24 Hours in Mayalan

The Mighty Cessna at the Mayalan Airstrip

From the late 1970s to the early 1990s I had a relationship with the World Missions Department of the Church of God that took me to 26 countries on four continents and resulted in the production of more than 60 audio-visual programs to promote and raise funds for the Church's mission efforts.

In March, 1989, I met American missionary Frank Tyson and Guatemalan doctor Jaime Gomez at a small airfield high in the mountains of northern Guatemala. We loaded ourselves and some boxes of supplies into a small, single-engine Cessna, with Frank and Jaime sitting on the boxes because the back seats had been removed for hauling cargo and set off over some 8,000-feet-plus mountains to the highland village of Mayalan.

Our pilot, a Guatemalan "air cowboy," a spiritual kinsman of Alaskan bush pilots, was not one to waste fuel on higher altitudes. He skimmed the mountain tops so closely that I could have picked blossoms from the jacaranda trees. Nonetheless, he deposited us safely on the soccer field-cum-landing strip at Mayalan, fortunately catching it between games.

A warm welcome from the Mayalan villagers

includes water for washing hands.

After receiving a warm welcome from the villagers, we each went to our work. 
Jaime set up a clinic in the village church and Frank met with the village elders. I wandered around with my camera observing village life.

Dr. Jaime Gomez gives a mother diet

supplements for her undernourished infant.

Weaving in the traditional way.

Butchering a wild pig.

When evening came, there was a service in the church with Frank preaching. I put a Vivitar 283 flash on my camera and another on a lightweight stand and photographed the village believers at worship.

A worship service at the Mayalan Church.

After the service, it was bedtime. The church's "pews" were split logs mounted on short pegs. My bed was two of them placed side-by-side. Frank and Jaime had sleeping bags, but I, having not been forewarned, put on the warmest clothes I had, covered myself with my bathrobe, and settled in for the coldest, most miserable night of my life. (It gets very cold at night in the Guatemalan highlands!)

Sunrise at Mayalan

There was a silver lining, though. As the pre-dawn light began to filter into the church, I had absolutely no incentive to stay in bed! I was up and out with my camera as the sun rose, documenting the village as it came to life. I photographed the women cooking breakfast, the men going off to their fields, and the children beginning their school day.

The women at Mayalan cook breakfast on an open firepit.

The school at Mayalan provides nourishment for bright

young minds formerly doomed to illiteracy.

Kids and puppies are the same everywhere.

All too soon the air cowboy returned in his Cessna and it was time to leave. We had been in Mayalan for 24 hours and I had everything I needed to make one of my all-time favorite audio-visual programs.

But there was one final surprise: as we neared the end of the airstrip the engine faltered and we appeared about to drop into the very deep ravine at the end of the strip. But the little Cessna regained power and we were off. I hardly even noticed -- I was busy snapping aerial photos of the village.

Photographers are like that.

You can view the Mayalan A-V program here.

(Photographs made with Olympus OM cameras and lenses and a Vivitar 75-205 f3.8 zoom. Fujichrome 100D film.)

The Informal Portrait

Tres Compadres

Mayalan Village, Guatemala

Olympus OM, Fujichrome 100D

As I wrote in Wednesday's post, I have always been drawn to the old, the abandoned, the worn out, the passing away. Abandoned buildings, abandoned cars – whatever man has used, worn out, and discarded -- fascinate me, because they speak of worn out lives, lived and discarded with neither name nor history.

However, there also has been another constant through all the years I've been doing photography: making pictures of people. Portraits, if you will. I've made studio portraits, editorial portraits, corporate portraits, portraits of family and friends, casual portraits, portraits for money, and portraits for fun.

I also have made many, many informal portraits of people in foreign settings, both of individuals and people together; work I found especially satisfying. As I wrote in "The Fascination of Foreign Faces," As a photojournalist and producer creating magazine features and audio-visual programs to help religious and humanitarian agencies communicate their mission, I'm always looking for opportunities to make portraits.  Strong photographs of people add power to the message I want to communicate, because people are interested in people.  That's why we call it "human interest."  When someone from another culture is portrayed in all of his or her humanity, dignity, and individuality, both the subject and those who view the photograph are served.  As the great Edward Steichen, creator of the landmark "Family of Man" exhibit said, "The function of photography is to explain man to man and each man to himself."

Old Peasant Woman

Church of God, Vinkovci, Yugoslavia

Olympus OM or Leica M3, Fujichrome 400D @ ISO 800

Making informal portraits is not difficult. In fact, anyone can do it -- witness the hordes snapping away with their cell phones. Making good portraits, portraits that will interest even those who do not know the subjects, is a little more complex, but not prohibitively so. They are not beyond the reach of any photographer with a reasonably good eye for composition, some ability to notice the play of light, and the will to put oneself out there and just do it!

Salvadoran Child

La Colonia Gloria Methodist Church, Ahuachapan, El Salvador

Olympus OM-D E-M5, Panasonic Lumix 14-140 f3.5-f5.6 lens

A friendly, open demeanor and an attitude of respect and courtesy will usually gain the subject's cooperation. If not, just offer a polite "Thank you" and walk away. But again, the most important factor in making good informal portraits is simply the will to do it. These simple principles have worked for me around the U.S. and around the world.

Finding Your Voice

Rock City Barn GA-12

GA Hwy. 42, Monroe County, Georgia

Canon EOS A2, Canon 28-105 f3.5-4.5 EF lens

In the absence of any clear idea of what they hope to achieve, photographers often sub-consciously seek to define themselves by their equipment. It can be fun for those who can afford it, but it avoids the real question: Who am I as a photographer? What is my passion? Until you can answer that, you "ain't gonna get no satisfaction." Because ultimately, it's not the tools nor the act of photography that counts. It's the subject, your relationship to it, and your feelings about it.

The photographer who finds his voice, his niche, his passion, most likely will also find that he can do whatever he wants to do with a relatively small amount of equipment. An exception, of course, would be the photographer whose passion is birds in flight, action sports, or auto racing. But for myself, I can do everything I want to do with a few Fuji bodies and three or four lenses; equipment which is also sufficient for the occasional commercial gig I get.

As I've said several times (but who's counting?), I found my voice, my passion, in photography in the early 1970s, but did not recognize it for what it was until years later.

I have always been drawn to the old, the abandoned, the worn out, the passing away. Abandoned buildings, abandoned cars – whatever man has used, worn out, and discarded -- fascinate me, because they speak of worn out lives, lived and discarded with neither name nor history.

FOR SALE (Unidentified Auto from the Mid-1930s)

U.S. Hwy. 411, Gordon County, Georgia

Canon EOS A2, Canon 28-105 f3.5-4.5 EF lens

I am especially drawn to the remnants of mid-twentieth-century roadside culture because I lived it. In the 1950s and '60s I hitch-hiked the two-lane highways of America. I saw the Rock City barns, the Mail Pouch Tobacco barns, the roadside fast-food stands built to look like giant chickens or hot dogs, the wigwam motels. Like Tennyson's Ulysses, "I am a part of all I have met." Or more accurately, all I have met is part of me.

I admire the work of nature photographers such as David Meunch and the late Galen Rowell, but am much more drawn to the work of the great observers of the human scene, such as Elliott Erwitt, Robert Doisneau, and Henri Cartier-Bresson. I wish I could do what they do. I've tried, and I know I will never photograph insightful slices of life as well as they do. But I have a niche of my own, and I must be content. Rather than photographing nature or the human condition, my passion and my role is to document the interface between nature and the crumbling works of man.

Am I My Own Best Editor?

Rock City Barn in Grassy Cove

TN Hwy. 68 in Cumberland County, Tennessee

Mamiya RB67, 127mm f4.5 Mamiya-Sekor lens, Fujichrome 100 film

Not necessarily. I would like to think I am, but the truth is that I can't always pick out my very best shots. Let's face it: sometimes we're not the best judges of our own work. Here's a true story:

By 1992 I had been doing regular advertising assignments for Rock City Gardens, (now See Rock City, Inc.) a tourist attraction on Lookout Mountain near Chattanooga, Tennessee, for about ten years. In effect, I was their unofficial house photographer. In late October of that year I was asked by Rock City's advertising department to go to Grassy Cove on Cumberland Mountain between Rockwood and Crossville, Tennessee to photograph a picturesque old barn with one of their iconic "See Rock City" signs.

It was a gray, overcast day, but I did the best I could; photographing the barn and the sheep grazing around it from several angles with my Mamiya RB67 medium format camera (a big bruiser!) and Fujichrome 100 film. As always, I bracketed exposures a half-stop over and under. (For my younger readers, that's like setting your digital camera to auto-bracket mode when you want the best possible exposure. But in those days it was all done manually -- the aperture or shutter speed had to be physically changed for each exposure.)

After processing and reviewing the film, I was not happy with the photos. So a few days later on a sunny day I went back at my own expense (about a 160 mile round trip) and photographed the barn again. But just in case, when I turned in my photos to Todd Smith, Rock City's advertising manager, I gave him both the overcast day photos and the sunny day shots.

To my surprise, Todd immediately picked the photo above. And when I was later commissioned to photograph and write Rock City Barns: A Passing Era, that was the photo my book designer chose for the cover. I would have missed it completely.

So it's a good idea to get input about your photos from someone whose vision you trust. You might find that some of your photographs are not as great as you think they are, but on the other hand, you might well find some hidden gems.