Category Archives: Comedor Los Pibes

I’m plodding along with the ‘Yo Soy’ project, which, if I have not explained it to you yet, is a series of images of women living with HIV. Plodding is not the word I’d prefer to be using here: racing, leaping, bounding, etc… but it is at the very least a form of movement forward. The impatient Irish woman in me is not in accordance that the word ‘plodding’ encompasses any forward movement, but is in fact only a mirage intended to make me think I’m getting somewhere. For example, when an overworked nine-to-fiver asks you what you’ve been up to the past three years while living the bohemian life in Argentina, ‘oh, I’ve just been plodding away.’ It is a cover-up right?

Regardless and with the Irish in check… I am plodding. And with something to show for the plodding. I’ve shot a few portraits and I have a great connection to a younger generation of women. I made the decision to photograph the women on film, using a Mamiya 645 afd with 120mm Kodak TriX 400asa to be exact, so getting the film developed, printed and eventually scanned is a ‘plodding’ kind of process. Digital has spoiled me.

I will get something uploaded to the website around the first of the year and look forward to your feedback. However, in looking back over this year I realized I did not post any of the images from the Comedor Los Pibes. I posted the portraits only unfortunately. So, I corrected that mistake today and took the opportunity to edit down a years worth of photos to 30.

I like to see these images as a peak into their world. Thirty images is nothing compared to the tally after a year and even that is nothing compared to their lives and the images never made.

Recently I was introduced to the work of two photographers who have this documentary thing down. The first is a female photographer from Argentina, Adriana Lestido. I first saw her book Madres e Hijas, but after seeing her website, I found myself enthralled by her work called Mujeres Presas . The combination of portraits and moments inside the prison evokes for me a sense of seeing and interacting at the same time. The use of black and white film and the movement/blur in several images, complete the sense that I am witnessing while experiencing.

The second photographer, Julio Mitchell, was featured on the Lens blog on the New York Times website. You just need to take a look. Check out Kid Gloves. It is old school photography from a time when it wasn’t old school, but photojournalism without the fan fare. A peak perhaps.

I like stories and these two are definitely storytellers. If anything I am comforted that stories take time to tell, so plodding along isn’t negative. Forward movement. Except for the photos I posted today… that is a look back at the past, which is a necessary reminder and not an unwelcome one when I like the work I accomplished.

Click the photo to see the gallery of images

Comedor Los Pibes