Next Year
Tlacotalpan, Mexico 2006
This new Mexican workshop in Tlacotalpan has been a new challenge and a unique experience. One of the most interesting aspects was that we photographed various events even at night, and at times till dawn. The visual stimuli were simply astonishing: the carnival parades, the constant rhythms of music and dancing, the fireworks, the riveting running of the bulls along the streets, the horses’ parade and the Virgin’s procession on the boat along the river have provided many special photographic opportunities. Together with the students we were running all over the place in order to follow this frenetic rhythm. During the only quite moments, I showed some of my most recent work. I told them to speak their mind and to make an honest selection of what they were the best images. Their comments helped me greatly to do a tighter editing of my work.
The fact that some of them had been in these previous workshops gave them a new clarity on how each individual might have such a personal and different approach of the same situation.
An aspect that fascinated the students was to see how I had differently interpreted the moments that we had all shared. The showing of some of the images that I had taken in Tlacotalpan the previous year made the workshop even more intriguing.
The images were inspiring and at the same time provided tips on how to approach certain photographic situations.
During our intense editing sessions in Veracruz, we were forced to accept that some interesting photographic situation had not yielded anything decent. We often found ourselves saying: “There is always next year.”
A hard way to remind us of how difficult it is to capture the essence of life. If you are looking for a challenging photographic workshop this is it. You can imagine how big it is my desire to go back next year. EB
