Sacred/Sagrado: Festivals of Mexico

The photographs in this series are part of an ongoing project I have been undertaking in Mexico since 2011. Though individual images have appeared in a number of exhibitions across the US (including LACP’s Street Shooting Around the World exhibition), Sacred/Sagrado: Festivals of Mexico will be shown as a solo exhibition for the first time from January through March, 2018 at the gallery at Pearl S. Buck International, in Bucks County, PA. The term “sacred” in the exhibition’s title invokes two distinct definitions of the word: that which is holy, and that which is a cherished part of the life of a community. Though all the festivals I have photographed tie back in some way to the religious calendar (Mardi Gras, after all, is the day before Lent), only about half of them exhibit the deeply held beliefs of the Catholic faith. Other images represent a profound sense of tradition, identity, and community that is every bit as intensely felt; In San Martin Tilcajete, for example, people prepare for the annual mock wedding ceremony for days each year. All my images capture people as and where I meet them. I am continually astounded by the beauty of ordinary human moments, and that is what I aim to capture. My goal is to disappear and wait for those moments, for everything to fall into place—for a photograph to happen.