Sissy and Willard´s Eggs Gallery
Intimate Journey Cuzco, Peru 2014
® Linda Kay Myers
This May I attended my third workshop in Peru with Ernesto Bazan. The landscape was absolutely stunning and I loved photographing the people working in the fields harvesting their corn, potatoes and other crops. We had a wonderful time and enjoyed visiting the school children while they celebrated their holidays. I think that area of Peru is one of the most beautiful places in the world.
I hope these photographs have captured a little bit of the beauty of the country. Linda Kay Myers
® Sandra Pereznieto
The beauty of the Peruvian highlands in the Sacred Valley is indescribable.
It comes slowly and it wraps me without precautions. In some moments I feel overwhelmed, my eyes look, my soul is out in the open. It’s hard to determine whether the beauty I see before me is true or is a product of my imagination. I would like to touch it to make sure that it is there, and in that space of doubt an indigenous woman walks toward us under a drizzle. She runs towards us smiling to greet us in her humble home. Then I understand with absolute certainty that this is the expression of the simplest happiness and that I’m touching it with my open soul.
The ancient land recognizes me, she receives me, and the image will remain etched into my skin forever.
Back to Pisac I face the tough task of editing as I tirelessly seek the face of that genuine happiness in my pictures hoping to recognize it. But I realize that the task is too big for me. My soul is too close to the rainbow that I could just touch by just reaching my hand in the light rain, it’s close to the sun tearing the clouds down to play with the mountains, to the silhouette of the woman who now says goodbye to us from that little piece of mountain she calls home and tells us to return soon, to the dog that no longer barks at me between horses grazing, and to that infinity of llamas and alpacas that even look at me with their old faces, to the sunshine touching the water drops that soak me up, and to those two kittens who seek shelter before the fire, and to the song of the Quechua language that touches me so deeply.
I fall into a vacuum hoping that Ernesto with his experience and wisdom will know how to help me, and that with his deep patience and generosity he will extend his honest hand. I immediately begin to feel lighter. In the air I can hear hummingbirds singing and I feel protected by Willard, Sissy and Linda Kay as I sit to observe how they edit my life. And in those images I see reflected, for the first time, the intimacy and the silence of my soul. Sandra Pereznieto
® Willard Pate
I’ve turned the corner from even twenty-five workshops with Ernesto, a quarter of a hundred, toward a start toward the next quarter hundred. It was fitting that both workshops twenty-five and twenty-six were in the highlands of Peru, my favorite destination.
As always, climbing toward both the summits of mountain peaks and new horizons in photography was challenging.
But Ernesto remains an inspirational guide. And this time it was wonderful to have Sissy along—even if she did cause me to have to look at too many eggs. Willard Pate
