chauche-14While visiting with the photographer, Daniel Chauche, recently I was struck by a comment.  We were viewing some of his most recent work.  Many of the photographs were of hairdressers and their clients at the Centro Capitol in Guatemala City.  Others were of cantinas and their customers.  Chauche said, “People don’t realize it yet, but this is part of the history of Guatemala.”

Chauche sees himself as a visual historian – a graphic chronologer – of his adoptive country.

Chauche, half French and half American, has lived and worked in Guatemala for over three decades.  His photographs document the lives – urban and rural, landed and labor bonded, military and guerrilla – of Guatemalans from the highlands to the coasts.

The images presented here are from a folio entitled Los Chapines.  The photographs were made in the late 1970s and early 1980s.  In them the viewer can sense, only two decades distant, the history that Chauche strives to capture in his work.

Daniel Chauche’s photography can been seen in several galleries in Antigua, including La Antigua Galeria de Arte (www.artintheamericas.com) on 4th Calle and he can be contacted directly at Dchauche@conexion.com.gt.

The series, Los Chapines, is available for purchase in limited addition from the artist.

  1. Each photo tells a story and each grips one’s attention to the deeper thoughts and images behind the one image. Amazing work.

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About the Author

Michael Tallon, Editor-in-Chief, head writer and delivery boy, of La Cuadra Magazine, expatriated from the States 11 years ago. After spending a year in Antigua gasbagging about wanting to start an English Language magazine, he hit the road and wandered about South America, India and Nepal before finding himself sipping tea in Darjeeling and realizing that maybe it was time to head home and pick up the career path. That ill-fated adventure in New York lasted about 6 weeks before he headed back to Antigua, Guatemala, where John Rexer had actually started the magazine in his absence.

After a few months, Mike took over the magazine and has been going slowly broke since. On that note, Mike would like to invite advertisers, readers and potential patrons to send him free money.
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