A world without joy
Street photography has always reflected the human and therefore social condition.
Mexico City, 2022
Although many photographers try hard to show themselves integrated into what they call the new normal, I know they are pretending. And they do it for a matter of a public image to be preserved, also because singing outside the choir belongs to a select few. The rest bask in conformism.
I have always been an observer of people, something that characterizes me even when I didn't always have a camera with me, and what I am observing today, with my eyes first and then with the camera, is that people are no longer happy. They have completely shut down. I can see it from their looks, from their eyes.
It is useless for them to pretend that everything happens because of a pandemic. Inside they know. That inner voice tells them that we have entered a dimension of terror and the limitation of freedom. That idea of being part of a community has been a screen for many. Something to show their goodness as they show it on social networks. But above all it was a shield not to bring out the evidence.
The dystopia into which the world has fallen since 2020 and the wickedness that is now felt everywhere is due to the fact of not wanting to deal with reality and, above all, to the inability to rebel in the face of measures that have nothing to do with the fight to a virus.
Although here in Mexico we are not experiencing what states like Italy, Australia and Canada are proposing in terms of absurd violence against fundamental human rights and propaganda worthy of the worst regimes of the past, even here I can observe how people have been deprived of their true will to live.
Remember the old adage eyes never lie?
Mexico City, 2022
As a photographer and journalist, I consider the documentation we can do on the street to be absolutely important. It is a way to understand and to understand ourselves. As a man of integrity, who does not have to respond to any narrative of convenience, totally free in thought, free of conflicts of interest and without fear of not pleasing the mass, today I find myself writing these notes on my blg knowing full well that something will generate, positive but also negative.
I never thought that a photography blog should be an isolated oasis from the real world. In fact, I think exactly the opposite. This is not a space where you will only find visitor-grabbing decalogues. We are living in a very hard time in the history of humanity and it would be really immoral to turn the other way and pretend that everything is going well. Also because there are my photos to show that things are not going well at all. There is the serious threat of a world war and in writing it I cannot say if this sentence in 6 months will appear totally obsolete and that has not found real confirmation.
I hope so.
We all hope so.
