This portrait of a young Maya girl is another addition to the portraits of strangers series. We are so fortunate to have freshly made tortillas three times a day, especially so when smiles are also available. Well, for starters you need ‘real’ nixtamalized maize dough (nothing of the maseca flour used elsewhere). After that, you … Read more
Once again we continue with the street portraits. This time I had the opportunity to show other fellow photographers how to approach total strangers to take their picture. Here I was about three feet from these teenagers from Antigua Guatemala who were having a great time at Parque Central. I tell you, there’s something magic … Read more
Let’s continue our series of Portraits of Strangers with this crazy Argentine: Ivan Kerner. Of course, in some case, the strangers will no longer be strangers, but friends, such is the case of Ivan and Sofía, the documentary filmmaker with him. Would you like to meet Sofía as well? Here are his own words about … Read more
If doing portraits of strangers within three feet, on the streets of Antigua Guatemala can be difficult for many, I am setting the bar a little higher this time by doing strobist-style portraits. In other words, this means using an external flash off-camera with a light modifier such as translucent or reflective umbrella or soft … Read more
We continue our street portraits series with a picture of a couple trash collectors taking a break. I made this portrait of the trash collectors during one of my most recent photo walks to show how I approach my street photography portraits and how to photograph strangers on the streets. Now, I have developed a … Read more
I really enjoy making portraits of total strangers. Either a captured or posed portrait of strangers on the streets of Antigua Guatemala brings a reward. If the portrait is made without the subject being aware, we obtain a true documentary slice of daily life in Antigua Guatemala. If the subject poses, permission was requested to … Read more
A while ago I had the great opportunity to make some portraits of Guatemalan filmmaker Luis Argueta. In case you don’t know who Luis Argueta is, here’s a brief bio taken directly from IMDb: “Luis Argueta is a director and producer, known for El silencio de Neto (1994), Collect Call (2002) and AbUSed: The Postville … Read more
If you have follow the daily updates from AntiguaDailyPhoto, you should know this guy by now. Sergio is the leader of crier group, pregoneros in Spanish, who dress up in colonial-style clothing and go around crying the news of the city or the promotions of a business when hired, as in this case, by Casa … Read more
This is one of the photos taken during the last “street photography challenge photo walk” I lead on the streets of Antigua Guatemala, where I was teaching and sharing tips on how to get candid and up-close photographs, just like this one. Join me if you would like to learn how to take natural unposed … Read more
Th Guatemalan Spanish word of the day: caña or vara are the words used in Guatemala for reeds. Often one gets to read only the negative news from Guatemala as the mass media is mostly interested in broadcasting the sensationalistic stuff. Not here, not today. Just as often, I try to bring to your the … Read more
We continue our street portrait series with the picture of this young girl who was practicing her English skills with me, even though I only spoke Spanish to her. Who knows why she chose to speak in English to me since I only speak Spanish and poorly at that. Anyhow, I was able to take … Read more
As I have mentioned before, on May 3, In Guatemala and many countries in Latin America is celebrated the Day of the Holy Cross and also the Day of the Construction Worker. The Day of the Holy Cross is known in Guatemala as Día de la Santa Cruz and you can see many Albañiles (construction … Read more
If you don’t know who José Martí was, you are about to read a little about one of the most important figures of 19th century in America. Martí is considered one of the great turn-of-the-century Latin American intellectuals. José Julián Martí Pérez (January 28, 1853 – May 19, 1895) is a Cuban national hero and … Read more
Slowly but surely, the series Guatemalan Portrait is coming along. Obviously there are hundreds of portraits I still need to take have a body of work for my project #Guatemalans. Stay tuned for more details.
If you visit Guatemala, one thing that will be common everywhere you go are the smiling faces. Here I captured the typical smiling face of a girl having lots of fun at the lavadero público in the Pilas de Santa Clara, better known now as Tanque de la Unión. Let’s have another creative caption contest. … Read more