Game of life

Game of life. The "Pok ta Pok" ceremonial Mayan Ball game
(Photo ©Chico Sánchez-All Rights Reserved)

Audiovisual of the first ¨Pok Ta Pok¨ World Cup Mayan ball game in Pisté, Yucatan, Mexico in September 2015. Five teams from Belize, Guatemala and Mexico gathered to play this sacred and ceremonial sport.

Mayan ball player José de Jesús Manrique Esquivel, who organised this first World Cup of its kind, says he wants to recuperate the spirit of his ancestors and motivate young Mayans to recognise the greatness of their culture.

Pok ta Pok is one of the most important rituals from Mesoamerican culture. The sacred ¨Popol Vuh,¨ or ¨Book of the Community¨ written around 1550 by the Mayan Quiche people in today´s Guatemala, describes the game as a representation of Divine Mayan Twins defeating the ¨Ajawab,¨ God of the underworld.

The sport is more than just a game. Before the match, players evoke the Lords of the four cardinal points: Bacab of the East for protection and health; Bacab of the West for protection; Bacab of the North for enlightenment and strength; Bacab of the South for abundant harvest, female fertility and good health for children and the elderly. Then they invoke the God Hunahpu, the most important Mayan deity, and the 13 supreme Gods for protection and abundance. They ask the Lord of Death, who reins over Xibalba, the underworld, to respect their game and not to intervene on any player´s behalf. 

The Mayan ball game was popular across Mesoamerica and is played with one´s hips or arms. Different regions play by different rules. The goal is to shoot the ball through a ring on the wall, which ends the game.

The ball, made from a rubber tree, represents the movements of the sun and other stars, and can weigh anywhere between half a kilogram and four kilograms.

Pok ta Pok is one of several varieties of the Mesoamerican ballgame, a ceremonial game played since 1,400 B.C. by the pre-Columbian natives from this ancient civilisation. At least 1,500 ball courts have been found in the Mesoamerica, which is today´s southern Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador y Belice, western Honduras, Nicaragua y Costa Rica.


Teams
“Ek Balam”, Yo Creek, Belize
San Juan Comalapa, Chimaltenango, Guatemala
Dirección General de Educación Física, Guatemala
“Pucxical Keej”, Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo, México
Chapab de las Flores, Yucatán, México

Interview
José de Jesús Manrique Esquivel

Shaman/H-mem
José Guadalupe Tecam

Mayan Songs and Prayers
Lorenzo Moisés Díaz Alcocer

Flutes
Song: Ru q´ojom ya´(Water Music song)
Played by: Ajpop Tijax & Josué Cristal
From Chimaltenango, Guatemala

Drums
Prehispanic band, Chapab, Yucatán, México

Locations
Yaxchilán, Chiapas, México
Toniná, Chiapas, México
Cobá, Quintana Roo, México
Chapab, Yucatán, México
Ek Balam, Yucatán, México
Chichén Itzá, Pisté, Tinum, Yucatán, México
Grutas Balankanché, Tinum, Yucatán México
Tepetlixpa Seed Bank, México State, México
Museo Nacional de Antropología de México

To see more of my audio-slide shows www.chicosanchez.com

The Mayan Trumpet. Voice of Earth

Years ago, while playing a didgeridoo on the sidewalks of Mexico´s Playa del Carmen, musician Luis Bernardo Mendez Sanchez wa taken on a magical adventure that lead him to rediscover the same instrument in his own country, in the heart of the Mexican Lacandon forest. An inner voice led him to the Mayan Trumpet, known by its indigenous name "Incus utop chek" or "Tree flower trumpet".

To see the audio-slide show enter this link: www.chicosanchez.com/mayantrumpet

(Photo ©Chico Sanchez-All Rights Reserved)

Here another story about the Mayan Ball Game: http://www.chicosanchez.com/mayanballgame

For more of my photography work please enter my website: www.chicosanchez.com

If you would like to buy prints of my work please click here

The Forgotten Book

Jazmin Castillo Inocente does more than sell books. While choosing and organizing books on the shelves of the "Librero En Andanzas" (Bookseller´s Adventure) in Mexico City, she´s patiently searching for "the forgotten book".

I became interested in doing a story about my favorite used bookstore in the capital´s Roma Sur neighborhood as I discovered objects left behind inside the ones I bought for my self. I was coming into contact with mysterious bits and pieces of other people´s lives. I was intrigued.

I invite you to take a moment to wath my latest audiovisual and see Jazmine´s fascinating world of books. Please enter this link: www.chicosanchez.com/forgottenbook

(Photo ©Chico Sanchez-All Rights Reserved)

 For more information about this book store enter this link: www.libreroenandanzas.com

 

For more of my photography work please enter my website: www.chicosanchez.com

 

Queen Bee. The secret to eternal youth

I want to share a new audio-slide show about the Queen Bee. If you don´t know much about bees, you´ll find the interview with the queen bee breeder fascinating. This is the second time I turn my camera to the bees, because these vital insects are facing a serious decline in their numbers worldwide. I hope this work helps to protect them by creating awareness.

To see this audio-slide show enter this link: www.chicosanchez.com/queenbee 

(Photo ©Chico Sanchez-All Rights Reserved)

Interview: queen bee breeder Alejandro García   In pictures: www.puremiel.com

Our destiny is forever linked is another audio-slide show on bees, please click here

For more of my photography work please enter my website: www.chicosanchez.com

Petenera

Sharing my latest audiovisual about the Petenera Flamenca, a flamenco music style that branches off from the music of Peteneras, folk music with roots in both México and Spain.

The Petenera flamenca has been always surrounded in mystery, and has been one of the richest styles of flamenco music. Some believe it came from the Caribbean in Cuba and the Dominican Republic. Other say the name "Petenera" comes from the name of the people who live in Peten, Guatemala. Others see its origins in religious and Gregorian Christian chants. Yet others point to the songs of the Spain´s King Alfonso X "The Wise".

During the 18th century, a female singer from Paterna de Rivera, called "La Petenera", put her signature on the Flamenco Petenera, making it very popular in southern Spain. Today the people from this town are the guardians of this style of flamenco.

To visit the audio-slide show enter this link: www.chicosanchez.com/petenera

 (Photo ©Chico Sanchez-All Rights Reserved)

For more of my photography work please enter my website: www.chicosanchez.com

Crucified Nature

Here I´m sharing with you "Crucified Nature," my latest audio-slide show, the first made with my iPhone, which shows the unnecessary and exaggerated pruning of trees and deforestation in my native Spain.

Spain has suffered intense deforestation the past few decades. The elimination of forests is provoking radical temperature changes, droughts, heavy rains, huge fires and even tornadoes.

Even though severe weather changes should be reason enough to alter our how we farm and stop deforesting, killing trees has increased worldwide. In southern Spain many city and town governments actually promote the seemingly illogical topping off of trees that line the city's streets.

In this report you will hear the words of Miguel Angel Rosales, a forest engineer who specializes in trees, and Alejandro García, a beekeeper and queen breeder.

To watch the audio-slide show click here: www.chicosanchez.com/trees

 (Photo ©Chico Sanchez-All Rights Reserved)

For more of my photography work please enter my website: www.chicosanchez.com

The Monarch Butterfly

Sharing a short audio-slide show about the monarch butterfly, whose ability to migrate every year from Canada to México is at serious risk. Experts say the corridor they use to fly north and south is becoming obsolete, for several reason, and could put an end to the monarch migration sooner than we think :

• Genetically modified crops and agro-chemicals in the US are killing the milkweed they eat
• Deforestation in the US
• Urban sprawl  in the US
• Climate change
• Mexico´s illegal logging in the forests where they hibernate during winter months.

It´s uncertain what will happen in the coming years when the monarch butterflies try to return via the US to Canada, where extremely cold temperatures are caused mainly by deforestation.

www.chicosanchez.com/monarch
(Photo © Chico Sanchez-All Rights Reserved)

Twenty years ago this beautiful insect was the symbol adopted by the North American Free Trade 
Agreement (NAFTA), a commercial agreement between Canada, Mexico and United States. These three countries signed environmental accords to protect migratory animals like the monarch butterfly, but today two decades later, the monarch butterfly is on the brink of disappearing.

This audio-slide show contains pictures taken at two Monarch butterflies sanctuaries: El Rosario in Angangueo, Michoacán in 2007, and Cerro Pelón sanctuary in Capulín, Mexico state in 2010-12 and 2014. Every time I go to a sancturary, there are noticeably fewer monarchs to photograph. 

The accompanying audio is the amplified sound made by the monarchs as they fly, a kind of buzzing sound,  without effects or distortion. This is how it sounds.

Bees and bats are suffering a huge decline as well. Nobody seams to react, and our society keeps using the same agriculture and industrial procedures that are destroying life on our earth. I hope this audio-slide show encourages people to look for information on how some big agro-chemical companies are causing severe damage to our planet earth, in the name of profit.

To see the audio-slide show click here: www.chicosanchez.com/monarch

Information consulted for this audio-slide show:
worldwildlife.org/species/monarch-butterfly
www.jornada.unam.mx/2014/01/30/ciencias/a02n1cie
www.jornada.unam.mx/ultimas/2013/11/30/se-reduce-la-poblacion-de-mariposas-monarcas-que-llega-a-michoacan-7375.html
www.jornada.unam.mx/ultimas/2014/01/29/numero-de-mariposas-monarca-que-hibernan-en-mexico-cayo-43-7-este-ano-wwf-5020.html
bigstory.ap.org/article/monarch-butterflies-drop-migration-may-disappear-0
www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jan/29/monarch-butterfly-decline-mexico
news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/01/140129-monarch-butterflies-mexico-animals-science-environment-migration-nation/
www.naftanow.org

Coming back home. Day of the Dead in Oaxaca, México

I´m sharing my most recent audio-slide show about The Day of the Dead tradition en Oaxaca, Mexico. This celebration mixes ancient Pre-Hispanic traditions with the European tradition of the Catholic All Souls Day.

Every year Oaxacans decorate their cemeteries with flowers and candles. They create bountiful altars filled with food and drink, for their loved ones who have passed who return home on this special day for a visit.

To see the audio-slide show visit this link: www.chicosanchez.com/comingbackhome

(Photo ©Chico Sanchez-All Rights Reserved)

I interviewed Jose Hernandez Alaves, a candle maker in the town of Teotitlan del Valle. The music bands are ¨Los Reformistas¨ from Teotitlan del Valle and ¨Oro de Oaxaca¨ from
San Jeronimo Tlacochahuaya. The last song was recorded from a band playing a funeral song during an actual funeral process that I witnessed at the cemetery in Santa Ana Zegache.

This audiovisual also includes the following places:  Mitla, San Martin Tilcajete, San Sebastian Abasolo, Santa Maria del Tule and Oaxaca de Juarez.

We are what we eat

We are what we eat is an audio-slide show about organic agriculture. Antonio Mulero Tamayo, a successful ecological farmer who has been growing organic food for 17 years, shares what's different about his crops compared to conventional, mass produced food. My images show him and his family working on their farm: the Organic Garden Los Tamayos, located on the outskirts of Prado del Rey in the Sierra de Cádiz in Spain's southerner Andalusia.

To watch the story enter here: www.chicosanchez.com/organicfarm

(Photo ©Chico Sanchez -All Rights Reserved)

For more of my photography work please enter my website: www.chicosanchez.com

3000 years of salt

I want to share a story about the salt mine called Salinas de Hortales.  It's located in the town I grew up, in an area where the Phoenicians settled 3,000 years ago. The salt mine was later part of the Roman empire's legendary city of Iptuci, located 100 kilometers from the sea in a mountainous region of  the Sierra de Cadiz. Today, the family that mines the salt flat uses the same centuries-old natural techniques in the village of Prado del Rey in southern Spain's Andalusia.

To watch the story please enter this link: www.chicosanchez.com/salt

(Photo © Chico Sanchez -All Rights Reserved)

For more of my photographic work visit my website: www.chicosanchez.com

Our destinies are forever linked

I want to share a new audio-slide show on bees. Millions of these life giving insects are dying worldwide, killed mainly by chemicals like fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides. Here professional beekeepers in Spain explain the importance of bees and the problems these amazing insects face, and in particular, why our destinies are forever linked.

To watch the audio-slide show please click here: www.chicosanchez.com/bees

(Photo © Chico Sanchez -All Rights Reserved)

  For more of my photographic work visit my website: www.chicosanchez.com

Puppet Show. Audio-Slide Show

Puppet show is an audio-slide show about an artist's way of educating kids to not abandon their pets. Actress Martha Tapia Madrid from Perenganitos Teatro Infantil created a puppet show theatre and used a story from her own experience, she titled the story Bow Wow. Some of the best works of art are inspired by the artist's real life situations.

To watch the audio-slide show click here: www.chicosanchez.com/puppetshow

(Photo ©Chico Sanchez -All Rights Reserved)

For more of my photographic work visit my website: www.chicosanchez.com

Dreaming in color. Audio-Slide Show

(Photo ©Marco Antonio Martinez/OQS-All Rights Reserved)

"Dreaming in Color" is my latest audiovisual created with Marco Antonio Martínez, a blind photographer from the Ojos que Sienten organization. Trough his photos and his voice Marco illustrates the first dream he had after going blind one week before.

To take pictures of a reconstructed dream, he started building the scenes, using clay and aluminum to mold figurines and diferent fabrics to mimic certain surfaces.

To watch his dream click here: www.chicosanchez.com/pegasus

To see my work related with Ojos que Sienten click here.

For more of my photography projects enter my website: www.chicosanchez.com

To know more about Ojos que Sienten please enter their website: www.ojosquesienten.com

Sports in Motion - Blind and Visually Impaired Photo Workshop Projects

I'm sharing my latest audio slide-show production: Sight in Motion, a story about sports and athleticism, photographed and recorded by twelve blind and visually impaired photographers. 


The photographers, who are participating in programs run by the Sight of Emotion organization, took pictures of people playing sports in their neighborhoods as well as Paralympic athletes. 


In the interview, Laura Ramos, a blind student graduating soon with a university degree in journalism who plans to be a sports journalist, explains how blind and visually impaired people experience and perceive sports, compared to a seeing person. The interview was recorded by Gerardo Ramirez, one of the participating photographers.

To watch and listen to the project, please click here: www.chicosanchez.com/motion

(Photo ©Palmira Martinez/Ojos Que Sienten -All Rights Reserved)

I've collaborated with other blind and visually impaired photographers from 

Sight of Emotion, in similar projects such as My Eyes, The Fighter, Organ Grinder, 

Riding Blind and Mexico City Soundscapes.


To support Sight of Emotion click here

To see more photography projects visit my website: www.chicosanchez.com

Biblical Figures of Puente Genil. Audio-Slide Show

Here is the story of the Biblical Figures of Puente Genil in Andalusia's province of Cordoba in Spain. During the Christian Holy Week of Easter, hundreds of people in masked costumes represent biblical passages through their religious processions in the streets of this town, Puente Genil. The ritual has been documented as far back as the 15th century, and originates from the "Sacramental Acts," a name given to theatrical representations of Bible stories that took place just outside the church to teach the bible to illiterate residents. This audio-slide show tells the story of this tradition and how it managed to carry on even today.

To see the audio-slide show enter this link: www.chicosanchez.com/biblicalfigures

(Photo ©Chico Sanchez -All Rights Reserved)

For more of my photographic work please visit my website: www.chicosanchez.com

The Dresser. Dressing the Virgin Mary. Audio-slide show

Sharing an audio-slide show about Cesar Diaz, a professional dresser of religious icons, from Jerez de la Frontera, Cadiz, Spain. In this short documentary, Diaz prepares the Virgin of Pain for an Easter Holy Week celebration in the village of Prado del Rey, Cadiz province, Andalusia, Spain, explaining the nature of his art.

To enter the audio-slide show enter this adress: www.chicosanchez.com/dresser

(Photo ©Chico Sanchez - All Rights Reserved)

Another Holy Week audio-slide show co-produced with photographer Leslie Mazoch:

www.chicosanchez.com/holyweek

For more of my photographic work visit my website at:

 www.chicosanchez.com

Mother Ines. A mom for abandoned children in Mexico City. Audio Slideshow

I share an audio-slide show about Ines Valdivia Gonzalez, Mother Ines, an 84-year-old woman who runs the "Casa de la Divina Providencia", or "Home of the Divine Providence" in México City. She opened the home in 1965 with three children who had cerebral paralysis. Since then, Mother Ines has cared for more than 2,800 children. Some died due to grave illness, other grew up and today are adults who continue to live at the home and help out with caring for their brothers and sisters. Several of them left the home after finishing college, or finding a job and getting married. Today 236 people live at Mother Ine's home.

To see the audio-slide show click here: www.chicosanchez.com/motherines

(Photo ©Chico Sanchez-All Rights Reserved)

Before opening the home, Mother Ines was forced to leave the Catholic church, choosing between her life as a nun after 19 years at the convent, and caring for the ill children given to her. She decided to leave the church for the children.

At first she had to beg in the street for food as she had no help or money to her name. She survived thanks to a person who offered her a room and to women working as prostitutes who gave her money. Later she found land to build a home and ate for free thanks to Luis Eng Fui "El Chino," the late founder of Café El Popular, a restaurant by the Cathedral.

His son Jose Luis is who invited me to visit Madre Ines' home.  They both remember how his father helped her during the worst of times when she was in the process of building her home, brick by brick, going days without food in winter time.

I've done many assignments and none have been as intense that this one. Some of the illnesses the children have are really grave. Many of them are deformed, unable to move or have brain damage. Most of the illnesess were caused when they were throw away in the trash or under a bridge, according to Mother Ines. The good side is that their home is clean, organized, bright with natural light, cheerful and dignified.

At one point someone told me: "With images from this home, you could win an international photography contest." I realized that was true and even non-photographers know that images of tragedy win contests. A photo essay on the positive side of Mother Ine's home won't get promoted in mainstream journalism.

When Mother Ines gave me the permission to shoot, she asked me not to be like other journalists who have visited her home who choose to show tragedy. She asked to me to be honest and help others see that her children are human beings like the rest of us who deserve a good life. In this case my prize is keeping my word to her and respecting the people I take pictures of.

Mother Ines is always needing help and she likes it when people visit her children.

For more information visit this website: ladivinaprovidencia.org

El Triunfo Biosphere Reserve - Sierra Madre of Chiapas - Audio slideshow

Sharing an audio-slide show about El Triunfo Biosphere Reserve in the Sierra Madre mountains of Chiapas, Mexico. El Triunfo is one of the most important protected nature areas in the world, and is situated in the southern part of Mexico's Chiapas state. It is a refuge and endemic area for different groups of plants and animals. As the most diverse evergreen cloud forest in Mexico, and one of the most important sites for bird migration, the reserve is home to numerous species of birds including several of the rarest in Latin America like the Horned Guan and the long-tailed Quetzal. El Triunfo is also home to hundreds of butterfly and amphibian species, spider monkeys, tapirs and five species of wildcats, including the jaguar.

To visit the audio-slide show enter here:

www.chicosanchez.com/triunfo

(Photo ©Chico Sanchez-All Rights Reserved)

For donations or information about this reserve visit these websites:

www.ecobiosfera.org.mx

www.fondoeltriunfo.org

I saw it before - Sight of emotion

I've produced several photo stories made by blind and visually impaired photographers from Sight of Emotion, a foundation that gives photography workshops to the blind.  When I first spoke to students at a workshop, I told them there are two kind of photographers. The first kind likes looking at his/her pictures and say "Oh, I'm a really good photographer!" The second kind is interested in communicating something valuable.

This kind of photography is available to everyone, including the blind. They can't see their pictures but they are satisfied when their message reaches others. Sounds, smells and touch create mental images that communicate an idea or an emotion that all humans can recognize.  I've had photography students who could see perfectly but couldn't "see" stories or express a message through their work.

Since I began publishing stories by blind photographers, the most prevalent feedback I've gotten is doubt that they took the pictures by themselves. It made me realize how we unconsciously discriminate against the blind.

Remember that us "seeing" photographers crop and tone our photographs, and sometimes have them edited by others. We even get help with access to what we're photographing.  But we assume that the blind must do it all by themselves!  No editing, no photoshoping, no producing, no help with access, nothing. 

It's clear to me now why the world is so difficult for people with special needs. Fortunately, the blind photographers I've worked with make good pictures with interesting messages, showing that there are no barriers for those who aspire to move beyond mental barriers. 

It's been health for me to truly understand what it means for sight not to be the only way to perceive the world and that looking at pictures isn't the only reason to take them. Photography by the blind is a great tool for them to be seen instead of ignored. 

Photography student Maritza González once told me during an interview:

"In reality everything is in the mind. If you notice, this chair where I'm seated, somebody one day thought:  'The school desk will be like this, and created it.' It's the same thing when, apparently we don't have sight, everything is in our thoughts and when our mind knows what it wants to photograph, to see, to make people see, it just has to be in our mind. Everything is in my mind and my mind is marvelous. I saw it before the photo was even taken. I saw it. Click. And there's the photo." 

To read more about this projects click in the picture.

(Photo ©Chico Sanchez-All Rights Reserved)

For more plese visit my website: www.chicosanchez.com

Mexico City Soundscapes - Blind and Visually Impaired Photo Workshop Projects

I'm sharing my latest audio slide-show production: a story photographed and recorded by four blind and visually impaired photographers showcasing the sounds of Mexico City's streets related to trades that are slowly but surely disappearing. The project was proposed by Gerardo Ramirez, who worked with his fellow students from the Sight of Emotion organization, Edgar Angeles, Jose Sebastian Munoz and Miguel Fabian. I edited the audio and photos and produced the audio-slide show. 

To see the audio slideshow click here: www.chicosanchez.com/soundscapes

Also I want to share some pictures of the photographers working on this project.

Gerardo Ramirez, left, and Jose Sebastian, right, record the sound of the "Camotero," 

who sells sweet potatoes and bananas from his cart.

Edgar Angeles, right, speaks with Jose Sebastian as they take pictures for the project.

Edgar Angeles, right, and Jose Sebastian take pictures of the organ grinder.

Gerardo Ramírez, Miguel A. Fabian and Edgar Angeles pose on the set 
of a street photographer outside Our Lady of Guadalupe Basilica.

Edgar Angeles sits on a plastic horse as he jokes with his walking stick 

on the set of a street photographer outside Our Lady of Guadalupe Basilica.

Similar to this project, I've collaborated with other blind and visually impaired photographers from Sight of Emotion, such as My Eyes, The Fighter, Organ Grinder and Riding Blind.

If you want to see my work related to Sight of Emotion click here
To support  Sight of Emotion enter this link: sightofemotion.com
To see more photography projects visit my website: www.chicosanchez.com