This isla girl from the tropics is vvvproud to have hiked up to 5030 meters above sea level in Tuni Condoriri in the Cordillera Real of Bolivia.
Since the beginning of the year, we have been developing and exploring a visual narrative on reversing glacial ice loss in Mexico. Much of this time is spent on research and looking through microscopes with whatever little samples we have. I’d never imagine that three months later I would come face-to-face with a glacier. Standing in between the mountains and on the foot of Cabeza de Condor, I am humbled by the sight of Laguna Glaciar Ventanani. Naturally calling for a moment of reflection, this reminds me that our little project has a long way to go but it is moving to the right direction, grounded in its intention.
I am still in disbelief of the fact that I made it all the way up here. That wouldn’t have been possible without @abdon_deviaje and @oscarleonnogales - both who have kept up with my battered lungs and shit knee.🦵🏼Very grateful for this triumph kay kapoy ug lisod pud ug saka. 🏔️
What came from my time with Familia Melquiedes from the Huilloc community in Patacancha, 88 km from Cusco. Not how I expected these photographs to turn out in the bright midday light of the Andean highlands.
I’m reminded that control isn’t the point. Presence is, and I’m staying with it.
Kodak Portra 400
Minolta Hi-Matic AF2
September 2025
#AlumniProject “Tradition in the Hands that Hold the Knife” by Aiess Alonso.
La Matanza de Chivos is a centuries-old tradition in Puebla and Oaxaca, tied to the seasonal preparation of mole de caderas, a stew central to Mixteca identity in Mexico. Once a year, goats are killed, every part is cleaned and sorted, and the broth for the mole begins to take shape through the repetition of shared work.
Labor is communal and not bound to gender. In this matanza, young women carried out the killing, moving between slaughtering goats, preparing organs, caring for children, and sharing conversation. The same hands that hold a child also hold the knife. Brutality and tenderness do not oppose each other here. They exist in the same gesture.
La Matanza is not an isolated ritual. It is inheritance. People do not learn the tradition through instruction but by growing up within it. Children move through the space as naturally as the adults who guide them. A baby goat, walking among cut ears and tools, becomes a symbol of life coexisting with death.
Continuity is lived through proximity and memory. La Matanza reveals how a community sustains tradition through work. Meaning survives through rhythm. And its future moves forward simply by being present.”
📷 Words and photography by Aiess Alonso ( @aiess )
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Aiess participated in the tuition-free Level 1 course for Central and South America, part of the Visual Journalism Program, Central & South America Level 1 course taught by Monica Allende. Link in bio.
#theviifoundation #educate #program #visualjournalism #studentwork #alumni #documentaryphotography #photoseries
I wish to remember that this did not come with a story, but it does.
In the production of this series Nights I Can’t Remember with People I Won’t Forget, I was waiting for the only material left to complete the work. I had limited time in the studio, so I planned each step meticulously, carefully accounting for time and space, even leaving room for error. Ten liters of resin were shipped from Guadalajara to Oaxaca. Days passed. Delays came.
When I finally went to the post office, they told me the truck carrying the delivery had been stopped along the highway and had been detained by the police. (!!!) I would have never guessed, but of courseeeee this happens. There were no papers for its release. No timeline. Just waiting.
Weeks went by. Another shipment. Further delays.
What I thought would unfold slowly collapsed into three days and nights of physical work. Weeks of preparation compressed into urgency. There was no room for doubt. Only for doing.
Yet another lesson in letting go. In accepting that the work would not happen the way I imagined. That sometimes you plan, and Murphy still gets in the way. But you make it work because you want it enough. That’s that.
Big love to @timinthekitchen for the Oaxaca artist residency and to @mauroalejandrozamora for the fun passage back to the big city.
Now it’s time for some music.
A day riding through Pampas de Maras with Kayalkee, guided by Sr. Acurio and Chupa 🐕, in the Sacred Valley. One of the year’s quiet highlights.
On a horse, in the mountains, is where I want to be. I always work my way to it. 🐎
September 2025
Earlier this year, I returned to Tawi-Tawi, the southernmost province of the Philippines, to take on my first self-assigned documentary photography project. I spent time at the Saturday barter market in Panglima Sugala, where coastal Badjao fisherfolk and inland Tausug farmers continue to trade goods without money. These images capture one of the world’s few remaining barter economies.
The project also became a way to reflect on how barter survives - from its pre-Hispanic roots in Mexico to places like Sudan, where conflict has disrupted formal markets.
These photographs are part of the series At the Edge of the Philippines, Barter Still Thrives.
In La Matanza de Chivo, a centuries-old tradition in Oaxaca and Puebla, Mexico, goats are slaughtered for the seasonal preparation of mole de caderas. Here, young women carried out the killing. They moved between slaughtering, preparing organs, caring for children, and sharing conversation. In the kitchen, women from older generations seasoned the broth from memory, guiding the transformation of meat into mole. Brutality and tenderness coexist within the same space. The same hands that hold a baby also hold the knife. Their labor reveals how tradition endures not only through ritual, but through women’s strength, knowledge, and presence.
On International Women’s Day (also tomorrow and all the days), honoring women who sustain the rhythms of everyday life.
From “Tradition in the Hands that Hold the Knife.” This story was developed and produced in the @viifoundation VII Foundation Visual Journalism Program, Central and South America Level 1, led by Monica Allede @monica.allende 🩶
June 2015.
Changsha, Hunan Province, China.
I was contracted as a colorist to grade a travel reality television show produced by Hunan TV in Changsha, not far from the birthplace of Chairman Mao. The episodes followed a group of Chinese celebrities traveling through Turkey and the UAE. The job felt straightforward. Make things match. Keep everything consistent.
I was assigned a translator and guide, who was pretty much the only person I spoke to during that gig. Four years of mandatory Mandarin in high school turned out to be useless. At least I could still get my numbers right and knew how to excuse myself if I needed to go to the toilet. Lunch breaks with my colleagues were what I looked forward to most. The food was spicy. Hunan cuisine, phenomenal.
When the producers and director came to check my work, most of the communication happened on WeChat. I wasn’t sure how to explain serial nodes and power windows over text. We stood in front of each other, typing into our phones, waiting for the app to translate what we couldn’t say out loud.
For the most part, it worked. But we hit a bump when we reached Dubai.
The actress was wearing an abaya. A good chunk of the episode showed her dressed like this, from the airport to four-wheel driving in the sand dunes. The production team explained that this could not be broadcast on national TV. They asked me to change the color of the black fabric.
I told them it couldn’t be done.
Then they asked again. I attempted color isolation and managed to turn black into some kind of hideous violet. The result was technically possible, but visually wrong. I was still pressured to make it work. After days of back and forth, I knew I couldn’t.
I tried to explain that black is not a color, that there was nothing to extract, no information to bend. I tried to say this without sounding like I was refusing, just physics.
What I didn’t know how to explain was that color science has limits and those limits don’t move just because someone wants them to.
I finished the episode and left China by recommending they cut those scenes. Only months later did I find out how they solved what I failed to fix when I read it in the news.🌵
