Ghosts of Repentance

text & photography by Flemming Bo Jensen

The town of Antigua in Guatemala is home to large, intense Catholic processions. Every Sunday during Lent, thousands of people take to the street as it snakes through impossibly narrow paths. 

Incense attacks the nostrils and its smoke turns everyone into ghostly silhouettes, scorched by the fiery Guatemalan sun. A chaos of people and the music of the procession.

I am not a religious man and do not understand the underlying significance of what is happening. But I watch, amazed, confused, aware of symbols without comprehension. And small moments, moments of great surrealism. Absurd and frightening. I am fascinated by these fleeting instants, and I wonder how many notice them, fragments from a dream, sometimes out of a nightmare.

A Hard Controlled Freedom

text & photography by Patrick La Roque

I’m driving east with the sun in my eyes, squinting through my glasses, blasting the radio at full volume. But I kill the music as I round the corner and hit the dirt road. Certain silences are meant to be heard.

Linda is alone this morning: the kids are off to school, her boyfriend working… It’s just her and the cows, the chickens, the rabbits; just her moving thru liquid beams of streaming light, kicking up dust and dirt in quiet determination.

Later she’ll admit her love of farm life, of the animals she cares for and depends on. The thrill of the market, the obvious pride in a hard, controlled freedom. She’ll tell me how she lost her husband. How she found someone new.

Later, as we chat over a cup of coffee…
Long after the day’s begun.

Death Makes Angels

Text & photography by Derek Clark

“Death makes angels of us all and gives us wings where we had shoulders, smooth as ravens claws” - Jim Morrison

I've never seen the UK more divided on any subject as it is on ex-prime minister, Margaret Thatcher. Mrs Thatcher died on the 8th of April 2013, a long time since she ran the country back in the 1980's. But old wounds run deep and even now the country remains split, with one half heralding her as the saviour of Britain while the other accuses her of killing industry in favour of banks, bringing us to the current financial meltdown.

Some bruises never seem to heal.

Gods & Machinery

text & photography by Patrick La Roque

They come to tame the dragon, deep in the heart of its den. I follow them into a half-light I’ve come to associate with ceremonial spaces; this is a temple to motor oil, dust and gasoline.

The machine is massive, built to plow through dense northern trails thick with freshly fallen snow. But today it refuses to budge. Its steel frame shudders in fits and hiccups but the motor won’t start; such a capricious old beast.

Get the tools out. Sharpen those swords.

Screw this, loosen that. I’m circling & lurking as the ritual takes place. It’s all very quiet, the silence only broken by muffled questions & puzzlement. There’s no banter, just slow, rational work: from one to two, then two to three. Connect the dots. Solve the puzzle.

Suddenly, without warning, the Thing roars.

Exit the warrior priests.

Brighter | 1

Brighter | 1

When I first came to Australia fifteen years ago, it was partly because of what a friend at school in Canada had said to me: “I don’t know how to describe it, but the colours are brighter there.”

It’s true, certainly - the sun here does seem to cut more, to shine harder; but also the birds, plants and flowers that have grown here are more colourful than those in my home land of pine trees, pink granite and lakes.

And it seemed to me that the people had taken that on - had made their cities, cars and houses more colourful. Themselves, too...

A Mute Reminder

text & photography by Derek Clark

“They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn At the going down of the sun and in the morning We shall remember them, lest we forget”

On the 11th day of the 11th month each year, they gather on the red square surrounded by sandstone buildings more than a century old. Some wear their medals proudly over the heart, while others display medals of the absent. With only the tweet of birds, they stand in silence to remember the fallen.

“Still the dark stain spreads between their shoulder blades A mute reminder of the poppy fields and graves When the fight was over, we spent what they had made, but… In the bottom of our hearts we felt the final cut”

 - Roger Waters

dust bowl

text & photography Patrick La Roque

Maybe she woke up & looked at her life for the first time. The cruel, disparaging gaze that comes from shattered illusions. Maybe she walked straight out, into the crisp morning and all its bitter promises, without any regrets. 

When the tracks appeared she thought of immensity, of an endless path pushing through to an ocean at the end of the world. She dreamt of nomads & a never ending quest for solitude, for meaning. Something.

She found herself longing for boxcars & hobos, a silent community of lost souls moving through the continent like so many unhinged shadows. 

When the whistle blew she stepped onto the rails and shrugged. 

She had already moved on.

the hopes & dreams of an entire town

Text & Photography Flemming Bo Jensen

“Gentlemen, the hopes and dreams of an entire town are riding on your shoulders. You may never matter again in your life as much as you do right now.” – Coach Gary Gaines, Friday Night Lights.

Socorro High School, New Mexico. Clock strikes 7pm, the wind dies down, the air is dry and warm from another hot day in the desert. The Warriors football team and the crowd are pumped for Friday Night Lights. The local heroes emerge in appropriate epic gladiator fashion from the locker room under a clear sky. The national anthem silences the crowd in respect before the kick-off ignites the noise and cheering. It is game time.

While the hopes and dreams of an entire town may or may not entirely be resting on the shoulders of the Socorro Warriors, the feeling of support and community is strongly present. Twice I had the pleasure of standing on the sidelines of Socorro High School stadium and photograph the warriors. Have been an NFL fan for decades but never attended a live game, these were my first live Football experiences. Friday Night Lights with the Socorro Warriors. It was a perfect first two lives game. Still wanting to see college and NFL games but this was perfect. Being allowed to photograph from the sidelines, seeing and hearing the action up close, players run, block, tackle, smash into each other, feeling the community spirit and support, the coaches calling plays and coaching their heart out, cheer leaders working the crowd, kids looking up to their heroes, smell of popcorn, zebra stribed judges, runs, passes, catches, touchdowns and cries of joy and frustration. First and 10, hut hut.

Subterraneans & 67

text & photography Patrick La Roque

In 67 we take the red pill, swallow hard and slam
our collective head into modernity.
Wide eyed citizens awake to the world
at last.

I’m walking the sunken miles of a hidden city, watching tunnel
dwellers surface as I plunge, burrow as I exit
into sunlight, into geodesic domes & high rises built
for leaders of men.

I’m picturing the master builders, eyes thick and heavy from dreaming their stoic dreams of progress.
The architects, the politicians & giants of an ancient breed
willing to choke a river & birth an island
dig the soil to bury the city in a maze.

I’m picturing the blueprints to the dawn of all I’ve ever known.
This world ignited
in a quiet revolution.

running into darkness

text & photography Derek Clark

Muscles stretched and compressed as man-made sole pounded man-made surface under an italian sky, fading from blue to black. As the sun fell, the heart rates rose in the Moonlight Half Marathon. Over 2500 runners took part in the stamina testing event that started at 7:45pm on May 12th 2012 from Punta Sabbioni in Cavallino Treporti, near Venice.

There was a party atmosphere along the route, which made it’s way through the long flat streets in the beach resort of Jesolo, beside the Mediterranean Sea. Earlier in the day cars and motorcycles were towed away by police, making room for metal barriers. Bands played at the piazzas along the way and onlookers cheered-on the runners, inspiring them to make it to the finish line at Piazza Mazzini.

But not everyone would make it through the 21.1 km race. For some, dehydration and exhaustion would take their toll.

For some, the end game would come much too soon.