2007 Class Schedule

JANUARY 16 TO JANUARY 24, 2008
PEOPLE and PRINTING WORKSHOP, with an emphasis on the Festival of San Sebastian in Chiapa de Corzo.

Finding the exquisite light of Chiapas perfect to illuminate the people that will be our primary subjects our class will explore from the streets and plazas of San Cristóbal to the small towns and villages that surround the colonial gem of San Cristóbal meeting the people of Chiapas willing and wanting our cameras to capture their special images. We will spend two days in the riverside community of Chiapas de Corzo where there is a special festival for the Santo Patron San Sebastian. The streets will be filled with a magical blend of costumes dating back to colonial times, music and an atmosphere totally conducive to our cameras. We will print and work to produce photographic portfolios for an exhibition on Saturday where we show our images to the people of San Cristóbal on the wall of Barrio del Cerrillo's church. Several hundred people will pass by to admire, to question and a few to desire a copy of our work.

FEBRUARY 2 TO FEBRUARY 10, 2008
CARNIVAL, MARDI GRAS, in CHIAPAS, COITA and her unique peoples and parades.

Carnival is usually associated with Rio and New Orleans but Chiapas has her very special celebrations. One of the most amazing and colorful is in the small Zocque community of Coita. Here we will find parades on Fat Tuesday, Carnival, Mardi Gras day that go on for hours each with a different theme and costumes to match. The colors, the light, the music and the people all add up to a grand opportunity for our cameras. This is a very special chance for us to have access to an amazing blend of modern and the colonial. We will be special and invited guests for few if any tourists will be present. Having excellent access to the homes of the major domo, the head of each parade, to photography the preparations and the inside celebration of this most important day makes this an ideal photo experience. This is a class not to miss. We produce photographic portfolios of our efforts. On Saturday we will offer a show to the people of San Cristóbal on the wall of Barrio del Cerrillo's church. Several hundred people will pass by to admire, to question and a few to desire a copy of our work.

We will set up a portable studio to capture the portraits of the various peoples of Chiapas with controlled outdoor light that when harnessed by an open air studio allows us to look closely at the face, the body and the visual language of the people of Chiapas. Small towns with their unique character will beckon us to stop and explore.

Easter in Mexico is a visual delight, with parades passion plays and fiestas on a daily basis. We, and our cameras, will not rest for the activities are day and night. The streets are alive in anticipation of the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus. Church are solemn but colorful, the parades filled with unique opportunities for photographs.

Finding the exquisite light of Chiapas perfect to illuminate the people that will be our primary subjects our class will explore from the streets and plazas of San Cristóbal to the small towns and villages that surround the colonial gem of San Cristóbal meeting the people of Chiapas willing and wanting our cameras to capture their special images. We will spend two days in the riverside community of Chiapas de Corzo where there is a special festival for the Santo Patron San Sebastian. The streets will be filled with a magical blend of costumes dating back to colonial times, music and an atmosphere totally conducive to our cameras. We will produce photographic portfolios for an exhibition on Saturday where we show our images to the people of San Cristóbal on the wall of Barrio del Cerrillo's church. Several hundred people will pass by to admire, to question and a few to desire a copy of our work.

This charming and very special city offers her smile, her face and spirit as we walk among market stalls and rides, visit churches and intimate plazas and especially the people that enjoy having their pictures taken.

San Cristóbal de las Casas is taken over by the forces of summer’s magical light and the celebration of her people at this festival. She is never more vibrant as the Queen of the Altos during this week long festival. In July the daylight shines to give us that magical glow for many photo opportunities to capture the unique blend of ancient and modern.

Finding the exquisite light of Chiapas perfect to illuminate the people that will be our primary subjects our class will explore from the streets and plazas of San Cristóbal to the small towns and villages that surround the colonial gem of San Cristóbal meeting the people of Chiapas willing and wanting our cameras to capture their special images. We will spend two days in the riverside community of Chiapas de Corzo where there is a special festival for the Santo Patron San Sebastian. The streets will be filled with a magical blend of costumes dating back to colonial times, music and an atmosphere totally conducive to our cameras. We will produce photographic portfolios for an exhibition on Saturday where we show our images to the people of San Cristóbal on the wall of Barrio del Cerrillo's church. Several hundred people will pass by to admire, to question and a few to desire a copy of our work

OPEN TO ALL LEVELS OF EXPERIENCE

Finding the exquisite light of Chiapas perfect to illuminate the people that will be our primary subjects our class will explore from the streets and plazas of San Cristóbal to the small towns and villages that surround the colonial gem of San Cristóbal meeting the people of Chiapas willing and wanting our cameras to capture their special images. We will spend two days in the riverside community of Chiapas de Corzo where there is a special festival for the Santo Patron San Sebastian. The streets will be filled with a magical blend of costumes dating back to colonial times, music and an atmosphere totally conducive to our cameras. We will produce photographic portfolios for an exhibition on Saturday where we show our images to the people of San Cristóbal on the wall of Barrio del Cerrillo's church. Several hundred people will pass by to admire, to question and a few to desire a copy of our work.

In the town of San Cristobal, nestled in the Chiapas highlands of Southern Mexico, Aper Tours sits at the crossroads of indigenous traditions and colonial Spanish culture both infused with the modern

Mexico

. No one event captures this cross-cultural blend like Día de los Muertos, Day of the Dead, celebrated on November 1 and 2. San Cristobal is an ideal base to explore the color and light, the traditional and the new. Despite the morbid name, the national holiday celebrates happiness of family and friends and loved ones past and present.

This is an ancient festivity that has been much transformed through the years, but which was intended in pre-hispanic

Mexico

to celebrate children and the dead. Hence, the best way to describe this Mexican holiday is to say that it is a time when Mexican families remember their dead, and the continuity of life.

The original celebration can be traced to many Mesoamerican native traditions, such as the festivities held during the Aztec month of Miccailhuitontli, ritually presided by the "Lady of the Dead" (Mictecacihuatl), and dedicated to children and the dead. In the Aztec calendar, this ritual fell roughly at the end of the Gregorian month of July and the beginning of August, but in the post conquest era it was moved by Spanish priests so that it coincided with the Christian holiday of All Hallows Eve (in Spanish: "Día de Todos Santos.") This was a vain effort to transform the observance from a profane to a Christian celebration. The result is that Mexicans now celebrate the day of the dead during the first two days of November, rather than at the beginning of summer. But remember the dead they still do, and the modern festivity is characterized by the traditional Mexican blend of ancient aboriginal and introduced Christian features.

Generalizing broadly, the holiday's activities consist of families (1) welcoming their dead back into their homes, and (2) visiting the graves of their close kin. At the cemetery, family members engage in sprucing up the gravesite, decorating it with flowers, setting out and enjoying a picnic, and interacting socially with other family and community members who gather there. In both cases, celebrants believe that the souls of the dead return and are all around them. Families remember the departed by telling stories about them. The meals prepared for these picnics are sumptuous, usually featuring meat dishes in spicy sauces, chocolate beverages, cookies, sugary confections in a variety of animal or skull shapes, and a special egg-batter bread ("pan de muerto," or bread of the dead). Gravesites and family altars are profusely decorated with flowers (primarily large, bright flowers such as marigolds and chrysanthemums), and adorned with religious amulets and with offerings of food, cigarettes and alcoholic beverages. Because of this warm social environment, the colorful setting, and the abundance of food, drink and good company, this commemoration of the dead has pleasant overtones for the observers, in spite of the open fatalism exhibited by all participants, whose festive interaction with both the living and the dead in an important social ritual is a way of recognizing the cycle of life and death that is human existence.

In homes observant families create an altar and decorate it with items that they believe are beautiful and attractive to the souls of their departed ones. Such items include offerings of flowers and food, but also things that will remind the living of the departed (such as their photographs, a diploma, or an article of clothing), and the things that the dead prized and enjoyed while they lived. This is done to entice the dead and assure that their souls actually return to take part in the remembrance. In very traditional settings, typically found only in native communities, the path from the street to the altar is actually strewn with petals to guide the returning soul to its altar and the bosom of the family.The traditional observance calls for departed children to be remembered during the first day of the festivity (the Day of the Little Angels, "Día de los Angelitos"), and for adults to be remembered on the second day. Traditionally, this is accompanied by a feast during the early morning hours of November the 2nd, the Day of the Dead proper, though modern urban Mexican families usually observe the Day of the Dead with only a special family supper featuring the bread of the dead. In southern Mexico, for example in the city of Puebla, it is good luck to be the one who bites into the plastic toy skeleton hidden by the baker in each rounded loaf. Friends and family members give one another gifts consisting of sugar skeletons or other items with a death motif, and the gift is more prized if the skull or skeleton is embossed with one's own name. Another variation found in the state of Oaxaca is for bread to be molded into the shape of a body or burial wrap, and for a face to be embedded on one end of the loaf. During the days leading up to and following the festivity, some bakeries in heavily aboriginal communities cease producing the wide range of breads that they typically sell so that they can focus on satisfying the demand for bread of the dead.

In general, the more urban the setting within

Mexico

the less religious and cultural importance is retained by observants, while the more rural and Indian the locality the greater the religious and economic import of the holiday. Because of this, this observance is usually of greater social importance in southern

Mexico

than in the northern part of the country.

The above article is courtesy of Salvador, R. J. (2003). What Do Mexicans Celebrate On The Day Of The Dead? Pp. 75-76, IN Death And Bereavement In The Americas. Death, Value And Meaning Series, Vol. II. Morgan, J. D. And P. Laungani (Eds.) Baywood Publishing Co., Amityville, New York. Available online at: http://www.public.iastate.edu/~rjsalvad/scmfaq/muertos.html

Join Aper Tours for this fantastic opportunity to explore the excitement and wonder of this most lively and happy festival. The Virgin of Guadalupe, worshipped and venerated by the vast majority of Mexicans, is the most important and loved Santa of the indigenous and campesinos of Mexico. The festival of the Virgin de Guadalupe is a lively, colorful and photographic festival in San Cristóbal, with parades, night time vigils, food and game booths and general merriment. The Iglesia de Guadalupe is considered one of the most beautiful and sacred churches in all of southern Mexico, resting high on Tepeyac hill, with panoramic views of San Cristóbal, where we will center many of our activities for this course. People from all over Chiapas and southern Mexico will run to San Cristóbal arriving on December 12 to pay homage to the Virgin. Young and old will enter San Cristóbal wearing the traditional clothing of Juan Diego, who had a vision of the Virgin in 1531, on Tepeyac Hill outside of Mexico City. Their uniform is a headscarf, white shirt and long white pants; others will wear a painting of the Virgin on their chest or back. Some of the runners are barefoot as Juan Diego, a poor farmer, who did not own shoes. The leader of the runners will be carrying a lighted torch, thus the name of the runners “antorchas. The torch has two significant meanings, one as a way to light the path while the runners pass throughout the nights and two as a memory of their homes and as a method of sharing with the Virgin their love and the respect and devotion of those in the communities who could not be a part of the blessings to the Virgin de Guadalupe on her feast day.” The photographic opportunities during this festival are grand, with color and black and white film being ideal to capture the passion, the joy, the traditional dress of the indigenous people and the colors of the festival. One will have ample occasion to practice shooting under a variety of conditions. We will work hard in the darkroom to produce a show of our images to display on the church wall in Barrio de Cerrillo to share with San Cristóbal our work during the week.

In the winter of 1531, Quauhtlatohua, an Aztec Indian, baptized as Juan Diego, 58 years old, was walking barefoot over Tepeyac Hill on his way to mass in the small village of Tlatelaco, when suddenly he was surprised by a dark skinned apparition of the Virgin who instructed him to visit the Bishop of Mexico City, ten miles away, and ask him to construct a church in her honor on Tepeyac Hill. Juan Diego, who, being a poor farmer, was unable to gain an audience with the bishop, Juan Zumarraga. The second day, as Juan Diego once again crossed the hill, the Virgin asked him to once again attempt to see the Bishop. This time Juan Diego was successful but the Bishop demanded concrete proof that the Virgin did indeed speak directly to him. Juan Diego visited the hill daily until on the 12th of December, the Virgin once again appeared to him and instructed him to climb the barren slopes of Tepeyac Hill to collect the roses growing there. Even though roses had never been known to grow on the rocky slopes and it was the dead of winter when roses would not flower, Juan Diego found the hill covered with blood red roses and returned to the Virgin with his arms overflowing. The Virgin, who smiled down on him, filled his cape with the roses and bid him to visit the Bishop. Juan Diego was admitted to the inner sanctum of the church and in the presence of the Bishop, he unfolded his cape, amazing all in attendance for instead of roses tumbling to the ground, a beautiful painting had been miraculously painted on his cape. The Bishop and his associates were astounded and immediately admitted a miracle had taken place. The intricate and stunningly detailed painting was placed in the cathedral of Mexico City until a suitable church could be built on Tepeyac Hill. In 1532, the church was completed and the image was transferred to the holy shrine. The image of the Virgin on Juan Diego’s cape was dark of skin and with Indian features. Because of these details the Virgin was easily accepted by the indigenous peoples of Mexico, easing significantly their conversion to Christianity. In 1754, the Virgin of Guadalupe was recognized by a Papal bull, allowing the Virgin to become the Patroness of Mexico and her cult subsequently grew into the most popular and powerful in Mexico. An interesting note is that the apparition of the Virgin on Tepeyac Hill is the exact location where an Aztec shrine stood to the goddess, Tonanatzin, the MOTHER OF GOD.

In Mexico:
APER TOURS DIGITAL AND FILM PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP
Cisco Dietz
Calle Tonala #27
San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas
MEXICO 29220
52 967 6785727

Contact Info:

Via E-mail:

Via Mail:

Via Tel

Cisco Craig Dietz

apertoursfoto@apertours.com

C/O Dietz Productions, Inc.
PMB 525
220 N. Zapata Hwy #11
Laredo, TX 78043-4464

(011-52) 967 6785727

cel (011-52) 967 106 3430