Ed Peters: Beyond The Indus

Photo © Ed Peters-All Rights Reserved

"It’s the challenge of capturing the texture of life, created by these contradictory elements, which draws me to India’s streets." -Ed Peters

And so writes Ed Peters prefacing his Beyond The Indus photo gallery... and what a photo gallery of captured moments of life! Just take a look at the photograph above...a man asleep, horizontally inert..and sort of Hindu angel floating above him, next to an askew small painting of the Taj Mahal, and a sliver of a woman staring at the photographer...

I was torn between featuring Beyond The Indus or Mexican Proximity (many of the photographs are from Oaxaca, my favorite Mexican town), but I decided to feature Ed's work from India because I was so taken by the above image.

A New York-based retired photojournalist, Ed is a Leica M9 user, as well as a Canon 5D Mark II for his photographic work. Possibly influenced by the work of Costa Manos and Alex Webb, Ed is obviously drawn to color...to the interplay of contrasts between shadow and light...and to the streets.

In an interview with Leica Liker, this is what he says about why he does street photography:

I find it enjoyable. Otherwise why bother? I like the process of walking, the challenge of making successful images, and the element of gamesmanship involved.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Ed Peters worked as a freelance photographer, before joining the staff of The Star Ledger in Newark, New Jersey. He subsequently relocated to Asia where he photographed the plight of Burmese refugees, and the pro democracy movement in Nepal. Returning to the United States, he joined a photo agency and photographed a wide variety of stories. These include the famine in Somalia, war in the former Yugoslavia, traditional wrestling in India, and the continuing AIDS crisis. He is now focusing on his personal work, especially street photography.

Chico Sanchez: La Guelaguetza

Photo © Chico Sanchez- All Rights Reserved

As part of the celebrations in honor of the Virgin of Carmen, residents from Oaxaca state's eight regions travel every year to the capital to offer traditional dances, while the residents from Carmen Alto and Carmen Bajo neighborhoods participate in banquets, offerings and processions throughout the city....and this is how Chico Sanchez describes his latest audio-slideshow Deep Friendship.

The Guelaguetza is an annual indigenous cultural event in Mexico that takes place in the city of Oaxaca as well as in nearby villages. The word Guelaguetza means "offering" in the Zapotec language, but its means much more. In traditional Oaxacan villages, people attending the festivities bring food, alcoholic beverages, etc. Each person's offering, or "guelaguetza" triggers a reciprocal exchange, and enables the reinforcement of social ties.

Chico Sanchez is far from being a stranger to The Travel Photographer's blog. His audio-slideshow work has been featured on it on many occasions.

He is a freelance photographer based in Mexico City. Chico worked in Venezuela, collaborating with Reuters, European Pressphoto Agency, Agencia EFE, and freelances for various newspapers and magazines.

The Frame: The Virgin Of Guadalupe

Photo © Anita Baca-All Rights Reserved

Did I realize that the church of Our Lady of Guadalupe on 14th Street (not far from where I live in New York City) would commemorate one of Mexico's most important religious holidays this past Monday? Of course not. I only find out stuff like that after the fact.

However, The Frame of The Sacramento Bee has featured 17 photographs of the celebration of this popular religious festival in Mexico City when millions make the pilgrimage to honor the dark-skinned virgin, said to have appeared to an Indian peasant on Dec. 12, 1531.

According to the captions accopmpanying the images, an estimated 5 million people from across Mexico arrived at the basilica Monday carrying large frames, wooden sculptures and ceramic statues of the virgin on their backs. The Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe is recognized as a symbol of all Catholic Mexicans.

I chose to feature Anita Baca's photograph (above) showing a pilgrim who journeyed by foot from the state of Hidalgo, posing for a photo in front of the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, while a fellow pilgrim stands by, not only for its colors but for its composition. Notice how the curve of the dark sombrero matches the curve of the icon.

Chico Sanchez: Mexico & Saints

I am pleased that Chico Sanchez (whose work has been featured on this blog many times) has now self-published a book of his wonderful photographs of Mexico. Chico's photographs of religion, faith and spirituality are published here in full color. It shares his journey through Mexico, a country of faith, mysticism and religiosity.

He has also announced another self-published book, Saints. In this book, Chico documents the celebrations and rituals honoring Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary and all the Saints in Spain. The first part of the book features images from Andalusia, while the second is of images of the Way of Saint James pilgrimage in northern Spain.

Chico Sanchez is a Spanish photojournalist based in Mexico City since 2007, who worked in Venezuela for six years with Reuters, EFE, EPA and various newspapers.

Enrico Martino: Dia De Los Muertos

Time flies, and it's this time of year...once again! Observed on November 1st and 2nd, the Dia de Los Muertos is around the corner. Family and friends gather to pray for loved ones who have died. It is celebrated in Mexico, where it's virtually considered a national holiday. Traditionally, private altars honoring the deceased are built using sugar skulls, marigolds, and the favorite foods and beverages of the dead. Visiting cemeteries, crypts and graves is also a tradition during these two days.

A common symbol of the holiday is the skull (known as calavera), which celebrants represent in masks, called calacas. Also common are sugar skulls, inscribed with the name of the recipient on the forehead. Other special foods include pan de muerto (bread of the dead), a sweet egg bread made in many shapes, from plain rounds to skulls and rabbits often decorated with white frosting to look like twisted bones.

For those who are interested in documenting the Dia de los Muertos, photography workshops in Oaxaca are almost a tradition as well, and are plentiful.

Enrico Martino is an editorial, geographic and documentary photojournalist specialized in travel and cultural assignments. He's a contributor to Italian and international magazines, to include Meridiani, "D"-Repubblica, Epoca, Espresso, Panorama, Focus, Gente Viaggi, In Viaggio, Airone, Panorama Travel, Sette, Traveller, Tuttoturismo, Elle, Marie Claire, Merian, Spiegel, Die Zeit, Jeune Afrique, Altair, Rutas del Mundo.

Sara Galbiati: Lucha Libre In Mexico

Photo © Sara Galbiati-All Rights Reserved

Sara Galbiati is a freelance photographer based in Copenhagen, who graduated from the Danish School of Media & Journalism. She worked in various Danish national newspapers, and has accumulated awards in the Danish Picture of the Year, POYi, Canon Grant For Best Student Portfolio, the Danish FOTOKRAVLING, and was nominated for the Joop Swart Masterclass 2011.

I was drawn to Sara's Lucha Libre portfolio (actually there are two...one is a documentary style gallery, while the other is portraits of the wrestlers). Lucha Libre is a combination of sport, show-business and violence, and epitomizes the fight between good and evil....or between the good guys and bad guys in our current vernacular. The bouts are choreographed and winners are selected in advance.

Lucha Libre is extremely popular in Mexico, and has been a part of Mexican culture since the 1930’s. It's estimated to be the second most popular sport after soccer. According to Wikipedia, modern Lucha Libre require wrestlers to wear colorful masks designed in the likeness of animals, gods, ancient heroes, and other archetypes.

For an audio slideshow of Lucha Libre, Chico Sanchez has produced one here.

Alinka Echeverria: The Pilgrims Of Tepeyac

Photo © Alinka Echeverria-All Rights Reserved

Alinka Echeverria is a Mexican visual artist who was recently named 2011 winner of the HSBC Prize for Photography given by the HSBC Cultural Foundation of France. Her work for this prize showed 300 of the 6 million pilgrims that make their way to the Guadalupe Basilica, near Mexico City, bearing statues of the Virgin.

Her website has two interconnected galleries: the first is the black & white The Pilgrims, of portraits made in the Temple of Tepeyac, La Basilica de la Virgen de Guadalupe in Mexico City on the anniversary of the apparition of the Virgin of Guadalupe to the indigenous Mexican Juan Diego.

The second gallery is of color photographs, titled Road To Tepeyac, and is of backs of 300 Mexican Catholic pilgrims on their journey to the Basilica de Guadalupe in Mexico City. The photographs of the pilgrims are cut out from the rest of the scene, leaving us their backs and their religious images and icons.

The hill of Tepeyac is the site where the saint Juan Diego met the Virgin of Guadalupe in December of 1531, and received the iconic image of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Leslie Mazoch: Escaramuzas

"We're not just pretty things anymore".

Charreria is Mexico's most traditional equestrian sport, and was dominated by males for many years. However, the presence of skilled female equestrians performing dangerous and synchronized exercises while riding sidesaddle led to the creation of escaramuzas (the Spanish word for scuffle) charras. These women train tirelessly for the chance to show off their equestrian choreography.

Escaramuzas is a "photo-movie" produced by Leslie Mazoch of her black & white stills and ambient audio, which includes a beautiful poem in Spanish (with English sub-titles). It could have been titled Mexican Amazons, since it documents Mexican women who take up this noble sport, and who ride their horses sidesaddle. From what I gathered from the slideshow, the escaramuzas was an accidental tradition that started in 1953, and was influenced by the gypsies of Spain.

Leslie Mazoch is a photographer and photo editor for the Associated Press in Mexico for Latin America and the Caribbean.

Prantik Mazumder: Mexico

Photo © Prantik Mazumder-All Rights Reserved

 Prantik Mazumder is a self-taught photographer, originally from Calcutta, India, and moved to North America for his graduate studies. Currently settled in Ithaca, New York, he's pursuing a career in scientific research.

He traveled to Mexico in 2006 with his first digital SLR, and has images from New Orleans, Ithaca, Peru and Mexico. I particulalry liked the above picture made in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, because of its colors and composition...and for the graffiti.

The Revolucion signage with the graffiti asking the local police not be brutal while the woman is covering her eyes is a message in itself.

Michelle Frankfurter: Destino

Photo © Michelle Frankfurter- All Rights Reserved

Having read Cormac McCarthy’s, The Crossing, Michelle Frankfurter started to photograph along the US-Mexico border, and focuses her photo essay Destino featured on Burn magazine on undocumented Central American migrants who travel across Mexico in an attempt to reach the United States to work.

It's a sad tale that highlights not only the harsh risks inherent in such an endeavor, be it from criminal gangs, from corrupt police, from accidents to a myriad of other life-endangering events on the way.

A number of photographers attending the Mexico Foundry Photojournalism Workshop chose a similar subject for their documentary projects, and the area known as La Lecheria, where migrants seemed to converge to hitchhike north-bound trains, was a magnet for those photographers.

Michelle Frankfurter is a documentary photographer who worked for three years as a staff photographer for daily newspapers: The Herald – Journal and Post Standard in Syracuse, New York. She spent three years living in Nicaragua where she worked as a stringer for the British news agency, Reuters and with the human rights organization Witness For Peace. In 1995, a long-term project on Haiti earned her two World Press Photo awards. She has worked for a number of editorial publications, including The Guardian of London, The Washington Post Magazine, Ms., Time, and Life Magazine.

Maya Elise Joseph Goteiner: Dia De Los Muertos

Photograph © Maya Joseph-Goteiner -All Rights Reserved

I just saw lovely photographs by Maya Joseph-Goteiner on PDN Photo of The Day, and thought I'd feature her work from Oaxaca and elsewhere relating to the Dia de los Muertos festivities, which was featured on PDN here as well. You can also see more of Maya's work on her blog.

The Dia de los Muertos is a Catholic celebration of the memory of deceased ancestors celebrated on November 1 (All Saints) and November 2 (All Souls). Its origins can be traced back to the indigenous peoples of the Americas, such as the Zapotec, Aztec, Maya, Purepecha, Nahual and Totonac. Rituals celebrating the lives of dead ancestors has been observed by Mesoamerican civilizations for at least 3,000 years.

El Rey: East Los Angeles' Mariachis

This is a delightful short documentary featuring Mariachis musicians in East Los Angeles produced by Drea Cooper and Zackary Canepari. The piece features Mariachi musicians who gather on corners of the streets of East Los Angeles looking for work, whether in birthday parties, in cafes, restaurants, quinceañeras, weddings and the like.

To my delight, the main singer belts outs out the famous Mexican song "Volver Volver", initially without the accompaniment of musical instruments. I used to hear it played often in the zocalo of Oaxaca...just delightful.

According to Wikipedia, the term "Mariachi" is said to be an adaptation of the French word for marriage or wedding "mariage" as this type of musical formation plays at these events.

via The Click