Playing It by Ear Gallery
Oaxaca, Mexico 2006
® Cecilia Vaisman
After a lifetime of ignoring a voice needling me to pick up the camera, I find Ernesto Bazan. I see the photos on the website and can’t believe my eyes. I borrow a camera and buy a ticket to Oaxaca.
The meeting place for my first workshop is a challenge – Oaxaca is exploding with violence and rage. I’m here with some ideas in my head about composition and light. My heart though is dying to know how to make even one of those transcendent photos. We walk around the city trying to decide which smoke-filled street is worth the risk. The Zocalo is a landscape of tarpaper shacks and banners – Death to the Bourgeoisie!! Marx, Engels, Stalin (!!), Zapata, Che.
But the edit sessions are painful. Negative after negative with nothing. Ernesto’s words ring in my head: “Don’t shoot until you see moments, real moments, and your heart starts to beat faster.” We go back out, to the villages this time to find places that haven’t been turned upside-down. One extraordinary night we spend in the cemetery waiting for moments with the dead. Later, we return to the burning streets of the city. All the moments seem impossibly elusive. In the end, I am amazed that I manage to grab a few. I start to think this is as much about photography as it is about reckoning with my self. Like Juan says: “Photography continues to be a good pretext to continue this trip.” I’m on board! See you at the next workshop Comrades! Cecilia Vaisman
® Johana Neurath
I have always loved Oaxaca. A magical place where tradition is ever present – right there, right out in the open living side-by-side with modern life. It’s this wonderful feeling of “newness” and possibility that Mexico makes me feel. A true merging of the old European world mixed with the ancient culture of the Americas into something totally unique. If you get pleasure from the visual world there is so much to drink up with your eyes there. A real feast.
I have never seen the Day of the Dead celebrations and I have always wanted to. The thought of being in Oaxaca – minus tourists (due to the uncertain political situation because of the teachers strike and APPO uprising) was too much to resist. So, I took Ernesto’s photography workshop to see some of the festivities that might otherwise, as an outsider without any Spanish, have been impossible to get to.
I’m not a photographer and have no ambition to be one, although I see thousands of images during the daily course of my work. And I do take my own pictures just for fun. So it was with some trepidation I signed up with my old Pentax that hadn’t seen the light of day for years, and with Ernesto’s advice to bring only black and white film “because that way you will learn more” ringing in my ears. I felt a like an imposter – at first. A bad student itching to get out my digital point and shoot to record the colours and graphic patterns everywhere.
To my surprise and delight I learnt and experienced far more than I expected. The interesting and inspiring strangers I met – Ernesto and the rest of the group – quickly became friends as the fast moving and unpredictable political events in Oaxaca evolved. We saw many beautiful, haunting, funny, sad, happy and exciting things. We worked hard, we were challenged and we had fun.
I have met many photographers and artists in my time, but I can honestly say Ernesto is the most exacting picture editor I have ever met. (He also has a sense of humor! Which is most important when someone is SO demanding on themselves and of others).
Some amazing pictures fell to the cutting room floor because only one element wasn’t quite right. An unfortunate expression of a person in the distance, a distraction in the background, an image too literal, one that failed to truly capture an authentic “moment”, no matter how strong the composition, how beautiful the light or technically proficient.
That experience helped me identify why certain images resonate with me… No longer so easily seduced by ‘pretty packaging’, strong graphics or shock value, I’m beginning to see now that the images I am drawn to – whether my own or those of others – have several levels, other, more precious and deeper, layers to them.
And thanks to Ernesto while Mexican history (and daily life) was unfurling I even managed to squeeze out a few properly exposed negatives – and some images that I actually feel pleased with and like! (I’m a tough picture editor too.)
Those ten days certainly challenged my attitude to photography. My appreciation and respect for those who make it their work to show the rest of us what the world looks like or could look like if we are aware of what is beneath the surface has increased ten-fold. Time well spent for that – let alone any of the rest of the amazing experiences. Johanna Neurath
® Juan De la Cruz
Yesterday a dream, today is reality. Do I have a dream by any chance? Do I live my real reality? I’ve seen the other side of your star. Until when should I try to dominate my demons, if you are part of them? You ask me not to leave you, that in exchange you will give me your heart. Till when do I have to die without you?
The order continues to be: follow the guide Ernesto. Another unforgettable trip to the the center of my land. Juan de la Cruz
® Michel Oliva
In a Oaxaca shaken by a popular uprising, a few days after the military assault where an American cameraman lost his life, I begin thus atypical workshop. Many are the barricades that impede access to the main roads. The atmosphere of tension creates an obstacle at the beginning for the program planned out by Ernesto. Although this was the case, or better said with all of this, a new dynamic unfolded: the magic of the unforeseen plays in our favor and this new reality lends itself for a very interesting picture taking. The group freed itself from the desire of wanting to take good images at all cost and this new attitude works perfectly well. The feeling of walking around the streets electrified by a justified atmosphere of revolt, the rhythm and the pulsation of the people dressed with masks, the healthy relation that Mexicans have with death, the attitude about the sacred and the profane, the sense of humor that people shared have been some of the most important element in this workshop. Michel Oliva
