Penitent Ecstasy

Penitent Ecstasy

Photographs from Mexico, Guatemala, and Spain.

A costalero kneels under the weight of the paso, reaching out for help to stand. Men in masks before a procession laugh at something only they understand. A girl in angel wings walks up a street crowded with people in ordinary clothes, already somewhere else.

I keep returning to the way devotion and joy occupy the same body, the same day, without resolving into each other. Sometimes it is solemn. Sometimes it breaks open into celebration. Sometimes both at once.

This is unfinished work. I return to it every year.