A DOCUMENTARY PHOTOGRAPHY BOOK CONTAINING THE WORK OF 3 YEARS AT THE BASILICA OF GUADALUPE DURING THE CELEBRATIONS IN DECEMBER

The devotion and cult for the Guadalupe Virgin meets its climax in the celebration of December. The celebrations are also a meeting between the ancient pre-Hispanic cults and Catholicism. Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe is recognized as a symbol of all Catholic Mexicans.
Cultural symbol of Mexican identity, the Virgin of Guadalupe, is able to unite an entire large nation as Mexico.
The origin of the importance of the Virgen de Guadalupe can be traced back to the religious beliefs and ceremonies that animated the daily lives of pre-Hispanic people from birth to death.

La devoción y el culto a la Virgen de Guadalupe se encuentran con su clímax en la celebración de diciembre. Las celebraciones también son un encuentro entre los antiguos cultos prehispánicos y el catolicismo. Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe es reconocida como un símbolo de todos los católicos mexicanos.
El símbolo cultural de la identidad mexicana, la Virgen de Guadalupe, es capaz de unir a una gran nación entera como México.
El origen de la importancia de la Virgen de Guadalupe se remonta a las creencias y ceremonias religiosas que animaron la vida cotidiana de las personas prehispánicas desde el nacimiento hasta la muerte.

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12/12/2018 – Mexico City, CDMX, Mexico. Un hombre afuera de un templo en el atrio de la Basílica de Guadalupe, protegiéndose con un sombrero mientras la gente llena la Basílica. 10 millones 603 mil feligreses llegaron el domingo, lunes y martes. Los peregrinos llegaron de cualquier parte de México para ofrecer una prueba de su devoción a la Virgen de Guadalupe. /
A man is out of a temple in the atrium of Basilica de Guadalupe, protecting himself with a sombrero while people fills the Basilica. © Alessio Coghe

This print is now available in a wonderful Premium dibond format. Documentary Photography meets Street Photography in this picture. If you buy it an authentic piece of Mexico will be at your home or office!

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I AM PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE MY NEW E-BOOK IS AVAILABLE

PDF E-BOOK, 106 PAGES

Another inspiring e-book for photographers. Landscape, Street and Documentary Photography analyzed through a lot of photos, selected and proposed in a 106 pages pdf e-book.

If you want a book about technique and about reading the situations and the images, this is the book for you.

The book is available in home page:

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Yesterday I went to buy bread and in front of a tortilla bakery I have seen this scene.

I didn’t photogaphed immediately. I decided to go to buy the bread, with the hope the kids still were there.

The light was hard and to preserve spontaneity I photographed from above, positioned in the shadow directed towards the light area. I lost details, but it doesn’t matter. I have a document. Educational games in the streets for these kids. Something we are less and less used to seeing, in times of tablets and computers.

I made this photograph at an intersection in the barrio of Progreso Nacional last week.

It is part of my exploration of the contemporary Mexican landscape. I was drawn to this scene because it seems to be a quintessential Mexico’s barrio experience: the huge space, the anarchist architecture, the murales, some objects on the floor, the cars, a man crossing the empty streets with a bike.

If we try to analyze the image, we can see a fact: anything is dead, anything is motionless and inanimate, except the cyclist. He is the bearer of reality in this frame. It is a time where I am focusing most of my work in the structural complexity, for this reason I think I am making more landscape photography than any other thing. The challenge is about managing a lot of informations. And I feel this is what I like more because is the real challenge in my photographic goals at the moment. In the past I have shown myself to approach the subjects, getting very close, but this is not current goal with my projects.

Visual complexity and an attention for the form is something I am working a lot on myself as a observer and photographer. I do this through readings of different subjects going from psychology to geometry. As a photographer I impose an order. Any photoghrapher is imposing an order inside the frame, even when he thinks not.

To better understand what I want to say, I will use a photograph realized when I was beginning a commission from Melting Pot Esquilino (this month on March 27th there will be the gala night of the exhibition):

In this case I operated on the urgency of achieving a document of the identity of the place: Esquilino, with Piazza Vittorio as a main theater is characterized by the massive presence of immigrants. When you are busy as a documentary photographer, you need to have always in mind the importance to create iconic images, where a relevant part is to show clearly what is the settings and identifying context that helps the viewer to recognize the place and in fact the story.

As a photojournalist this is fundamental. I can’t think to make photographs that they could have been made anywhere in the world, so I need to think how to solve this in a documetary work. Sometimes as editor “reportages” where I can’t even recognize the event, not only the place. The “getting closer” fever is many times responsable of this, I have to say. And this often is caused by simple photography knowledge.

Look at this:

It is a photo based on one-point perspective, with the main point in the center of the image. I focused the idea of this shot on showing an alley in the suburbans. I think then the eye can start to explore and finding other details on the scene. It is another image where in big dimensions I can appreciate the sense of depth and my eyes going to the cars parked and going over, to the green house.

The goal is the same of the first image: Can I find  a way to communicate my experience standing there? Can I achieve to get the observer of the photo to have the sensation to get there?

The form leads to the content. I think I can do this only by respecting the reality represented as much as possible, without distances (or we could call idea interruptions) that derive from choices that would like to be artistic.

MY LOVE FOR OAXACA IN A BOOK WITH 150 PHOTOS

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LA TRADIZIONALE SPEDIZIONE FOTOGRAFICA A OAXACA, GIUNTA ALLA SUA QUINTA EDIZIONE, QUEST’ANNO PROPOSTA A FOTOGRAFI ITALIANI

Grazie alla partnership ufficiale con FIOF quest’anno proponiamo un’edizione speciale. Una spedizione fotografica in Messico proposta in lingua Italiana per tutti coloro che vogliono vivere un’esperienza magica.

Fujifilm Mexico è l’altro partner che ci permetterà di provare le fotocamere della serie X. Fujifilm Mexico offrirà copertura mediatica dell’evento.

I partecipanti saranno impegnati a realizzare documentazione fotografica duante tutte le giornate del viaggio, e sarà pubblicato un libro fotografico stampato e distribuito in tutto il mondo.

Potete conoscere tutto il programma e contattare la segreteria FIOF cliccando qui

Su questo sito visitate la pagina ufficiale della spedizione fotografica cliccando qui

PLEASE NOTE:
The pictures entered here may appear quiet images of the everyday: in Avenida Cuautepec there is a lot of people, filling stores and also the kiosks with street food. As a photographer I don’t want to show off discomfort and violence, and I am mostly of the time focused to document the positive of places. The photos included in this post were taken in Cuautepec. I don’t hide at all the difficult to photograph there. You have to be careful all the time, and select with attention the subject you can photograph. Today here I am writing about a total different thing. Something you are not used to read in other street documentary photography blogs. Here is not about the pretty and reassuring street photography of downtown.

I decided to propose you some photos realized in the morning some days ago, and then the pictures taken yesterday in the afternoon.

MORNING 2019:02:26

AFTERNOON 2019:03:02

Yesterday I was back in Cuautepec. Again. Obviously with my camera.

In the afternoon it’s another story. Different energy. A particular energy that they call “mala vibra” here. Scenes and subjects from bronx of dark times. And I was there, to photograph.

At every internal street I saw gangs of disreputable boys. You need to evaluate each shot. You need to evaluate the risk. It is a very different way of photographing.

Forget the reassuring street photography in downtown of our cities. Forget those who feel themselves to be cool by using the flash. I wanted to see them there using their fucking flash. Sometimes t the ratings of certain dudes on social media make me smile because they know nothing about what it means to photograph in a barrio. Already going around with a camera in some places is a good test, try to imagine raising the camera, framing and compose and then shoot.

A guy at one point stand at me for a long time. I stared in his eyes. Don’t think I was afraid. Not for a moment. But this is to say that to photograph in certain places already you have to be another type of animal.

Mexico City is very quiet and safe in many areas, but inevitably slipping into the barrios is another thing. I live in a barrio, I don’t live in nice places like Condesa or Polanco. Among other things, not far from Cuautepec, which can be reached on foot. I have often photographed there in the morning and early noon, but in the afternoon at 4 or 5 pm it’s a whole other story.
Energy changes completely.

The “welcome” yesterday with two glues addicted when they have commented “interesting material” looking at the camera and the bag, but those don’t even have the strength to stand up. I didn’t go there specifically to photograph, but to buy a gas stove, but hey, I always carry the camera with me. I never thought to put the camera in my bag, as many would have done.

I’m not crazy, I calculate the risks. I am perfectly aware of being the only one to go with a camera in certain places: I have already accustomed to my presence several barrios around here. Energy is different from barrio to barrio. Yesterday I was thinking that we often talk about Tepito as the most dangerous neighborhood, but I believe that Itzapalapa counts with far more dangerous parts. I photograph also in the State of Mexico, which is the most dangerous state currently in the whole Republic. I’m not and I don’t want to be a hero, but if I think of those who photograph in war, my courage is renewed. So if something must happen to me, it will happen somewhere. I don’t go around with miedo (fear) because that, through the body language, would attract bad things.

I am a documentary photographer. My focus is the documentation. I’m not looking for photography that necessarily pulls a smile. And I am not interested to make a pretty picture. The interest is sincere towards the human condition in the barrios. I don ‘t want to photograph cliches. I photograph life and also my life. It is not about going in a place, but finding myself in a place and possibly have a camera to photograph interesting moments for me.

02/21/2019 – Mexico City, CDMX, Mexico. Vendors and pilgrims fill the streets close to the Basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico City in the day of the great pilgrimage of Toluca. Between trucks and tents, more than 60 thousand pilgrims rest to recover strength, after arriving at dawn to the Basilica of Guadalupe, in the framework of the LXXXI Pilgrimage of Toluca, one of the largest that visits the Marian temple every year. Driven by faith and devotion, entrepreneurs, merchants, transporters and peasants from Toluca and neighboring municipalities to that Mexican city began their journey from Sunday to present themselves at the feet of the Virgin of Guadalupe. In this regard, the mayor of Gustavo A. Madero reported that there was more than 100 minor medical attention due to blisters and cramps in lower extremities, as well as symptoms of high blood pressure in older adults, mainly.

That’s it. I am a photojournalist. A documentary photographer.

I work with 2 agencies: I am happy with them and they are happy with me. In May I will be photographer of the month for one of them.

My main goal is to convey real stories and facts. And the goal includes to capture images that truthfully portray people, places and events. There is no way to me to stage scenes. Anything is based on what I find. And when I find it, my main my main concern will be to solve the equation in a photographic result as much as possible. 

Street Photography? Today, with the genre converted in a trend, there is a room for those thinking to make photos without a real content o motivation: I don’t agree. Street Photography is a kind of documentary photography in my opinion, and although different from photojournalism, it can’t be only aesthetics. I believe in photography where there is a balance between form and content.

As an educator too, I am focused that my students learn fo real how to tell a story visually. All the masters we know and we recognize as such know how to tell a story, through an image or a series. Photography is something moe important than submitting photos to a festival.

Documenting is the only goal I really care. I have no artistic desires. I want that my photographs can create something in the perception of people. I have seen how much photography can make to modify the life of people. I have seen it through my work with NGOs and I have seen it also by helping financially a family: my activity as photographer can change at least in part the life of people.

I believe only in a thing: work. To work hard. Yes, I know in this business many rely on contacts. But that can be a quick way to reach a goal, but is inconsistent because over time only those who count with something to say and with the hard work goes on. Also to win awards is not a warranty: I know colleagues who won awards but after a period this is not assuring duration over time. Only work pays, day by day, every single day as if is the first one.

I write. I photograph. I teach. I study. I learn. 

And I love it.

IN THIS POST YOU FIND: 8 PHOTOGRAPHS REALIZED IN THE BARRIO CALLED JORGE NEGRETE, IN THE NORTH OF MEXICO CITY, DURING THE MARKET DAY.

I don’t feel myself vinculated in definitions of genre. I am making my photography. My main focus now is making photographs equipped with visual information that allows the observer to understand the reality of life in Mexico as much as possible. Clearly this needs color and the most faithful of reality. The form is important to present the content, but avoiding spectacularizations through a catchy post processing.

I am more than ever in  my own path, following my vision, not imitating this or that author.

CON OCCASIONE DELL’IMMINENTE MOSTRA ALL’ESQUILINO, PUBBLICO QUESTO VOLUME

https://www.peecho.com/print/en/484976

When we photograph we are also activating remote visions that have been shaped through paintings, films, readings and, of course, other photographs. I will use 3 photographs taken during a manifestation in Rome last year to try to pull off some notes.

PHOTOS CONTEXT: The protest of Biafrans took place in Rome, Italy on May 30th 2018 in the day of Biafra Remembrance. They expressed the desire to back in their land, Biafra, where there is a continuous genocide of people arrived to 4.000.000 of people killed. They ask a referendum to obtain freedom and independence from Nigeria.

2. EVENT IN THE PHOTOGRAPH: A man dances during the demonstration in Rome. 

I think is very important to show any aspect of a manifestation. The folkloristic aspects can give us iconic images. I think to the sit in in USA of the hippies, for example or the marchs of ’68. The life during a political protest in the streets is never just…the protest. People feels like on a stage, and what is better than the most big stage in the world, the street?

His movements represent his roots, he dances with pride and intensity. He knows. He know that his dance is showing where does he come from, hus culture, the cultue of his people there with him. On the photograph I can almost ead BIAFRA, the heart, the sunglasses secured to the neck of the shirt. It is a moving picture and we can almost listen to music.

3 EVENT IN THE PHOTOGRAPH: A man showing his closed fist in Piazza del Popolo in Rome, Italy during the demonstration of Biafrans. 

Possibly the most politic photograph I taken during the coverage. We all recognize it as such, and we can not do otherwise, because of the closed fist. In my opinion that arm extended upwards with his closed fist, and the serious and proud look make the photograph. But watch it carefully: there is more. There are other elements in the background giving me moe than just a portrait. on the left a man drinking water, anothe one walking and talking on the phone, on the ight a woman and a child in a stroller. The man in the centre of the frame is the protagonist, but hey thanks to the composition I achieved to convet him also in the representant of the claims of an entire population. Without that human panoama behind I couldn’t show the pueblo of BIAFRA. I couldn’t remind to the viewers why there is a protest in act. In this way I am showing not just a man potesting, but I am saying something more: attention, at stake is the destiny of people. Men, women and children, the entire future of a nation, the BIAFRA nation is risking to disappear.

This is my favourite picture I realized that day.

I hope these notes can be useful for you, dear reader of this blog.

After the work made last December, yesterday I photographed again at the Basilica of Guadalupe.

I am not a religious guy, but I am interested what the mistery of faith represents for the people. I decided to photograph them in this way, from the backs, interested to show this repetition of the Virgin on their t-shirts. 

OK, this post is clearly autorreferencial, but not just this. There are things maybe you don’t know about Mexico…

National Geographic elected Mexico City as best city to visit in 2019. San Miguel de Allende and Oaxaca best cities for Travel & Leisure in 2018. Oaxaca the best in the world for the delicious food.

NG defines vibrant, elegant and chill Mexico City, as you can read it in  this article: click here.

You know my work here. If you are here, you probably know and appreciate it. Mexico City is considered the New York City of LatinAmerica. As a photographer I can assure you this is a great place for street photography. You can find the surreal and the great compositions, kissed by a great light. Anything is pretty interesting: I am here fo 10 years now and guys, every single day this city surprises me. 

Mexico City is not just downtown where tourists go and where I recommend to stay if you are alone. The issue of security exists, but is not that thing some not knowing the city state often. Never happened something menacing my security in 10 years, and guys, I live in a barrio in the north side of the city, I take the microbus.

If you are a photographer, possibly you would visit places different from the classic tourist routes. I am offering this through several photographic experiences. Furthermore I know the best places where we can eat real Mexican food and not the tourist food in downtown. My offer is varied and distinguish, focused on real photographer experiences. I am a photojournalist and street photographer: the photos you will achieve with me, you hardly did it alone, because I know the places and I will bring you there.

In particular:

Street Photography Workshops

CDMX Individual Documentary Street Workshop

To photograph the  barrios is not any photographer can do, but thanks to my guide and tuition you will be able to photograph in places otherwise off limits in some popula neighborhoods and also in the EDOMEX (Mexico state) for someone coming from another country:

Barrios Photo Workshop

CDMX PHOTO TOURS

The photo tours are designed for tourists that want to know the city and taking at home some stunning photos.

Mexico, of course, is not just Mexico City. Since 3 years I am proposing workshops in Oaxaca. In Oaxaca I can offer you a customized photo expedition. In Oaxaca you will live a unique experience in the warm south of Mexico. You will know incredible places like Hierve El Agua or Mitla. If you are ad adventure photographer you will love this:

OAXACA WORKSHOPS

It doesn’t matter what is your choice. Mexico is a fantastic country for any person and photographers will love it. My experiences (wokshops and expeditions) give you something unique not offered by others. I am a real documentary photographer working not just in nice places, and you know by taking an experience with me you will photograph in total safety, in places otherwise impossible to make. Any expeience with me includes books and mentoring program after, with portfolio reviews and opportunities to be involved in editorial projects.

To know more:

WORKSHOPS

I SHARE WITH MY READERS THE SUBMISSIONS OF THIS YEAR FOR THE WPP

CHECK OUT THE GALLERY:

Familia Gutiérrez

CHECK OUT THE GALLERY:

THE HUMAN CARAVAN

Going beyond participation in an award, is above all the lived human experience in making these two reports. Photojournalism is a tool that can really make society better, and I am a witness at the forefront of this.