Beauty and the Beast

Normally, every photo at AntiguaDailyPhoto.Com comes with a caption, a narrative or even a story. Not always, the story is about the photo itself and almost never the narrative is the story behind the photo. Today’s an exception.

I went to one of the banks around Parque Central to do some mandados, errands, and when I was done, I went to get my shoes shined before heading back to the office. I found a nice spot with shade near the fountain of Las Sirenas, and began making small talk to the lustradores, shoe shinners, while one of them work hard. Then, I noticed the young woman above right across from where we were sitting taking photos of the shoe shinners and the indigenous women selling artesanías, handicrafts, on our side. She was timid and pulled her camera swiftly, took the photos and put it away before anyone can say cheese. Not extraordinary here; this happens dozens of times any given day in Central Park in and around La Antigua Guatemala. It was only until she picked up Nuestro Diario, Our Daily literally, the most sensationalist newspaper in Central America and the one with biggest distribution between Mexico and Colombia, that I decided to pull my own camera and record the extraordinary vista. I took my time since I am little more experienced at this photo taking business, you know, I captured perhaps six or seven different shots. You have probably seen some of them in the Antigua News Tweets. Oh I really like the feel and movement of this image for a number of reasons.

As I have said before, “Well, I don’t have enough words to describe the feeling or “puncture” I derive from this photograph as Roland Barthes calls it in his book Camera Lucida. The interesting part about photography is that we are all affected or tickled by different things. This photo might not do anything for you.” It punctures me dearly!

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