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"Che" photo turns 50 today

Feliz Cumple...

Albert Korda's iconic image of Che Guevara is 50 years old today.

"Narc-deco": the art of Victor Escobar

 

"Paisacres"

It's undeniable that violence carries with it a certain amount of cachet, glam... bling. 

The work of Medellin artist Victor Escobar was recently on display in an exhibit called "Traquira" at Valenzuela Klenner Galería, Bogota.

  

In the accompanying artist's statement, Escobar quotes Slavoj Zizek:

The appearance implies that there is something behind it which appears through it; it conceals a truth and by the same gesture gives a foreboding thereof; it simultaneously hides and reveals the essence behind its curtain. But what is hidden behind the phenomenal appearance? Precisely the fact that there is nothing to hide. What is concealed is that the very act of concealing conceals nothing.

 

Court votes no on Uribe reelection

Court votes no on Uribe reelection
Originally uploaded by Karen Hoffmann

On Friday, Colombia's Constitutional Court voted no on a referendum that would have allowed current president Alvaro Uribe to run for a third term.

Everyone I've talked to thinks this is great. But I guess I don't know many Uribistas...

Susan Sontag "On Photography"

(I think I walked past this bookstore in SF this summer. Photo Credit: Temporary Transfer)

Thinking about this:

"A way of certifying experience, taking photographs is also a way of refusing it--by limiting experience to a search for the photogenic, by converting experience into an image, a souvenir. Travel becomes a strategy for accumulating photographs. The very activity of taking pictures is soothing, and assuages general feelings of disorientation that are likely to be exacerbated by travel. Most tourists feel compelled to put the camera between themselves and whatever is remarkable that they encounter. Unsure of other responses, they take a picture. This gives shape to experience: stop, take a photograph, and move on. ....

"Photography has become one of the principal devices for experiencing something, for giving an appearance of participation. … While the others are passive, clearly alarmed spectators, having a camera has transformed one person into something active, a voyeur: only he has mastered the situation. … Taking photographs has set up a chronic voyeuristic relation to the world which levels the meaning of all events. ...

"Photographing is essentially an act of non-intervention."

Peru relief effort: My work on A Developing Story

 

Weavers in Patacancha

It's been almost a year and I still haven't written anything about my experience taking pictures for the NGO Awamaki in Peru. But with recent catastrophic flooding in one of the areas I was staying, I submitted this post to the photojournalism blog A Developing Story. 

In the Peruvian village of Patacancha, people live the same way as they have before the Inca, with only satellite TV and Protestant religion showing the passage of time. They speak Quechua, a language that for each statement you make requires you to qualify how you know it (either “I know for a fact,” “I heard,” or “most likely”). The traditional alcoholic beverage is chicha, a beverage made from corn fermented with spit. (Dogfish Head is taking note.) The women spend much of their time weaving intricate fabrics, while the men often supplement their farming as porters on the Inca Trail.

To help keep this way of life, the women formed a weaving cooperative. A group called Awamaki assists the women in fair-trade marketing and has helped them build a weaving center in which natural dyes are grown. Awamaki also places volunteers in schools, preschools, and health clinics in nearby towns.

Last week, the area was hit with severe rains and flooding. In the nearby town of Ollantaytambo, where Awamaki is headquartered, houses, fields, and roads were all gravely damaged. Awamaki is organizing a relief effort to help families rebuild their homes, providing them with construction materials and technical assistance for safer constructions. They are also working to ensure that families have sufficient food and that displaced children have the school supplies they will need for the upcoming school year, which begins in several weeks.

Please visit Awamaki to learn about their work and the relief effort in Ollantaytambo.

And once I get my hands on my notebooks from Peru -- they're across the Caribbean at the moment -- I will write more about that experience. (In the meantime, there are photos on my Flickr!)

How to rebuild? Haiti looks to Colombia

Photo Credit: paul bridgewater - www.londonmusicphotographer.com

In 1999, an earthquake hit the town of Armenia, Colombia, killing 1,200 people and leveling two-thirds of the buildings. Tens of thousands were left homeless.

The resulting reconstruction effort won a United Nations prize. Today, Haiti's interior minister visited Armenia to see what lessons could be learned for his country.

(via Reuters)