ENTRY DESCRIPTION
This photograph was taken in 2024 in Rome at a festival in the church of Santa Maria della Luce — home to a Latin American Mission which aims to serve migrants —, where free meals were served to all attendants amidst folk dances and singing.

The family members in the foreground eating their meal are closely linked with the statue of the dying Christ directly behind them, bringing to mind the rite of Communion where the host is replaced by home-cooked food, as if in a coincidental reenactment of the Last Supper during which Jesus reportedly said, 'Take and eat it, this is my body.'

AUTHOR
Street photography can be likened to a game of chance wherein the more or less skilled player is hoping to stumble upon an image that will suit their needs, be it a dull ‘nice’ picture, a striking ‘engaged’ snapshot, or that elusive ‘decisive moment’ that makes you feel like you hit the jackpot. As with winning or losing a bet, the ups and downs resulting by the alternating streaks of success and failure at taking pictures spur the obstinate photographer to keep on moving and trying, over and over again.

Having indulged for years in taking my camera out for a walk, roaming the streets with no apparent reason other than engaging in this gamble, I came to a point where I realized that in those thousands of shots a coherent body of work was spontaneously taking shape, much like branches sprouting from a tree.

This occurrence led me to conclude that whenever a street photographer, consciously or not, is able to imbue random chance with form and meaning in the twinkling of an eye, to make the opposing factions of fortuity and intent collide and deliver a spark — be it an impression, a thought, an emotion, a memory —, that is when this peculiar craft rises to an art form.

Far from being a mere gambling act, street photography becomes something more akin to an arcane divining practice where its acolytes, relying on intuition and fate, walk unknown grounds in search of 'water' holding a camera in place of a dowsing rod. In this sense, my work strives to evoke, if not reveal, the transcendent quality that seems to permeate reality, a fundamental aspect of life that the distracted and skeptical attitude of our times is in much need of recovering.

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