I don’t remember when my faith for the Virgin of Guadalupe began but for sure I remember walking unprepared for over 70 km with my friend Juan de la Cruz in December of 2013. We had simply decided to follow the flow of pilgrims that from the town of Cholula, in the state of Puebla, Mexico walked for about 3 to 4 days till they reached the Basilica devoted to the Virgin in Mexico City.

Photography was not the most important goal: arriving there was. I remember the experience as one of the most strenuous walk I’ve done in my life because we just decided to go without any training. After four days of arduous walk and also by getting a lift from some of the many trucks loaded with devotees we did manage to make it. I’ll never forget the experience of finally getting there and pay tribute to the Mother of all Mexicans, the ancestral Tonantzin/Virgin of Guadalupe.

The following year, I decided to start a workshop. We drove by car along the same path we had walked the previous year and would stop whenever we felt like taking pictures.

One of the many things to be thankful to Covid-19 is that it has allowed me to spend long period of time in the darkroom and print negatives of several projects including this.

These twelve images that we are able to finally share on my web-page show the beginning of what I hope it will be a long-term project devoted to the Virgin of Guadalupe where faith and photography come together. EB