Achupalla

The following images were made in Ecuador during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. I was traveling with my camper through Colombia in the weeks leading up to lockdown and crossed into Ecuador the day the government closed the country’s borders and began its strict quarantine protocol. With the mandated closure of their family business and after a few weeks of no income and no way to pay rent, Diego, his wife Susi and three young children were forced out of their apartment in Quito. They moved into the foothills of the Cotopaxi volcano, to a small plot of land belonging to Diego’s family where they'd learn the ins and outs of running a dairy farm for the first time. With nowhere to go, I was invited to park my camper on their property, live alongside them and document their experience. With a small amount of grant support from The National Geographic Society, this work is being self-published as a book that will serve as a memento to those months we shared, as well as a contribution to the global narrative of the COVID-19 pandemic. This body of work was hand developed and scanned in my truck during my time on the farm.