hour upon hour in the darkroom, printing. Digital photography was just emerging, but the quality of the prints could not rival silver gelatin renditions of negatives even from my basic Pentax K-1000 camera. It was enjoyable, meditative and purposeful to spend measureless time gently agitating the trays filled with chemicals and moving sheets of photo paper through the processes. Printing and developing, I felt like part of a secret society that used alchemy to create beautiful representations of the world. But with the advances of digital technology and the ubiquity of cell phone images, the “secret society” is now the entire population, and my darkroom skills are virtually obsolete. I still have my archive of silver gelatin prints, however, this picture being just one of many. And in person they still look at least as good as any digitally produced images I have seen.
Pretty Girls
I met the grandfather and cousins of this young girl in an Indigenous community outside of Tabatinga, a large city on the Amazon. After meeting on the river’s edge, we spoke (in Portuguese, a second language to us all) about fishing techniques, boats, foods (monkey!), and life in NYC. Eventually they invited me into their home where they treated me with great hospitality and warmth. When they saw me taking a picture of this young girl next to the blond they thought it was very funny. I also laughed, but noted that the background included not only the “bundona” on the wall but also an image of Jesus in the upper right corner and a “pretty girl” on the child’s shirt. She was surrounded.
Drops of Water
Reviewing my writings and photographs, I’ve come to terms with the limited breadth of my observations. The same subjects and insights recur over and over. But maybe, while not new, what I continue to communicate has value.
I have countless images of children charged with the care of their younger siblings… many similar to this but none exactly the same. The intent is to show the warmth and caring in the relationships as well as the maturity that is frequently born from necessity or hardship.
My hope is that like droplets of water, each much like the last and the next, falling on a rock over time, the recurring themes of my pictures and writings may ultimately leave some impression, however small, on the world. Even if they don’t, I still love this image.
Faith
This photograph of a man standing in front of a church evokes the complexity of the relationship between Native peoples and European religions. We are keenly aware of the atrocities and persecutions in the Americas (amongst other places) carried out in God’s name. But what significance does that hold for Indigenous people today who find meaning in Christian religions? I tread very lightly when it comes to other people’s faith and never questioned Clarence, the person in the photograph, as to how he perceived the historic conflict.
Jungles, Fires and Humanity
One of the longer bus rides I’ve taken was through the jungle from the remote town of Lethem (just on the Guyanese side of the Brazilian border) to the factory town of Linden (a couple of hours inland from the Guyanese capital on the Caribbean coast). The trip must have been close to 16 hours along a pocked dirt road, but for 90% of the distance I don’t remember seeing more than a handful of other vehicles.
During the day, the discomfort of the ride was mitigated by the distraction provided by seeing the rich and varied vegetation as it passed my window. Occasionally I’d see a deer racing for the safety of the underbrush or children spilling out of a ramshackle dwelling but mostly impenetrable, endless, variations of plants. Once night fell the pitch black of the jungle was only punctuated by fires from land being cleared or the rare, shrilling, generator-powered fluorescent light of a roadside shack selling soda, chips, batteries and other “essentials” to who knows whom.
As we drew closer to Linden, the presence of humans became more prominent and the world began to feel hellish. Traffic increased. Harsh lights in empty gas stations illuminated cracked concrete, burning trash, broken beer bottles and pools of mud. In ragged roadside barbecues small clusters of drunken-looking men sat at plastic tables or slumped in the shadows. Having been in a small town surrounded by savannah for more than a week, each stop felt increasingly menacing and I began to worry that my bags might disappear as passengers exited and entered the bus with greater frequency.
At one point when the bus took a 20-minute break, I gathered up all my things and with 20 pounds of luggage hanging off me, went about taking pictures. Perhaps this wasn’t the smartest idea, since removing my valuables from the controlled environment of a bus for the exposure of the street only served to switch the danger of theft to that of robbery, but It was under those circumstances that I took this picture. Thankfully, my foray was ultimately uneventful, and by 3AM I had reached my destination.
Resolute
I was drawn to this person during the protests. He stood out from the people around him - perhaps because of his age but also because of his quiet intensity as he walked alone amongst the crowd. I did not see him engage in banter like the young man without a face mask on the left of the frame, nor was he distracted by a cell phone like those whose hands protrude into the bottom left corner or the woman to his right. When he saw me with my camera trained on him, he paused. I imagined him to be considering whether I was friend or foe, supporter or perhaps plain clothes police officer. As if to indicate that he was resolute whomever I might be, looking straight at my lens, he held his sign high.
At the Protests
These photographs are of three Black men at the recent NYC protests sparked by the murder of George Floyd. In all of the images the person seems paused in reflection, as if taking in what is occurring around him. Each man is dissimilar to the others in demeanor, age, role and perhaps perspective; yet whatever their differences, they have converged into the same space as they negotiate their shared reality, making their way forward as Black men in America.
Yagüita Additions
For those who have been following my work, you’re undoubtedly familiar with my two decades-old project documenting a barrio in the Dominican Republic, La Yagüita de Pastor. Recently, I decided to look back over my archive and discovered that I have an entire portfolio from the neighborhood that never made it onto my webpage! Some of the best of those images have now been integrated into the larger Yagüita project. I hope you like them!
The Virgin of Guadalupe
During my college years, I was traveling up the coast of Nayarit with my mother when we came to the odd little town of San Blás, Nayarit (made famous in Latin America by a rock song from the band Maná). It was an incongruous mix of surfers, tourists, alligator-viewing excursions, local fishermen and their families, and a smattering of older American expats.
After a few days, we felt we had seen everything of interest and began asking locals where else might be worth a visit. An older American couple who regularly provided food and shelter to a few members of one of the region’s indigenous groups, the Huichol, during their ritual hallucinogenic pilgrimages from the mountains to the coast, suggested that we visit a Huichol community. We liked the idea and settled on a place accessible in less than a day by bus then shared motorboat.
We arrived mid-afternoon at the remote mountain village of some 2,000 souls, roughly half Huichol and half Mestizo, each living on their own side of the usually empty town square. Since the town was perched atop a hill one could see for miles into the expanse of arid mountains, rivers and lakes, without any sign of civilization. There was only electricity for a couple hours a day, just as dusk turned to night, which residents used to finish their chores and listen to music. Except for that period, with no motor vehicles in town and (at most) the half dozen boats a day usually at such a distance they could scarcely be heard, a profound silence reigned.
The night became frigid the moment the sun set. We spent it in the home of a man who had arrived with us in the public boat and later generously offered us lodging. In the only bedroom of his wooden house, in a bed next to another where his children and wife lay, my mother and I huddled under the covers, trying to stay warm, while the man slept on a bench in the kitchen by the fire. Gusts of wind blew all night through the walls and, more perilously, through the thatched roof where scorpions nested (I learned this later when I asked why the beds had plastic drapings rigged above them). We all rose the next morning stiff with cold, and our host agreed without much protest when we suggested it would be best if we sought shelter elsewhere, and pointed us towards the church.
When we reached the church, the priest in charge immediately invited us to sit down seemingly hungry for conversation with people from a more cosmopolitan environment. Even after a year living in the mountains alongside Huichol and campesinos, he was still astonished by much of what he witnessed. He spoke of Huichol women having to stand facing the wall while the men spoke with him when he entered a Huichol home; of how Huichol people looked down on him and others who were not members of their group; of alcohol abuse even during shortages of food amongst the townspeople. To illustrate the“strange” customs that still persisted, he opened a side chapel of the church, which housed a statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe. I’ve seen the Virgin of Guadalupe in many forms: decals, tattoos, t-shirts, trinkets, carved wooden icons from a hundred years ago… but this one was the most memorable. She was smeared with dark red stains where blood from sacrificed animals had dried. According to the priest, some decades back, a tremendous drought had jeopardized the existence of the entire community, and a child had been sacrificed, too.
With only a couple of rolled straw mats available to be used as beds and no extra blankets, the church did not turn out to be an enticing place to sleep. Instead, the priest directed us to a nearby convent. After savoring a slice of pound cake and hot tea given to us by the nuns for supper, we spent the night in a spartan room that was cold but with fully plastered ceiling and walls blessedly arachnid-free. The next morning bright and early we were on our way back down to the dock and Tepic, the state’s capital.
The Virgin of Guadalupe in this image has little connection to the hinterlands of Nayarit. This one is housed near Oaxaca, Oaxaca. She is striking in that she is illuminated by brightly colored fluorescent lights, that some might consider more suited to a bar or Mexican auto-mechanic shop. Yet she, too, is in a church - in this case, a colonial-era cathedral. Perhaps because of the contrast between her tawdry ornamentation and her somber location, she is the second most memorable image of the Virgin I have seen.
México
I remember waking up as a teenager in a Mexican town in the state of Jalisco, where I was spending a summer, to the sound of giggles and rustling coming from the open window of the bedroom where I slept. Opening my eyes, I tilted my head up to see what was causing the noise and saw some half dozen child-sized heads peeking around the edge of the window frame at me. Upon discovering I was awake, shrieking erupted amongst the group and the faces vanished… only to furtively reemerge and disappear with renewed laughter again and again until I got out of bed and drew the shades. Clearly, an out-of-town “Gringo” was an event.
Contrasting with that somewhat comical experience, as a younger child I had a Siddhartha moment while vacationing with my family at a Mexican beach resort. On horseback, we left the comfort of the tourist district, making our way towards the countryside. Before reaching the open fields that were our destination, we passed through a shantytown on the edge of the city, home to the desperately poor (many of whom had come to construct or work in the tourist hotels). Thirty years later I still remember the sense of shock and dismay at their dire living conditions - houses with cardboard walls, no running water save for communal faucets, burning trash creating clouds of toxic smoke - and being aghast at the inequality of the world.
During a college semester abroad in Xalapa, Veracruz, I was fortunate to be befriended by a family of children who performed in front of passing traffic for coins. They brought me back to their ramshackle house and introduced me to their family. Homemade pulque sat brewing in a dimly lit corner of the dirt floor shelter they had created in the empty space between two buildings. The cast of characters that circulated in and out to purchase a quick drink or, alternately, linger for an entire afternoon included laborers, drunks, toughs, neighbors and the children’s extended family - including the presiding grandmother-matriarch, who accepted me into the home with tremendous love and generosity (she later confided that I reminded her of a deceased son). We drank, we danced, I took photos of all (except of the man who had recently been released from jail who swore he would kill me if my camera turned in his direction). When I left, the matriarch gave me two pillowcases that she had carefully embroidered with flowers and birds, which I still have to this day.
In Guadalajara, I spent many summer’s at my Grandmother’s modest home - part of a development of identical prefab dwellings that extended in a grid for maybe 8 blocks in any direction. Since much of the time was spent sitting side by side watching telenovelas in her compact living room, I savored our two weekly trips to the nearby outdoor market. Smells of cilantro and cooking beans wafted through the bustling stall where we ate flor de calabaza quesadillas and we brought home sweet potatoes baked in syrup to stir into milk, fruits for snacking and vegetables to cook. As I grew older and discovered photography, I had occasion to venture farther and wander the city. But Guadalajara was a difficult place to photograph. I often found the streets empty, filled with shoppers of no particular interest, or too dangerous to produce my camera. In the latter category, I still regret not having captured an image of a street I stumbled upon with Mariachi bands for hire, bars, dereliction, menacing-looking men, and women without much clothing but plenty of make-up.
This photograph is from Oaxaca. In such a layered and complex country as Mexico, Oaxaca has its own story, its own panoply of people, cultural traditions and fusions. One of its distinctions, apparently, is that it has not succumbed to the disorder much of the rest of the country is grappling with. At least in its capital, it has retained a sense of dignity and stability. Perhaps that can be sensed from this image.
Resurfacing
After a hiatus, I’m back at my computer and preparing to return to my weekly Tuesday posts. In the meantime, here’s an image from an upcoming portfolio from Southeast Asia.
Children and Animals
I particularly enjoy taking photographs of children with animals. Shooting is usually easy, since the younger members of our species are generally eager to show off their pets, livestock, or fowl. Only once did I have an unpleasant experience, but it was not directly related to the subjects (a pair of shepherds, neither more than 12 years of age, and a couple dozen goats they were herding) and was the topic of my writing last week.
This image was taken in a barrio of the Dominican Republic. I believe the Guinea Pigs were destined to be food.
Buzzards
Having arrived at a dusty Brazilian village one late afternoon, I dropped my backpack off at a slightly rancid room in a five-unit cement hotel. To take advantage of the soft illumination of the sun before evening fell, I set off walking. After five minutes, I had reached the end of the paved section of town, and another five took me past the section with streets of dirt. Continuing on along a path into the country, I spotted two brothers and their goats heading towards me. They readily gave me permission to take pictures, but before I was able to capture the image I hoped for we had retraced my steps back to the outskirts of town and the goats were running into an enclosure the boys had opened next to their home. Perhaps flattered by my wish to photograph them, or sensing my interest in their work, the brothers invited me to return the following morning at 5AM, when they would be taking the goats back out.
The next day found me sitting in the dark on a log under a tree, waiting for the door to the boys’ home to open. There was a tease of light in the distance where the sun would later rise over the flat, arid, scraggly landscape. I could hear shifting inside the goats’ enclosure but did not know the exact time as I continued to wait, yawning and wondering what the day held in store. Fifteen minutes later the sun was still not visible, but the surroundings were illuminated and the world felt awake. Suddenly, I heard a small commotion in the tree above me and an avalanche of excrement came sluicing down, half covering one side of my head and a good portion of my torso. I looked up just in time to see two gigantic buzzards take flight.
Soon after, the boys emerged to discover me desperately trying to scrub the feces off with leaves, branches, and anything else I could find. Their expressions went from pleasure at seeing me, to concern that something was wrong, and finally mirth at the source of my agitation. Thankfully, one of the boys popped back into his home, returning with a bucket of water and bar of soap - which solved the problem satisfactorily. Over the course of the morning, my mishap was referenced repeatedly, each recounting drawing more delighted laughter. The rest of the morning went smoothly as I wandered the countryside with my generous young friends and their livestock, taking pictures, jumping streams, once even being pulled to the ground to escape the attentions of an angry swarm of bees.
The photograph shown, while not of the boys themselves, was taken during our outing. I think part of the reason I like it so much is because of the memorable circumstances that led to being on location.
Santa Marta
Nothing momentous happened to me during my two weeks in Santa Marta, Colombia. I wasn’t mugged. I wasn’t befriended. I didn’t have any adventures or epiphanies. But I did wander through the colonial section of town*, around the commercial district, into the red-light area, and along the Malecón to the docks where cargo ships constantly load and unload endless stacks of containers (the port accounts for a significant portion of the town’s economic activity). During these walks, I began to understand the spirit of the place, its layered history and heterogenous population. I made an attempt to capture some portions of Santa Marta’s complex identity through my photographs. Here’s one.
*Santa Marta is the oldest continually inhabited city in Colombia.