An Amazing Journey
Iquitos, Peru 2013
Iquitos is always Iquitos: life is raw, mysterious and gentle. Many surprising situations before our eyes. I wanted, along with my students, to continue the exploration of this unique place.
We did so for a few days and then, after reading Stan’s guide book, I got inspired to leave Iquitos and to explore life in the villages along the Amazon river.
This intuitive move is probably one of the best I’ve made in a long time. It opened up an incredible new whirlwind of situations and photographic opportunities. All of sudden form very hectic and chaotic Iquitos we were transported to a very tranquil village where people lived a slow and unstressful life-style. We were surrounded by water and we slowly started getting used to this new environment, taking boats to smaller villages, photographing natives’ life, learning more about their cultural traditions.
It felt like we were journeying back to biblical times. Many simple and yet incredible moments started appearing before our eyes. The uncanny sense of being there because of the pervasive energy surrounding my life became more apparent as they days went by. One morning we saw a small boat departing from the pier. I sensed a strong desire to jump on it having no clue of where it would take us to. After a few minutes traveling downriver I asked one old man with a long beard where we were heading and he told us.
Stan and Nilo were the perfect companions in this journey:a truly amazing journey. We shared so much, we supported one another everyday with constructive and meaningful criticism.
For the first time, I shared with them six years of work in Iquitos and got some insightful feedback.
Their images show in a subtle and beautiful way how we felt about the people that made our trip so special.
The three of us are eager to return next year. EB
