Picture Stories by Stephen Alvarez

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.

Waiting to see the Black Christ, Tila mexico

Pilgrims wait in a 12 hour line to be blessed by the Black Christ at Tila, Mexico.

-Stephen Alvarez

Nima Ha, Guatemala

A Maya petition at Nima Ha. The brujo says prayers to the spirits who dwell in the cave and asks their protection. 

This image is from an old (2004 here) story on the the Maya Underworld. The pictures have sat in a box until this summer. Now my intern is scanning the images, giving them new life. I had long thought, and been encouraged to put the Maya Underworld images together in a more extensive form than the National Geographic story. What that will be, a book or a long web piece I don't know. I do know that I should get it done before the world ends in 2012.

Enjoy the holiday weekend.

-Stephen Alvarez

Joloniel Chiapas, Mexico

An old picture from Chiapas. It isn't really from the visual diary, but from an old NG assignment on the Maya Underworld. Its been sitting in a box for years dead to the world until my intern Lexi put it in a scanner yesterday. The image, the whole project is being resurrected by going from film to digital.

It is a mark of how much the world has changed that pictures don't seem to exist for me if they are not digitized. 

-Stephen Alvarez

Doorway to the Underworld, Temple 22 Copán Honduras

A reproduced doorway of temple 22. It is known as the puerto de los infermos, Doorway to the underworld. The glyphs clearly show that the Maya viewed this door as being in the cave of the temple.

I always seem to be making my lighting technique up as I go. I knew for months that I had to photograph this doorway at Copán, but instead of packing cases of lights, I headed to Honduras with my assistant and little more than a camera bag. We made arrangements with the site director to visit after hours and then headed to the hardware store. For $200 I bought enough copper wire to tap into some power lines near the doorway and we hooked up strings of regular household bulbs to light the place up.

It is always good to be able to think on your feet.

-Stephen Alvarez

White Horse, Chunkesan, Mexico

Bill Allard (in The Photographic Essay  I think) once said that if a photographer can only work in beautiful light they were going to have a pretty short career. It is advice that I have always taken to heart. Good pictures sometimes happen in bad light. Sometimes they happen because of bad light.

The harshness of the mid day sun in this photo makes the image successful for me. It just would not be as forlorn enough if the light was beautiful...

-Stephen Alvarez

Sewanee, Tennessee

prayer, Joloniel, Mexico

In keeping with yesterday's religion theme, Don Phillipe, the shaman of Joloniel prays before 3 crosses in a cave in the mountains of Chiapas as part of a Day of the Cross celebration. It is a Catholic ceremony with deep deep Maya roots. Maya religion found refuge within the Catholic church and has existed sometimes happily, sometimes not for centuries. In fact if you ask people in Joloniel they will say that their Day of the Cross service is Catholic. The practice is somewhere between Christian and Maya in a syncretic netherworld.

The cross in Maya religion can represent the corn plant and the day of the cross falls at the end of the dry season in Chiapas. Fields are cleared and planted in anticipation of rains that should come soon. The crosses in the cave are the cross of christ but they are also the Maya corn plant that give Maya society life.

Maya cave ceremonies are notoriously closed events. I was only able to photograph this one with the help of Karen Bassie-Sweet who had been working in Joloniel for years. At one point shooting in the cave my long time assistant Jesus Lopez leaned close to me and said "Stephen, NO ONE has ever seen anything like this before."

My response was, "I know, Jesus, give me another roll of film."

-Stephen Alvarez

Cave Painting Naj Tunich, Guatelmala

Naj Tunich is a Maya pilgrimage cave in Guatemala's Peten. Heavily visited in the classic Maya era it was abandoned for centuries before being "discovered" in the early 1980's - THIS picture is from one of those rituals.
Amazingly just after the cave's rediscovery Maya began making pilgrimages to the cave and holding rituals there again.

This photo of my assistant Jesus Lopez in front a Maya Hieroglyphic panel is one of my favorites from my work deep in the cave. It reminds me of being in a sacred space and working with Jesus who even though he does not like caves would go anywhere to make a photo.

-Stephen Alvarez

Nation Geographic Maya Special Issue

The National Geographic Magazine Maya Special Addition is on the news stand now.

Stone Box, Guatemala

God have I ever worked with a lot of archeologists over the years. Good archeologist, or at least well known ones, are by there very nature great promoters.

Every notice that people don't find dusty outlying settlements, they find Troy, the Queen Sheba's Palace or the lost city of Ubar?

After years of being led to the greatest, most important archeological find of the century only to find nothing to photograph but a small pile of rocks I've become somewhat skeptical.

That is how I was when NGM asked me to photograph a carved stone box found in a cave in Guatemala. My first clue that it might be interesting was when I talked to the archeologist Brent Woodfill. Rather than give me a hard sell, Brent said "well I think it is interesting but why don't you come down and take a look."

Well I am glad that I did. First off the box is one of the most impressive artifacts I have ever seen up close. Carved stone boxes are virtually unheard of in the Maya world, and the workmanship on this one is very impressive.

Second, Brent and his girlfriend -now wife- Mirza became good friends in the time that we spent exploring underground sites near Cancuen.

Finally, the box was stolen -looted really- shortly after I photographed it. Brent did most of the heavy lifting in getting it recovered. He was able to use my pictures to generate so much publicity that the box was impossible to sell. It was mysteriously returned to the Guatemalan government.

Good work Brent.

-Stephen Alvarez