Wherever you are, I invite you to send me your Dia de los Muertos Altar photos. They should be no larger than 150 KB and sent as an email attachment (any larger and they won’t be considered). One photo per person! They need to arrive in my inbox by midnight, November 1, 2013. I will ask our Day of the Dead Photograph Expedition participants to select 10 for publication here! Meanwhile, here’s the start for my altar!
For my Virgin of Guadalupe, I have a flying saint sending blessings over the campo. It is a lithograph by Oaxaca artist Francisco Olivera. Of course, there is a bottle of mezcal and soon we will add a photo my father who died in 1997. My sister is bringing it on October 30, just in time.
My friend Lupe went out in front of the casita where I live and cut fresh cempasuchitl for the vase. I added chocolate made by Magdalena, Oaxaca mandarin oranges, and two candles. Lupe added the little apples that she says taste like strawberries. There is a field of agave for mezcal next door.
When I’m in Oaxaca tomorrow, I’ll get papel picado cut paper streamers, bread, nuts and copal incense to add. We will need candles under the table and a palm arch so that the spirits can enter and exit with ease. There are three levels to every Day of the Dead altar.
As I get ready for the photography workshop, I went out into the fields near where I live to practice my f-stops in the late afternoon light. Here are some photos to share with you.
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