12 12 23 in the barrio La Villa Basilica de Guadalupe

Today I returned to the basilica. Only today, an hour in the morning, avoiding the night…

1 HOUR WAS SUFFICIENT TO ME

The new work is in black and white, JPG straight from the camera, because for me the choice must be made first and with black and white there is no turning back.

I felt like doing it this way, despite the fact that for years now I have practically always photographed in color.

I purposely did a quickwork, without spending too much time. I know very well that others have been working on this for days, spending the night there. I faced everything in a different mental dimension, finally free from the impositions of journalistic narrative. I only thought about quickly entering the atmosphere, the energy of the place at that given moment, to absorb sensations and dynamics.

I wanted something very instinctive, who knows, even if it remained, in a certain way, on a superficial level. It's a different genesis that I still don't know what it will tell me, if above all it will tell me something.

Imagine a street photographer dealing with a journalistic topic. Here you are.

Let's see what that means. Let’s see the selection:

FINAL THOUGHTS

The result surprises me because I consider it quite good. The photojournalist still emerges, despite trying to avoid the classic photos that need to be taken. More than stories I wanted to bring out the perceived atmosphere. In a sort of meeting between the real and the metaphysical that led me to take photographs in a very short time, trying to be with myself, in my mental state, avoiding interaction.

There certainly seems to be a different approach compared to the years in which I covered this event as breaking news for agencies. I took the opportunity to take a tour of the barrio, trying to capture its moods, trying to include all that part that is completely ignored of a working-class neighborhood that these days is however distorted by the regular activity, and this despite LA VILLA inhabitants are used to this almost all the year, becuase there are a lot of pilgrimages during the year. Although this still remains the most impressive and corresponds to the Basilica of Guadalupe as the most visited Catholic religious center, second only to St. Peter's in Rome.

The distortion of the reportage is there, and it is the most personal, gonzographic one, as I like to define my approach. This return to black and white was also regenerating.

Do you like this work? Let me know what you think.