BazanPhotos | Student Photography Gallery

Photography by Ernesto Bazan

Batman

Ernesto,

Thanks for patiently waiting for my comments. They were so slow in coming because I still can't find the words to
communicate what the workshop in Salvador has meant to me To be so blessed with so many beautiful memories
and photographic moments still brings tears of gratitude for being given the gift of working with you, Santiago and Sebastian.
It's hard to believe that all we saw and experienced was done in a space of just 10 days; time seems to expand in Brazil.
I still am not ready to "unpack" the experience in my mind for fear the mysterious magic swirling around them will vanish.
No, I will protect them and savor them for a while because these memories are sacred to me and I want to keep them to myself for a while. But I can share some of the impressions that keep bringing flashing
through my mind. Particularly magical was an afternoon on the lands of the subsistence farmer where the golden afternoon light shone through low-hanging tree boughs and painted everything else with a butterscotch glaze.
Or a morning on village beach waiting for rough-hewn boat with archetypal fisherman silhouettes in the distant horizon and fish shimmering in nets being plucked by sun-backed brown hands. Or our fearless leader stopping the car to let us jump out
of the car to shoot a procession lead by beautiful dancers blessing spectators with water from flower-bearing urns carried on their head. Some many dream-like moments and every one a privilege.
Well, that is it. I just want to thank you for one of the best experiences in my life; I mean that. And I want to say that I am always so impressed how hard you work at finding events and locations for us - I don't "take it for granted". Your success is no accident; you are
the hardest working photographer around. I definitely will be back in 2010 and am thinking about Itaparica in August or doing the December Salvador workshop again. I wish you and your family the absolute very best in 2010.
Much student love and respect,

Cynthia Johnston

For sure there is nothing better for an idea that when the moment to realize itself finally arrives. I had longed to take one of Ernesto's workshops for over four years and finally this opportunity was given to me in his beloved Salvador de Bahia. Everything turned out to be wonderful! it seemed very special to share those days with Ernesto as a maestro, with Cynthia and Santiago as my fellow students, with Israel as an intimate friend ready to solve any problem and finally with the warm people of Salvador that made me feel at home.
After a few intense days, I learned to observe with all my senses and to feel how my heart would beat when all the elements of an image conjugate themselves and functioned perfectly. With his loving and profound advise, Ernesto is always capable of letting us get away from that phantasmagoria of images that surround us now days and to help us transcend from the act, the photographic moment in the constant search of intense and meaningful pictures, where each image has her own strength both in content as in form.
It's not easy to choose among all the possibilities that present themselves while life is flowing, trying to capture that unrepeatable act, that coming together of all possible metaphors hiding in our daily life.
From the very beginning I felt I belonged to this city-world that Salvador is all about, microcosm of all the contradictions and the beauty of Latin America.

I've vibrated together with its people, there I think I have taken my best pictures so far, and I've tried to break the glass that separates a traveler, a "parachutist" as Ernesto likes to call him, from the people you encounter.
This effort allowed me to go inside with strength in the pulsating flow of daily details of these people that I vividly remember although the distance as if I'd get totally drunk with this feeling of belonging to this land.
With Ernesto I've really learned to look at time in a qualitative dimension. In this time when time stops flowing and you feel as part of the environment you are in, the only thing that matter is to return to the place and transcend those gazes you found. Perhaps for this reason, I'll return to Salvador next January, in Ernesto's company and also together with this wonderful city that imagines an uncertain future while its heart beats to an African rhythm.

Sebastian Liste

When I arrived to the workshop I had no clear idea of what the workshop would have been like. I could only imagine that I'd take pictures and that I'd edit them with Ernesto and the other students. It went way beyond that: it was an incredible experience. I've learned greatly from Ernesto about photography and also on the personal level.; it has been an unforgettable experience.
Ernesto has the clear ability to understand what works and doesn't work in a photograph. His transparent and patient way explaining the mistakes within a photograph and when a picture works made of the editing sessions a space of permanent growth.
Sebas and Cynthia's comments were also very helpful. Thank you Ernesto for your constant help and thank you Israel for the happiness you gave us everyday.
This has been the first step, I believe that I begin to see things now...
Santi Serrano

Please note that the copyright of all the images appearing in the students gallery belongs to each individual photographer. No photograph can be reproduced without the author consent.