Fede's Journal

My Photo scholarship 2010 entry

Argentina | Sunday, October 17, 2010 | 5 photos

On the northernmost part of Argentina, just a couple of miles away from the border, lies a forgotten region, near the town of Santa Victoria Este. Three years ago, we first went there to see how we could help out. What we found was a place like no other. A place we would never forget.

There, indigenous people continue to live, scattered through the wild, in the same small communities they've always inhabited. Once a wild forest, this place is now one of the most inhospitable environments I have ever seen: Temperatures that can go up to 55ºc, an almost totally barren soil, complete isolation from anywhere else and a sole river (the Pilcomayo) which dries up for 11 months and then floods violently for the remaining one, covering their houses and making all roads inaccessible. They have no electrical power or health services, and many times, they don't even have a well from which to draw water. In that barren hell, these poor people are left to die, receiving no help from the government and being lied to and manipulated for political reasons. Many don't speak spanish, but the feeling you get from most of them is that they've just given up.

I love photography in that I truly believe that all this, and much more, can be summed up in just a few images. I love capturing those fleeting moments in which some sort of truth or beauty come out. And something I love even more, is travelling. Going out there and discovering far away places, different lives, new cultures. That's something I'd love to spend my whole life doing, and I think that's what would make me a great fit for this scholarship. I studied Filmmaking, so visual storytelling has always been a love of mine. I'm Argentinian, 24yo, and eager to learn everything there is to learn about this extraordinary art form.