Skippy Sanchez Photography

Street photos from eastern Europe

2009-10-14T13:38:00.001-05:00

Two weeks in Prague, Vienna and Budapest with my son, Luke.

United Methodist Open Door Ministry: Food

2009-08-09T15:10:00.001-05:00

The United Methodist Open Door ministry in Wichita, Kan., provides for the basic needs of food, shelter and clothing for the homeless, near homeless and families living below the poverty level. Families qualify at 130% of the Federal poverty level, which for a family of four is $2,297 a month.

United Methodist Open Door Ministry: Food from Skippy SANCHEZ on Vimeo.

The Open Door commodity program and supplemental food ministry is the largest community-wide food box program in the area, providing nutritionally balanced emergency food assistance once per month for individuals and families in need. The box includes items such as canned fruits and vegetables, meat, eggs, macaroni and cheese, soup, and bread.

The United Methodist Open Door ministry is in the midst of a $7.4 campaign to raise funds for a resource referral center and food distribution center. See umopendoor.org for more information.

Multimedia © 2009 SkippySanchez.com, all rights reserved.

United Methodist Open Door Ministry: Shelter

2009-08-09T15:05:00.002-05:00

United Methodist Open Door Ministry: Shelter from Skippy SANCHEZ on Vimeo.

The Transitional Housing program provides housing to homeless families and individuals referred by a local shelter. These participants receive intensive case management and may stay up to two years. The Open Door shelter ministry also provides Safety Net Housing for the mentally ill and a Drop-In Center, the only comprehensive day assistance center for homeless in Wichita, providing case management, a daily meal, access to showers, laundry facilities, small storage, a telephone with message board and mail service.

The United Methodist Open Door ministry is in the midst of a $7.4 campaign to raise funds for a resource referral center and food distribution center. See umopendoor.org for more information.

Multimedia © 2009 SkippySanchez.com, all rights reserved.

United Methodist Open Door Ministry: Clothing

2009-08-09T15:00:00.003-05:00

United Methodist Open Door Ministry: Clothing from Skippy SANCHEZ on Vimeo.

Fresh M.I.L.K

2009-03-05T01:09:00.005-06:00

I have recently been notified that I am a finalist in the Fresh M.I.L.K competition, a project inspired by the 1950s landmark photographic exhibition, 'The Family of Man.'

My understanding is that, as a finalist, I will be included in the book with 150 other quasi-famous photographers edited by my favorite pal, Elliott Erwitt.

I am most enthusiastic, however, that there are publications seeking positive images that inspire hope. Dictionaries define "hope" as "grounds for believing that something good may happen," or, " a feeling of trust." Traditionally, hope reflects a confidence, not a wish or desire.
Whatever the term means to you, I hope my images convey hope, an
attitude of confidance.

And now for something completely different...

2008-12-18T23:31:00.010-06:00

After nine years of nothing but digital photography, with the exception of a few times I dusted off the MP & loaded a roll of Tri-X, I'm embarking on a new journey down an old path.

Considering the idea for several months, I purchased a used, medium format 6x6mm Kiev88, the inexpensive and famously unpredictable Russian version of a Hasselblad.

Although I am a diehard believer in the quality of digital images over the past several years and certainly am happy enough with my Leica M8s, I find myself being less and less deliberate when I choose to make an image. Even though I keep my cameras set on single frame and rarely use the "continuous" mode, I think less about each individual exposure than when I had to change film every 36 frames and process a batch at the end of the day.

I have been shooting professionally for 28 years, so even after nine years using digital cameras with unbelievable automatic functions, still, almost two thirds of my work has been with film. As mentioned in a previous journal, the very convenience of so much work being done by the camera has become a creative dilemma. Or at least a bugaboo that I need to address.

I have judged several photography contests recently; professional, amateur, high school and college. I have become convinced that auto exposure and auto focus functions on cameras has leveled the playing field in that almost all entries are technically, at least, equal.

Now an image is judged solely on its content and the creativity & skill of the photographer, and that is a good thing, whereas in the olden days a judge could toss at least 60% because the technical quality was crap, regardless of the content. And that was a good thing, too, because technical skill was as much about photography as creativity.

However, be it for good, bad or otherwise, manual focus and manual exposure are skills that are no longer necessary. These skills used to separate the wheat from the chaff, especially when photographing in difficult, tense or dangerous situations.

Be that as it may, I am not one to bemoan the disappearance of these skills any more than I bemoan not having to clean my eight-track tape player or LP records and turntable stylus with special cleaners and little brushes. Cruise control may have made me a lazy driver, but not necessarily a worse driver. But it hasn't made me a better driver, either.

If people never learn to use their cameras on anything but full auto, that's OK by me. A good image has little to do with the camera itself, anyway.

But as for me, I don't want to get any more lazy than I already am. I use calculators and spell check for even the most simple challenges.

I used to take pride in being able to read available light without a meter, choose my f-stop/shutter speed combination without a second thought and manually focus on damn near anything as it moved in damn near any direction.

So now I've got this Kiev. It has a waist-level finder because I like the look of an image made four feet off the ground. I'm looking forward to composing in a square format where horizontal or vertical has more to do with content than with how I orient the camera.

Nearly all my personal work has been of the street variety with a small rangefinder: candid shots, hip shots, wide shots. But there's no concealing this monster under my jacket. The shutter sounds like someone dropped a frying pan on the floor.

I will have to be very deliberate when I take a picture. Especially since each frame will cost about one dollar, counting film and processing.

I can tell you one thing: this ain't the kind of camera I would ever want to use for street photography.

(It will be a LONG time before I even consider setting up a darkroom again.)

Anyway, I'm looking forward to it. I'll let you know how it goes, or you'll see it on eBay in a few months.

Trabajar por la Vida

2008-12-18T12:57:00.007-06:00

CLICK THE TITLE ^ FOR SLIDE SHOW, NOT THE PICTURE BELOW

Peregrinaciones de Virgen de Guadalupe

2008-12-07T14:51:00.002-06:00

FEAST DAY OF THE VIRGIN OF GUADALUPE

From Blogger Pictures

The celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe (Virgen de Guadalupe), with its colorful religious processions (Peregrinaciones) from December 1-12, is the most public and extended religious holiday in Mexico. Guadlupe is the patron saint of both Puerto Vallarta and of Mexico. She is also known as La Virgen Morena (the brown-skinned virgin). She is believed to be the manifestation of the Virgin Mary in the Americas.

Women are Beautiful (With apologies to Garry Winnogrand)

2008-09-29T17:23:00.005-05:00

Click title ^above^ for audio slide show

Recent street & public places snaps....

A New Time for Mexico

2008-07-11T17:49:00.008-05:00

A street vendor competes with an international ice cream chain for business...

Although many United States citizens bemoan having to "press one for English," and trumpet the risks that our country is becoming Mexican-ized, I believe the opposite is true: Latinos in general and Mexicans in particular are influenced by gringo culture at a far greater pace. Mexicans are more likely to listen to U.S. rock and roll music than gringos are to listen to rancheras. Mexicans are more likely to wear T-shirts with English logos and insipid catch phrases than gringos are to don campesino clothing, mariachi pants or hats the size of hot tubs. Although that would be cool.

Taxco

2008-07-01T08:48:00.009-05:00

Taxco, pronounced "Tasco" and previously spelled the way it is actually pronounced, is a quaint, steep, traffic-choked and exhaust-fumed previous colonial silver mining city. It is literally butted against the sides of mountains a few hours southwest of Mexico City wherein the guardrails along the highway into town are mostly crosses and shrines indicated by skid marks over the high side.

History has it, depending on who you ask, that toward the end of the revolution (my guess it was the first-of-a-series of popular Mexican revoultions), the Spanish blew up the mines to keep them (the mines) from falling into the hands of the revolutionaries wherein the cash and American Express receipts would be squandered on, you know, "the people" rather than on yet more elaborate Catholic cathedrals. The silver market of exquisite jewelry and sculpture is now geared toward the Mexican and Gringo tourist trade. Mexicans who live in Mexico City will look for any reason to bolt for a few days.

Anyway, the silver trade is still one of the most important elements of the Taxco economy. That and hustling cardboard "handmade-by-my-family" placemats and brightly-colored Chinese finger handcuffs (only God know why) around the Zocalo, or central plaza.

Following are some photographs snapped around the little sidewalk-challenged -- meaning there are none -- city of 55,000 souls, where all the streets are as vertical as a steeply-pitched roof. Many are hip shots of locals, taken along the streets, sidewalks and around the zocalo while my wife researched the many joyerias (jewelry stores, I'm told), & the William Spratling ranch in Taxco Anjego ("old Taxco"). Spratling's designs, gringo industry and gringo capitalism in the early 20th century helped establish the current Mexican silver market. Like most artstes, Spratling's efforts command more capital today, following his death in a 1960's traffic accident (which suprisingly, there aren't more of).

If you've gotten this far and are not yet bored to tears, re-start the slide show to begin at the beginning of a bunch of snaps. Seriously, it shouldn't take long to wade through them.

I'll Take the Train....

2008-03-21T20:33:00.007-05:00

Forty eight hours to San Bernardino and back to see my new grandaughter. Here are some snaps of the trip:

Fiestas, Mariachis: Una Tradición Mexicana

2007-06-26T08:14:00.000-05:00

One can hardlly travel in Mexico without happening upon a fiesta. Whether a national holiday like El Grito or a municipality celebrating the dedication of a new bell in a church tower, Mexicans are known for joyous celebrations. Any excuse for a party will do, some have said. Now, that's my kind of country.

El Dia de los Muertos

2007-06-25T16:25:00.000-05:00

El dia de los muertos, or Day of the Dead, has been celebrated throughout Mexico and parts of Central America since pre columbian times. Originally an Aztec celebration, the November 1 and 2 holiday has become infused with Catholic symbolism and faith.
“Our relations with death are intimate”, Octavio Paz wrote in Labrynth of Solitude, “more intimate perhaps than those of any other people.”
He further described the celebration as an escape from the difficulties of every day existence – not only the poverty, but also a kind of blackness in the soul which perhaps has its roots in the joining of two antagonistic groups, the Indian and the Spanish.
For more images from this project, go to http://photojournale.bladepicturecompany.com/categories.php?cat_id=63

San Miguel de Allende, Mexico

2007-06-25T16:00:00.000-05:00

Santuario de Atotonilco, Guanajuato, Mexico

2007-06-25T12:06:00.000-05:00

Guanajuato, Mexico

2007-06-25T11:56:00.000-05:00

Jail Cell, San Isidro, Honduras

2007-06-25T11:50:00.000-05:00

Rural San Isidro, Honduras, has no actual police force, so when troublemakers are afoot, the townspeople take it upon themselves to lock the culprit in a concrete cylinder, under Hiroshima-class sunshine, on a hillside along the road.

This unfortunate prisoner had been causing trouble while hopped up on dope, so was apprehended & locked in the hoosegow for three or four days.

As in much of Latin America, family or friends are counted upon to provide the creature comforts of food, water & to provide -- and empty -- the chamber pot.

Woe unto the culprit who has no friends.

Tough Feet

2007-06-25T11:45:00.000-05:00

Most children I've seen in the Honduras countryside appear to tromp around barefoot with no complaint. Me? I say 'ouch' if I step on a Captin' Crunch while walking on carpet.

Washing Machine

2007-06-25T09:16:00.000-05:00

While missionaries build her a new home, a woman scrubs laundry with water brought in from a nearby hydrant in Santa Cruz, Honduras.

Mother and Child

2007-06-25T08:53:00.000-05:00

A young woman stands in the doorway of her cousin's one-room shack with her son while missionaries with Corazon para Honduras build a new home in the background in Santa Cruz, Honduras.

Brazos Abiertos, Pentecostal Church Meeting

2007-06-25T08:38:00.000-05:00

Pentecostal church meeting in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Temperature, 90 degrees; humidity, 90 percent.

Kitchen and Bath

2007-06-25T08:31:00.000-05:00

A young woman bathes her little sister while her grandmother and cousins cut up some chicken for dinner in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Meanwhile, some dogs wait for scraps.

Trabajador de la Tierra

2007-06-25T08:22:00.002-05:00

Queremos el Bono San Jose?

2007-06-25T08:02:00.000-05:00