Ercflud

Raw Photo Fest is proud to present work from its Raw Pro Members as part of the festival’s exhibitions and programming. In Practice showcases a curated selection of images from 39 photographers working within the Raw Pro community. The exhibition reflects the breadth of contemporary photography today, shaped by individual perspectives, cultural contexts, and creative approaches. Rather than centering on a single aesthetic, In Practice opens space for multiple ways of seeing. The images move across genres and subjects, highlighting both the distinct voices of each photographer and the shared commitment to thoughtful, evolving practice. The works shown here are part of a larger exhibition that will be presented in full during Raw Photo Fest in Menorca, Spain, from May 7–10, 2026. Featuring @heidiale @c.antonorsi @hunterhartphoto @ercflud See the full exhibition list and programming at /rawphotofest (link in bio) #RawPhotoFest #TheRawSociety ----- Raw Photo Fest se enorgullece de presentar el trabajo de sus Raw Pro Members como parte de las exposiciones y la programación del festival. In Practice reúne una selección curada de imágenes de 39 fotógrafos que forman parte de la comunidad Raw Pro. La exposición refleja la amplitud de la fotografía contemporánea actual, moldeada por perspectivas individuales, contextos culturales y enfoques creativos. En lugar de centrarse en una única estética, In Practice abre espacio a múltiples maneras de mirar. Las imágenes recorren distintos géneros y temáticas, destacando tanto las voces singulares de cada fotógrafo como su compromiso compartido con una práctica reflexiva y en constante evolución. Las obras presentadas aquí forman parte de una exposición más amplia que se mostrará en su totalidad durante Raw Photo Fest en Menorca, España, del 7 al 10 de mayo de 2026. Con la participación de @heidiale @c.antonorsi @hunterhartphoto @ercflud Consulta la lista completa de exposiciones y la programación en /rawphotofest (link en bio) #RawPhotoFest #TheRawSociety

I worked as a business child for a long time. I’d make powerpoints that told managers to cut costs and boost revenues. There was a false sense of urgency to the work. The term impact was thrown around a lot. Productivity was key, though it had no definition. Email addresses had a strict hierarchical order. All ideas were equal unless an uninformed partner was in the room - the braintrust. Their reactive instincts to anything put in front of them must be right and respected. However, our offices had plenty of photocopiers. Xerography has a logic to it, but it’s serendipitous in the way that you’re probably going to fuck it up along the way. Trying to calculate which image to invert, how to place the last print back in the tray, or which image manipulations to run leaves room for error. Making a book via photocopier made some weird sense for Cuba. A restricted yet brutalist approach to image making. Monument Extended is a reference to Cuba’s architecture, and to a regime whose logic has warped and stretched across time. I only have a few copies left, but I plan to make more. If y’all are interested in getting one, let me know

I’ve been to funerals - mostly for people I didn’t know. This one wasn’t different in that way, but it felt different. There was almost a physical weight carried by men who’d known the dead as brothers. The Azov servicemen were international volunteers. One was from New Zealand, the other from the United States. They were relatively new, which underscores how quickly the war takes people. I ran into some of the unit outside a bar - we quickly figured out some of us were from Florida, the Midwest, and even Texas. There was some small instinctive familiarity there. Azov has drawn foreign volunteers since the early years of the war, and more recently has formalized an international element within the brigade. It’s easy to argue about and abstract the war from afar. But standing nearer to those carrying duty and loss makes that distance feel wrong. Someone told me, it’s not FPVs that move the frontline, it’s people like me, and it’s the drones that are made to take out the people like me. This war isn’t a concept, it’s not a video game, it’s not a lab; it’s a constant taking. I’m thinking of the families who won’t get their sons back. And I’m thinking of the men who stood there in freezing rain, knowing their job is still out there, waiting.

Support for Ukraine in any form is critical - even if chunks of it stay in originating countries. When the US promises aid, that’s not cash, it’s gov’t procurement of goods (often without detailed thought of which goods are actually useful). If you want to follow and get more involved check out @babette_l19 @call_sign_vino @united24.media @savelife.in.ua

El grito. I spend days driving across Mexico. Areas that seem like they mashed Montana in with the Pacific Northwest somehow. We stop at an Oxxo to roll the dice of diabetes. They'll put doughy snacks in the freezer here - it's really a different kind of treat. I ask the car if it's surprising Mexico voted in a Jewish lady as president. There's a silence that makes me think I've gotten way too comfortable during this drive. After a lengthy pause, there is a slow, deliberate reply: In Mexico, we are... it is... diverse here... now. Everyone nods, knowing it always was.

Here, the soul remembers it exists. Si el yo es la memoria acumulada a lo largo de una vida, ¿es el alma la memoria heredada a través de generaciones? Me gusta pensar que extendí mi mano.

They say it's harder to imagine the end of capitalism than the end of the world - even if one causes the other. Markets have always existed, but free ones? I haven't seen many. A tall yellow border wall surrounds Téotitlan's cemetery, and it's here that the town's drunks hang out. Even after a few 40s, these guys still speak pretty good LA-sounding English: "man, we got sent back". I wonder how much of my taxes went to that: the mitigation of labor's mobility, ensuring I have another theme park to extract from. Sometimes here we call pesos "rupees," like the conversion rate isn’t worth knowing. A coffee that costs a couple of bucks here sells for $6 or $7 in New York. My mobility rests on cheap wages, devalued currencies, and places made still. Empires have always been import/export businesses. When labor isn't cheap at home, we squeeze productivity from somewhere else - tricky borders, fuzzy immigration laws, soft power, platform dominance. Movement made possible by someone else's immobility. One of the LA-deportees tells me I can take a photo if I buy him a beer. It's that same accent - a voice from a place he can't return to, haunting the gates of a place he never left.

Oaxaca’s not that big, but I let myself get lost anyway. As the air cools and the sky bruises toward night, the streets start to swell before the desfile—pure chaos. Kids zip past me painted head-to-toe like skeletons, some wobbling around on stilts. Three guys nearby are doing some kind of zombie drag—and if that weren’t impressive enough, they’re also drunk and on stilts. A few times under my breath, I say: this shit is wild. I'm pinned to the wall of a church now that the parade is in full swing. Jorge and I take a break at a bar that claims to have nachos, but we're doubtful. An American couple comes in and asks for mezcalito con fuego - confused, the bar tender repeats fuego maybe five or six times with both Americans nodding back at him. Eventually he gives in, pulls out a lighter, pours some shots, and mimes lighting them. One of the pair yells out, no we mean juice. Oh, jugo, yeah, we can do that. No mezcal and flame shots in this bar, but sub-par nachos, we got. The parade hits the basilica and people lose their minds - we've got near-to-ground fireworks, dogs in costumes, toddlers riding sugar highs past bedtime, and my boys on stilts. When we hit the Zócalo it's pretty late, but there's a slow-swaying group of zombies. Part of me hopes that somewhere in the mess I passed a real ghost. But we’ll never know.

From the roof of my hotel, I see the mountains hug Oaxaca. The breeze flaps laundry at rooftop lavanderias around town. Morning markets hock worm- or grasshopper-based treats. I stop at any church I pass as I ramble towards the main bus station. You never know what’s happening inside. Sometimes people are carrying full-size Jesus statues around like luggage. Other times, it’s just someone sitting alone in the pews. In one, I find a woman on her hands and knees surrounded by flower trimmings, must be some new testament stuff. That evening I head for one of the bigger graveyards in Oaxaca. I visit cemeteries wherever I go - maybe looking for a ghost relative. Families are there cleaning headstones; scrubbing with various detergents and aparatos. Some are tending graves that, as far as I can tell, have no relation to them. Maybe it’s meditation. Maybe it’s karmic maintenance - clean someone else’s grave, hope yours gets the same someday. It feels more like a community center for the dead and the living. A low fog starts drifting across the stones and the people crouched beside them. We're being fumigated and the exit gates are locked - some kind of absurd fatalist metaphor. Off to the side, a woman keeps flowering and tidying up graves. The smoke wraps around her like it got tired of being ignored. It's a kind of defiance, keeping death from having the last word - for now anyways.

Parts of Teotitlan seem to linger in the past. There are old cobblestone streets, yet they have "Uber" - fast-zipping tri-wheel deathtraps sometimes maneuvered by children. Out late? Flag a motorized cage piloted by a preteen. There's a blue company and a red one - rivals, I think. Closer to Day of the Dead, there's a procession of kids dressed like various biblical figures—some with robes, some with wings. The locals found me watching the parade more novel than the thing itself. A slow, solemn band follows them, echoing off walls in a way that wraps the town in a kind of holy fog - the tunes ain't great. Later, there's an after-dinner caterwaul encore. Some house's walls separate a mama cat from some kittens, and she's frantic on these same cobblestones - probably some biblical metaphor in the fur and panic. We scoop her up and send her sailing over the wall (gently, with grace) - a small, secular miracle.

Oaxaca, day of the dead gremlins

I meet Perfecto in Téotitlan - much quieter than Oaxaca, aside from when this bullshit Apple TV film crew is around. Perfecto jokes that the word is just his name; he’s not actually perfect. So I joke back, mi nombre no es imperfecto, pero soy. He doesn’t think it’s funny. Perfecto didn’t speak Spanish until he was an adult - just Zapotec before that. He lost his wife just a few months before we met. Perfecto’s daughter is a candlemaker - quite busy before Dia de Muertos. At some point, she asks if I can help her shuck corn. I say yes before realizing she has >50 pounds of it. After almost an hour of this, Perfecto breaks out the mezcal. The next day, I see him in the market, and he offers me mezcal at about 10 AM. What can you do? I think to myself that we’re friends. But this is Perfecto’s gift; everyone around him swears they’re a close friend. As I drink mezcal with his family at their cemetery plot, I’m glad he’s shared that gift with me.