Antigua, Guatemala

Tu Multimedia’s annual trip to Antigua for Holy Week is a great excuse to travel, shoot some pictures and do what we love to do—experience life first-hand. It’s also a reminder that while Alex seems to have shot ever inch of the 10-by-10-block city, there is so much more to be captured.

Our primary purpose was to wrap up Alex’s second book on Holy Week. Check out his first one, available to purchase online here. The book, which will be released during Holy Week of 2009, is different in scope than the first, featuring the preparations and celebrations of Escuela de Cristo, one of the largest and oldest churches in the city.
Once the bustle of Semana Santa slowly dissolved into the Antigua pace we’re used to, we discovered the one place that refused to take a vacation: the market.

We set out early-morning, reminding ourselves that two of Antigua’s greatest charms don’t wait around
past 10 o’clock: the early-morning market and a cloudless view of the volcano (especially during rainy season.)

Now when I say market, I mean a you-can-find-anything-from-carrots-to-car-parts, outside bonanza where buses from neighboring villages cram merchants and shoppers in the seats, and the roof with bundles of whatever is selling. They flood the dusty parking lot and lug, roll or drag their bags of wares toward the flower aisle, the vegetable row, the cure-everything with-one-sip section. Some vendors scowl if they see you trying to take their picture, but most are too busy to scold you, especially if you click the shutter, smile and move on. Which is exactly what you should be doing, because nobody likes a photographer standing in the way of a cart full of tomatoes, when backs strapped with avocadoes shuffle left and heads balancing mangoes turn right.