La Compuerta, Guatemala / editing

A prayer vigil in La Compeurta, Guatemala. 

Yesterday I was just talking with another photographer about the pitfalls of confusing the feeling of a place with what it actually looks like. Often it is hard to separate the experience of making a photo with the photo itself. It is one of the great traps of editing. It is also why many photographers are so bad at editing their own work. We tend to like pictures that we liked making or photographs that we worked hard to make often ignoring whether the picture is strong or not. 

The picture above is a perfect example, it took me years to separate making it from the image itself.

I mean I loved making this photograph in La Compuerta. I worked incredibly hard to get the community to trust me and let me photograph this ceremony. The vigil is to ask permission to enter the Maya pilgrimage cave Naj Tunich.

It is an all night long service. 12 hours of praying, sacrifices, marimba and dancing. At a certain point the women of the village take over the prayers, and sacrifices. They chant till dawn. When I first looked at my photos from that experience I thought they were all wonderful. Now a few years down the line only the one picture remains.

 
At dawn, the men carry burning copal to the cave. There they say more prayers and burn more offerings and dance. 

Again, unbelievable experience but after some time, very few pictures remain.

 -Stephen Alvarez

Comments

[Maureen]

Unlike writing, which allows revision of what you no longer like, photography leaves you with the memory and the image that you cannot retake. I would be interested to learn more about how you decide what to keep.