Javier Molina - Wheat in the wind...

The Self adrift (or The Self as Ophelia)

This project is yet another of my continuous effort to bridge the gap between traditional photography and traditional painting. A self portrait within the mythical story of Ophelia.

Gran Poder: the musicians

Inevitably it is necessary to give a historical perspective of this yearly festival that takes place in the city of La Paz, Bolivia. The celebration transforms and stimulates the social life of La Paz every year, emanating from a particular way of understanding and living Andean Catholicism. The Parade begins with a procession through the western part of the city. This procession is central to the event, involving 40,000 devotees who dance and sing in an offering to the patron saint. The dance has a sacred significance for the sixty-nine fraternities involved, which are greeted in the streets in a euphoric atmosphere where the music of 7,000 musicians resonates. It is so owe inspiring that it is rightfully a UNESCO Wold Heritage event (Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity). The image venerated with dance and music is believed to have arrived in the city at the founding of the convent of the Mothers of the Sacred Conception on the 8th of December 1663.

Four instances of a sunset

As in all my work, these images are a vision that holds that geography as a reference, they are more in relation to the imagined and what appertains to a memory or recollection which might not exist even though it is present and manifests itself in the photographs.

Views of La Paz, from Muela del Diablo (Devil's tooth)

The prominent rock outcrop known as the Devil’s Molar (3825m) is actually an extinct volcanic plug that rises between the Río Choqueyapu and the suburban sprawl of La Paz's Pedregal and Calacoto. Worth trekking the few hours up from Calacoto or Zona Sur, a constant climb that seems endless. The reward is the views as you return to La Paz