#rodrigo abd

COVID LATAM: Latin American Photographers Document The Pandemic

Covid Latam is a collective project documenting the coronavirus pandemic as it unfolds across Latin America

Protesters in Tijuana chant 'Out!' at Central American migrants

Hundreds of Tijuana residents congregated around a monument in an affluent section of the city south of California on Sunday to protest the thousands of Central American migrants who have arrived via caravan in hopes of a new life in the U.S.

Tensions have built as nearly 3,000 migrants from the caravan poured into Tijuana in recent days after more than a month on the road, and with many more months ahead of them while they seek asylum. The federal government estimates the number of migrants could soon swell to 10,000.

U.S. border inspectors are processing only about 100 asylum claims a day at Tijuana’s main crossing to San Diego. Asylum seekers register their names in a tattered notebook managed by migrants themselves that had more than 3,000 names even before the caravan arrived.

On Sunday, displeased Tijuana residents waved Mexican flags, sang the Mexican national anthem and chanted “Out! Out!” in front of a statue of the Aztec ruler Cuauhtemoc, 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) from the U.S. border. They accused the migrants of being messy, ungrateful and a danger to Tijuana. They also complained about how the caravan forced its way into Mexico, calling it an “invasion.” And they voiced worries that their taxes might be spent to care for the group. (AP)

Photos: Rodrigo Abd/AP

Lives interrupted by ash

Haunting images from Guatemala show the interiors of homes (a toothbrush, an abandoned breakfast), coated in volcanic ash. See them all here. 

Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Rodrigo Abd

Rodrigo Abd was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Oct. 27, 1976. His career began as a staff photographer in the Argentine newspapers La Razón and La Nación in Buenos Aires from 1999 to 2003. Since 2003, he has been a staff photographer for the Associated Press based in Guatemala, with the exception of 2006, when he was based in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Rodrigo worked on AP special assignments covering the political turmoil in Bolivia in 2003 and Haiti in 2004. He also covered Venezuela’s presidential elections in 2007 and 2012, and the earthquake in Haiti in 2010. In 2010, he was twice embedded with U.S. troops in Afghanistan in Kandahar province. In 2011, he covered the political conflict in Libya, and in 2012, the Syrian armed conflict.

In 2013, Abd, along with fellow AP photographers Manu Brabo, Narciso Contreras, Khalil Hamra and Muhammed Muheisen, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography for his gripping work covering the Syrian civil war. He is now based in Lima, Peru.

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Frozen in time: Photographer Rodrigo Abd captures Andean festival with old-school camera »

Frozen in time: Photographer Rodrigo Abd captures Andean festival with old-school camera

One by one, Associated Press photographer Rodrigo Abd positioned the traditional dancers, musicians and vendors in front of an old-fashioned box camera in Peru's Sinakara Valley as a colorful Andean festival exploded all around them.

The men, women and children were among the tens of thousands of pilgrims representing some eight nations who came to this sacred place in Quispicanchis province in Peru's Cuzco region for the annual Snow Star Festival, shortly before this year's Christian feast of Corpus Christi.

After their portraits were made, the subjects spoke of the beliefs and rituals they keep alive in the 21st century.

"I'm proud to be another soldier for the Lord of Qoyllur Rit'i," said 33-year-old Aldo Machaca Quispe, referring to the image of Jesus Christ venerated in the region. He sat for a portrait with his son Brandon, 6, and said he hoped to pass down the traditions to the boy.

Last year, Abd used digital equipment to photograph the three-day festival that also coincides with the reappearance of the star cluster Pleiades in the Southern Hemisphere, signaling the abundance of the harvest season.

But this year, he chose to bring his old-fashioned box camera, a primitive device built of wood and modeled on ones he saw portrait photographers using in Afghanistan while he was on assignment there in 2006.

With a lens and space for a developing lab inside, the box camera uses 19th century technology to produce luminous black-and-white images.

"The idea of making portraits with my wooden camera of the pilgrims ... was beguiling," Abd said of the project. "But once on the ground, the project also represented an enormous logistical complexity."

Abd and two assistants, Victor Zea and Ignacio Gonzalez Vigil, used three packhorses to transport the heavy camera, its tripod, a black cloth to block light during developing, processing chemicals and a tent through near-freezing temperatures to a plain about 14,700 feet (4,500 meters) high, set amid a snowcapped mountain range beloved by the Quechua people.

Inscribed on UNESCO'S Intangible Cultural Heritage List, the Peruvian festival features a pilgrimage by local people to the sanctuary where there is a boulder with an image of Jesus Christ, known as the Lord of Qoyllur Rit'i (pronounced KOL-yer REE-chee), or Snow Star in the Quechua language.

People in colorful indigenous costumes, some wearing masks, others holding harps or other musical instruments, sat still for up to two minutes as Abd made exposures, light shining through the lens onto photographic paper inside the box.

Abd produced negative prints of each picture by passing the photo paper through the developer and fixer sloshing inside the box. The negative prints were then hung with plastic clothespins to dry in the Andean air.

With each one, the process was repeated to make a positive print.

The result was a series of stunning images of people in traditional garb little known outside the Peruvian Andes.

For dancer Guido Yupaniki Cereceda, worship of the Lord through the festival "is very meaningful for the Andean world. He's God and love for all of us."