Photographers Blog

Los Galgos Guapos (The Handsome Hounds)

By Erin Siegal

I’d never really known a galgo, or greyhound. To me, they were simply those weirdly skinny creatures in the NYC dog runs that looked like yawning alligators when panting, so rail-thin that they practically disappeared unless they turned sideways.

But now?

Well, let’s just say that I think Dreamboat’s name is pretty accurate.

“Dreamboat,” a.k.a. U.S.S. Dreamboat, enjoys a bath.

In Tijuana, Mexico, the Caliente racetrack is famous. In the city’s heyday, high-end thoroughbreds charged past glamorous crowds of onlookers; photos of the horses still adorn the walls in the casino’s basement administrative offices. Today, however, a different kind of animal bursts from the starting gates each day: American greyhounds.

Greyhounds race at Tijuana’s Caliente racetrack

Notes from a mariachi journey

By Carlos Jasso

When I found out that mariachi music had been added to the U.N educational and cultural agency, UNESCO’s, intangible cultural heritage list, I decided to find out what the mariachis themselves thought about it. I went to the famous Garibaldi square, known as the “home of the mariachis”. I wanted to capture a sense of the atmosphere and emotion of this place where many Mexicans go to celebrate, to party, to fall in love, to reminisce, all to the background music and lyrics of the mariachis. Another visually interesting scene I wanted to illustrate was the Xochimilco canal where locals and tourists alike hire small boats and are serenaded by mariachis.

6:30am Garibaldi Square

Glasses, bottles of tequila, piles of rubbish and a few drunkards were strewn on the square as the shutters of the cantinas were pulled down. Scattered groups of tight trouser wearing, black mustached, sporting Elvis Presley gelled haircuts, big bellied, silver belt buckled musicians were playing with full enthusiasm to the last party-goers and the street cleaners.

Willing to die for change

By Claudia Daut

The day the Occupy Wall Street movement called out for global support and Mexico City was on the list, I decided to take my 12-year old son to the Monumento de la Revolucion where local activists, accusing bankers and politicians of wrecking economies, were expected to gather.

The monument is a landmark Art Deco building, commemorating the Mexican Revolution and the perfect place if you want to protest against any set establishment.

I also thought it would be nice to introduce my son to the power of the people and that there is something other than individualism and elbow culture in our society.

So we went. It was utterly disappointing. There were more street vendors offering tacos de canasta, shirts with the image of Che Guevara and Ray Ban sunglasses manufactured in China than activists. When someone took to the stage, shouting for the rise of the oppressed and the death of the president, I decided it was time to go. As far as I could see, that was it for the Mexican support of Occupy Wall Street.

The next day we took our bicycles to take advantage of a car-free Reforma Avenue. Every Sunday it’s shut down for regular traffic and people jogging, on bikes, skates, skateboards, with dogs, tricycles or anything else take over for several hours and explore the streets of the old part of town or just enjoy riding on a road with three-lanes and no four-wheelers trying to run them over.

When you have lived in Mexico City for a while you get used to protest marches, as they mean hour-long traffic jams and the already unbearable traffic worsening. According to a radio survey there are 10 to 12 marches every week and the “plantones”, when protesters camp out, sometimes for weeks or even months, are a common occurrence. But it was a surprise to see several tents set up outside Mexico’s stock market when we were passing with our bikes. Police were around the corner sitting in a truck, discreetly hidden from view but there nevertheless. So we decided to stop and find out what was happening.

Looking for an American dream

When I began this project about immigrants, I found a totally different world, where every immigrant had a unique story but in the end had a common objective: reach the American dream, which for many turned into the American nightmare.

Coming from so much misery, where the governments of their native countries have completely forgotten about them and where opportunities don’t exist, they have little choice but to risk taking the train in search of a better life. But for many the only thing they find is bad luck.

The day finally arrived for me to get on the train. It’s a story that requires a lot of time, patience and persistence because you never know when or how many immigrants will get on.

The people who help immigrants always told me: “be careful, it’s not easy, why don’t you dress like a man? There are a lot of rapes and robberies.” It’s gotten to the point where female immigrants travel with condoms and are prepared for something like rape to happen.

But, that day I was with a freelance photographer and a person from the Mexico Migrant Network who knew the route of the train very well. We were covering a caravan of Honduran mothers who were visiting migrant shelters along the rail lines from Tapachula, Mexico to the capital Mexico City, looking for their disappeared children, who went missing on their search for the American dream. One of the mothers, Emeterea Martinez, fights every day for her daughter to return home, even if 20 years passes, she still keeps faith that she will return…

Seventy-two shattered dreams

Edgard Garrido

Oct 1, 2010 10:02 EDT

Carlos, a migrant and three-time deportee, commented to me, “I’ve been there and back, too. I’m a migrant and I want a better future.” Carlos’ brother is one of the 16 Hondurans whose bodies were repatriated on September 1st after being found among the 72 immigrants executed by a drug cartel in Tamaulipas, Mexico, as they neared the border with the U.S.

I couldn’t help thinking of a recent magazine article about 800 expatriate soccer players in Europe and how, according to the author, their story might open doors for other foreign “workers” in this globalized world. It struck me that while many of those athletes were born in the slums of Latin America just like most of the 72 dead migrants, the difference was that their talent made it good business for them to cross borders.

At the same time any number of talented musicians from Peru or Bolivia, artists from Ecuador, craftsmen from Guatemala, farmers from Honduras, or laborers from El Salvador, either die while emigrating towards a better life in the U.S. or survive there with a feeling of well-being thanks to their material gains, but suffering the pain of having been uprooted. They are all migrants just like Carlos who go and return tirelessly, with the conviction that comes from having been propelled from their homes by failing economies. The enormous obstacles make me believe that they won’t have the same luck as those who entertain us with their passes and goals.

All these thoughts came to me while covering the story of Miguel Carcamo, another of the dozens who died with the brother of Carlos in Tamaulipas as they headed north in search of a better life. Miguel and his wife Marleny Suarez had four children, the eldest of whom is Isabel. Before emigrating north Miguel worked with his brother near home, carting sand in a wheelbarrow to sieve by hand and sell to brick factories.

To find them I first called Miguel’s sister Maria, who allowed me into her life in the unguarded manner so typical of victims of injustice whenever journalists appear. She told me to meet her on the corner “where they sell chickens,” and then led me up the side of a mountain to her home. That’s where I met her family and Marleny, without her four children. We spoke of their lives and they showed me photos of Miguel. In spite of their pain they treated me like a distinguished guest.

Witness to the violent years of Juarez

Through the shattered glass one can still see the bloodstains that tell the tragic stories of each vehicle and its occupants – the men, women and children whose bodies became the center of violent crime scenes.

Located at the 25 km marker of the Panamerican Highway outside Ciudad Juarez, the state government’s field has become a junkyard, a vehicle graveyard. Laid out in rows, the vehicles are painted with their date of arrival as well as the number 39, police code for “death,” on their windshields.

The state prosecutor’s office says there are more than 2,000 vehicles in the yard, ranging from new luxury models to old junk. They are kept here for as long as the investigation into each crime lasts with most of them never claimed by the victims’ families, probably because of the memories that each one invokes. Among them are many police cars.

Nobody to trust in Mexico’s north

The first version of the killings came from Mexico City media. “Massacre in Tamaulipas State,” said the news anchorman. Seventy-two corpses had been discovered on a ranch in San Fernando municipality, all showing signs of a mass execution.

News of executions, macabre assassinations and kidnappings are commonplace in northern Mexico, but this headline was not. With journalists’ reflexes we began to plan a trip to what suddenly became the bloodiest theater in the drug war. In the past two months a candidate for governor was gunned down, two mayors assassinated, grenades exploded on city streets and the cousin of a media mogul kidnapped. In one weekend 51 people had been murdered in infamous Ciudad Juarez.

My editors asked me if I wanted to go to Ciudad Victoria, where the government announced it would send the 72 bodies for identification. I knew the routine. In less than an hour I was headed out the door to the airport with my equipment and a hastily-packed suitcase, just as my youngest daughter arrived from school.

“Where are you going Papá?” she asked. “Can you take me with you?” My daughter is still a child.

The winding road from Tijuana

Jorge Duenes

Jun 25, 2010 17:00 EDT

By Jorge Duenes

Just outside Tijuana there’s a section of the USA-Mexico border wall that follows very irregular terrain and where, attracted by its curves and steep drops, I’ve taken many pictures. It was there that I decided to photograph the Border Patrol making its nighttime rounds along the winding road in the dark.

After two months of waiting for the right weather, I asked my father and brother to drive me to a place on the highway from where I could hike to the spot I had marked on my map.

My backpack weighed heavily on me, as I carried two cameras, three lenses, a tripod, binoculars, a tent, jacket, food and drinks. With all of this gear, I walked quickly through the scrub in a region frequented by robbers and illegal migrants. It took me an hour and a half to reach my destination atop a hill some 400 meters high.

I started taking some photos before nightfall, but only around 9 p.m. was it dark enough to begin my mission — to take time lapse photos of the Border Patrol. To keep the shutter open, I used a piece of an aluminum can to jam the button down.

My city, my work, my life

It was 11:30 at night in Ciudad Juarez just south of the U.S. border when we reporters heard on the police frequency that a man had been left hanging on the chainlink fence of the Seven & Seven bar, the same place where a few days earlier 11 people had been gunned down.

Once we were sure that the information was real, we approached the bar only after coordinating between ourselves via walkie-talkie. We arrived at the chilling scene, nervous about covering such an incident, and noticed several cars cruising the area around us.

We managed to work from a distance for a short time until the police sealed off the area, blocking our access. I managed to take several photos of the Dantesque scene in which I could see a man’s body with his hands handcuffed to the fence in the form of a crucifixion. We stayed nearby until they removed the body to be taken to the morgue.

Military and forensic experts inspect the body of a man who was killed outside a nightclub in the border city of Ciudad Juarez August 31, 2009. A man was handcuffed to a fence and shot several times by drug hitmen outside a nightclub, according to local media. The assailants also left a warning message, known as “narcomanta”, at the site of the shooting. REUTERS/Alejandro Bringas

Violence in Ciudad Juarez increases from day to day, in spite of the war against narcotraffic being waged by the city, state and federal governments. That war simply doesn’t work, and the number of dead has continued to increase since 2008, hitting a new monthly record high of 248 murders last July, the majority related to contract killings within organized crime.

This wave of violence has been increasing ever since President Felipe Calderon launched his “crusade” called Operation Chihuahua, which instead of reducing the violence, death and drug trafficking has seen them increase.

A different world, just as real.

The first time I met Angelica I didn’t know how to address him, as a man or a woman. To call him Angelica and then hear his man’s voice was very strange. The first thing I asked was how he wanted to be treated. He said that it depended on how I felt more comfortable. For me she was Angelica.

Angelica is an extraordinary person through whose story I began my own in my new country, Mexico. Mexico is enormous and full of contrasts, color, smells and flavors.

Angelica has a very unique family. Her daughter Shadra has a pet Egyptian rat. I thought, how can a girl have a pet rat and love it as any child loves a dog. She proudly wanted to show it to me and put it in my hands, but I screamed and told her I was sorry but I just couldn’t hold a rat. I was ashamed to be such a coward. Luckily she understood; she’s an 8-year-old girl with incredible maturity that allows her to accept her father as a man and as a woman at the same time. She respects and doesn’t show shame.

Angelica’s wife, Chatall, a lesbian, has always worked to give the best education to their children, Shadra and her other child from a previous marriage, with an open mind that also teaches values and principals. When Chatall realized that she also liked other women, she managed to overcome the barriers and live openly.