still north of the border

I am still in America. El Norte. In my hometown of Flagstaff,AZ. Winter slowly turns into spring. I am unfortunately able to return back to Mexico for this years Cabalgata as I had hoped. This is the part of being a freelance photographer that is difficult at times to have a passion to create a body of work and to find the balance of doing the work you love and the work that pays the bills. I have to pay bills, and deal with taxes and see about marketing my work. Who wants pictures of Pancho Villa, Cowboys kissing the sweet baby Jesus, dead birds, fruits and roses, portraits of Mexicanos, and everyday saints? I am homesick for this country- I read up and look for work done by other writers and photographers to inform myself of the current debate of the border....It breaks my heart...and this morning is no exception. The powerful story of the journey home of one young man's dream that ended in the desert alone. I look at these pictures of his family and all the people who work ceaselessly to do what they do to bring some understanding to the mystery of what happened here....I sit in my warm bed,drinking coffee too early in the morning in my apartment overlooking the downtown and ponder how will I continue to pursue my work and think about lost dreams and sons, and what it means....what will my pictures mean to anyone
in the bigger scope of things? Does making these pictures and taking all my resources and putting it all on the line have meaning or purpose?? When I look and read this powerful photo essay about people I don't know I feel the power of the photographic medium to tie me to the subjects. They are like the families I have met on my own journey...their loss is my loss...and I feel it in my bones.

So I reflect over memories-I have looked at the images from last years Cabalgata almost everyday since my friend Jason and I were swept away in the spirit of Villa. Everyday I think of what I felt standing there at Laguna Fierro a year ago as the Cabalgata rode in to meet the waiting crowd of over 5,000 people the setting sun. I will always hear the booming voice of Jose' Luis, a bear of a man from Graciano asking me,"Where are you from?? WELCOME TO MEXCIO!!!" as he broadly gestures spreading his large arm spam across the horizon.... I will always remember the feeling of my heart being lifted up as if it were touched by a spiritual force, as if I had fallen in love at first sight....with the country, the people....I have lived with these images now for over a year; the man dancing with his horse, the wonder and excitement, the community celebrating, coming together, Nortenos, Country western music, the smell of carnitas, handsome cowboys,and beautiful dark eyed women and children, golden pink light blazing in the setting sun, dancing, eating fresh chile, being lost and being found; making eye contact through the camera as Pancho Villa makes his way through the crowd I see tears form and watch them slowly fall, glistening. I have relived this journey over and over for the past year beginning when I first prepared my first print of The Tears of Pancho Villa-an image that has been the catalyst, the image that garnered my first ever International recognition and found its way onto the cover of the Trappings of the American West catalog. I could not have known the endless variations of it and the ever expanding slideshow I would present would take on a life of it's own. It is only one picture. I look at the work of Dean Knuth and contemplate
the meaning of what I'm doing and feel it small in comparison.