Tag Archives: photography

Holiday Greetings! Best of the Best Oaxaca Photo Workshop

Sending you warmest greetings from sunny, sparkly Taos, New Mexico, where we are basking in high desert winter sunshine and 50 degrees (20 degrees above average). Perfect walking weather. Global warming? Definitely!

I’m getting ready to return to Oaxaca on December 30. I won’t be complaining about the mid-70’s there. I want to thank you for a spectacular year for Oaxaca Cultural Navigator (OCN). As I focus more and more on health and well-being, I am grateful to YOU, who read and follow and shop here. And, special gratitude for Eric Chavez Santiago and his wife Elsa Sanchez Diaz who are my OCN partners. They are managing so many of the details that I no longer have the bandwidth to concentrate on. They are a blessing to me. I’m also grateful to the many artists and artisans who we know. They contribute their family history, talent, and resourcefulness to what we do, and welcome our guests with open arms and kindness.

As we close out 2024, I want to share with you the Best of the Best Photos from our October Day of the Dead Photography Workshop in Teotitlan del Valle with Luvia Lazo. Luvia had a private session with each workshop participant, and they selected the three best photos they took during our three days together. Here they are:

Andrea James, Santa Fe, New Mexico

Mai Nguyen, New York City

Sherri Kratchmer, Alberta, Canada

Ted Fahy, Ajijic, Lake Chapala, Mexico

Priscilla Taylor, Ajijic, Lake Chapala, Mexico

Eric Chavez Santiago, Oaxaca, Mexico

Norma Schafer, Taos, NM, and Oaxaca, Mexico

A Word From Luvia Lazo Gutierrez, Award-Winning Photographer

A long time ago, I participated in a workshop that Norma organized. She brought professional photographers from the Duke University Center for Documentary Studies to Oaxaca to teach us about composition, lighting, tips, and tools for using the camera. This opportunity helped immensely to improve my approach to photography.

Over the years, I discovered the most important tool for me: Storytelling. There came a point in my career when I realized that as long as I could tell a story in a natural, honest, and sincere way, it would bring me more joy and create deeper empathy with the subjects I was portraying.

When I was invited to give this workshop, my challenge was to teach this lesson to the participants: How do we begin to see again without being influenced by everything we have learned from others? How do we start to discover our personal way of seeing the world through the lens of our cameras?

Teaching is an honor because it provides the opportunity to exchange ideas, learn, and share. During this workshop, I emphasized that we all have a story to tell and a unique way of seeing the world. The photographs that each participant took, reflected this, and I couldn’t be happier with the results.

Are you interested in our next Portrait and Street Photography Workshop in 2026 with Luvia?

Send an email and we will add you to our interested list.

Teotitlan del Valle, Oaxaca, Portraits

Yesterday, Luvia Lazo, our instructor, scheduled an online review of photographs I had taken during our recent Day of the Dead Photography Workshop in Teotitlan del Valle, Oaxaca. Everyone who participated sent Luvia a selection of what they considered to be their best 10-15 shots taken during the three days we were together. She arranged a personal session with each participant to talk about strengths and ways the photography could be improved upon.

During this time together, I focused on street photography, still life, and portraits. Luvia pointed out that she felt my strongest work captured people’s faces. I had taken these during arranged portrait sessions in local homes or when I stopped people on the street or in the market to ask permission to photograph them. She sifted through the 17 photos I had submitted for review and selected those she felt were the strongest — capturing light, shadow, emotion, telling a visual story.

Luivia’s comments were instructive. She said these captured natural moments, with the subjects looking at the photographer and not at the camera, how the shot was framed, perspective, composition, with shadows deep in the image. She recommended that each photograph provide enough information to keep the viewer’s attention. She called out those she didn’t like as much (I haven’t published them), telling me what could have made a difference and improved the shot — some were out of focus, others needed cropping, a few were overexposed, several were out of kilter and needed better framing.

It demonstrated that I need to pay attention to set up the shot and take my time. Morever, Luvia was a guest at Apple’s launch of the iPhone 16 in Cupertino — all expenses paid! (Yes, she is that famous.) They gave her a new phone as a gift. She showed me technical features on my iPhone 14 Pro Max that improved my picture-taking capabilities. Very, very helpful. Yes, I took all these using my iPhone!

We are considering offering this workshop in a longer format in 2025 or 2026, but not during the Day of the Dead. All types of cameras are welcome — from SmartPhone to DSLR to mirrorless! If this interests you, please email me to get on an interested list.

Photo Workshop Day 3: Luvia’s Grandmother +

We met at Luvia’s photography studio at 9:30 a.m. Before that, most of us returned to the village market to take more pictures. The early morning light here is illuminating. The light plays with shadows and texture; there is so much to capture the eye. This is a daily market in Teotitlan del Valle, one of the few remaining here in indigenous culture. During Dia de los Muertos, as families buy flowers, bread, chocolate, fruit, candles to decorate graves and home altars, the market is even more resplendent.

At the studio, we send photos to Luvia’s computer and then have a look-see with a discussion about each of our works taken the day before and this morning. We were frantically editing the ones from this morning to get these ready to send. We talked about composition, cropping, lighting, finding the details, getting closer to our subjects than many of us are comfortable with. It’s an exercise in asking permission to photograph and then stepping into a space that is tighter than usual.

We began to see our world differently and with more definition.

We especially enjoyed our visit to the home of Luvia’s grandmother. She is age 78. Many women age faster here, especially the older generation who have borne and raised many children, and did everything by hand including: shucking corn from the cob, washing laundry and dishes, carrying water, preparing meals three times a day, and feeding the farm animals — chickens, goats, turkeys, cows. Each morning they walked to the market and home again throughout their lives where the daily social contact there was so important. Many ducked into the local convenience store to sip mezcal together and catch up on gossip.

Then it was home again to do everything necessary to keep an extended-family household going.

We were so happy this workshop fit into Luvia’s schedule. Her work has been featured in The New Yorker and Vogue magazines, and she has had exhibitions in the USA and Europe. Fujifilm and Leica awarded her grants as a rising star, and she will be going to New York to participate in an arts residency in 2025. Both Luvia and I agree: we do not want to hold workshops during Day of the Dead — November 1 and November 2. We want this to be quiet time with our families to reflect on meaning, loss, life and death, and to remember our loved ones.

Here are some of the photos I took that day in the market and with Luvia’s grandmother:

And here is my Day Of the Dead Altar to remember my parents. I call it my Memory Altar. It looks very much the same year after year, which is very reassuring.

Photography Workshop Day Two: Portraits + More

On the second day of our photography workshop in Teotitlan del Valle, our instructor, Luvia Lazo Gutierrez, made appointments with families to visit them in their homes. This was an incredible exercise to capture a more intimate view of village life and to understand the technical aspects of light, shadow, distance, and perspective. Luvia, whose work is featured in The New Yorker magazine, Vogue magazine, and represented in U.S. galleries, made suggestions for ways to best focus on portrait elements. In addition, we took turns photographing each other, which was very fun.

We visited two weaving families and a practice session for the new Dance of the Feathers group. Luvia asked us to look at subjects differently — to move close up with our feet rather than using the zoom feature, to focus on elements such as hands and feet or a particular section of the body. We challenged ourselves to be more conceptual rather than literal. It was an excellent learning experience.

Since it’s Halloween today, I want to make an important distinction between this tradition rooted in Catholicism, and Day of the Dead which is rooted in pre-Hispanic indigenous tradition. Day of the Dead is NOT Halloween. It is an important ritual to remember, respect, and honor those we love who have passed before us. It is quiet, reflective, introspective, and reverent. We sit at gravesites cleaned and decorated with fresh flowers, fruit, vegetables, drinks that loved ones preferred, talk to them, and feel their presence even though they are gone from us.

Visitors have brought the film Coco to Oaxaca, with face painting, revelry, and little understanding of indigenous culture. Day of the Dead is NOT this.

Here are some of the photos I took on Day Two:

Oaxaca Photo Workshop: Day One, Day of the Dead

We gathered in photographer Luvia Lazo Gutierrez’s studio this morning at 9:30 a.m. to start our three-day photography workshop in Teotitlan del Valle. We are here to explore the Day of the Dead visual landscape of the village, gain creative insights and technical skills, and see the world through a more defined lens. I found myself noticing more details and finding the particularities of an object rather than stepping back to see the bigger picture.

This year, I sold a photograph to Scholastic Magazine and to a few others over the years. However, I’m not a professional. I always consider myself open to learning something new and to have my work (in whatever medium) evaluated with constructive feedback from others. That’s why I’m participating. Plus, it’s an inspiration and fun to walk around the village with Luvia, who was born and raised here. She has a lot of knowledge and is an excellent teacher. We trailed her like ducklings.

Apple flew Luvia to Cupertino recently to participate in the launch of the iPhone 16. They gave her a new phone (which behaves more like a point-and-shoot camera) plus a computer. At age 34, she is a success story. Her work has been featured in the New Yorker Magazine. She is recognized as an up-and-coming artist by Leica and Fujifilm, and she was selected for a five-month artist residency next year in New York. I’ve known Luvia since she was age 18, when she was first starting out in photography. She worked with me then to help organize Oaxaca programs taught by faculty from the Duke University Center for Documentary Studies. I’m proud to think I had a little something to do with getting her started.

Being part of a small group is very supportive and energizing. We also learn from each other, and while we notice the same things, we have different points of view. That can be very instructive as we share our work with each other.

After visiting the village market this morning and the cemetery this afternoon, we were asked to create a personal narrative through the photographs we will take over these three days. Luvia encourages us to tell a story to honor someone we love who has passed since we are here for Day of the Dead. She describes using photos to write a letter to a loved one rather than words. This could include images of favorite food and drink, flowers, colors. She says that when you learn to tell a story you have a tool for photography. With photography, your subconscious is always working.

Luvia also asks us not to be attached to every photograph we take and experiment. She suggests that we get closer, change angles, and choose a different perspective by photographing from below or above a subject. Photography can be conceptual rather than literal. She showed us photos of cactus leaves, for example, that looked like sculpture because they were close-ups and the eye saw the smooth skin of a corner of a plant rather than the whole.

If we want to take a photo of a person, Luvia reminded us to ask permission first: Puedo a tomar su foto?

Tomorrow, we plan to be at the market very early to capture the morning light, and then visit families where we will take portraits.

Here are a few of my favorite shots from today. I am using my iPhone. Others are using DSLR and mirrorless cameras.

For the black-and-white photos, I use an App called TinType. I like it because it plays with depth of field and shadows.