Tag: Colombia
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THE EPIPHANY. THE MENTOR. THE INSPIRER.
In February of 1986, I was lying in a hammock somewhere on the Caribbean coast of Honduras and I was deep in thought. A Honduran environmental organisation was paying me to photograph the national parks and document some environmental issues. I kept swaying in the hammock during the heat of the day awaiting better light toward late afternoon … swaying and thinking. I wasn’t happy. I realised then and there that I really didn’t know diddly squat about photography. I had been masquerading for the past five years as a nature/environmental…
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VALE VICTOR
Good friends are hard to come by; endearing friends even harder. Victor was one of my greatest endearing friends and his sudden passing today leaves me in a state of total loss. I greatly admired Victor for all of his photographic journeys and adventurous exploits but what made him such a great friend was his gentleness and kindness. It is easy for great people like Victor to get self-absorbed in their own lives and accomplishments but Victor was not like that. He always showed a concern for and interest in others.…
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BOOM BOOM IN PURACE
Puracé National Park, Colombia – 1994 Scanned from Kodak TMax negative film (the last roll of B/W film I ever shot) Colombia was hardly the safest place in the world when Padma and I lived near Cali between 1993-94. On one hand you had the ‘narcotraficantes’ – the drug lords. The Medellin and Cali Cartels were in their heyday. However, the drug lords pretty much just killed each other so as long as you stayed out of the cross fire you’d be safe. A bit more concerning was the FARC, which…
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A LAST BREATH AT THE PLAZA DE TOROS
In November 1994, Padma and I followed my photographer mate, Victor Englebert, through the gates of Cali’s main bullring, the Plaza de Toros de Cañaveralejo. The concrete terraces were already filling, families and old men in hats leaning forward over the red timber barrier. Brass music drifted in the heat. Dust hung in the air. The spectacle began with ceremony. A woman rode a compact, muscular horse around the ring, reins loose, posture upright. The crowd applauded her precision. Then the matador entered in a gold-embroidered traje de luces, pink stockings…
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LAS LAJAS
Santuario de Nuestra Senora de Las Lajas is located seven kilometres from Ipiales in southwest Colombia. Built between 1916 and 1948 in a valley on the Guaitara River, it attracts pilgrims from all over Colombia and abroad – one of most visited religious sanctuaries in the Americas. One shrine is to an Amerindian named “Maria Mueces” and her deaf-mute daughter “Rosa”. Rosa saw the Virgin Mary in a cave here in 1754 and suddenly spoke a few words.
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MARKET DAY IN SILVIA
On a Tuesday morning in July 1994, my photographer mate Victor Englebert and I drove up into the hills of Cauca to the town of Silvia. Every Tuesday the Misak people – also known as the Guambiano – descend from the surrounding páramo and villages to trade, catch up and, just as importantly, be seen. By mid-morning the plaza was a wash of deep indigo and cobalt. The Misak favour blue: blue woollen ponchos edged in pink, blue skirts falling to sturdy boots, blue shawls pinned against the chill. And everywhere,…
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