In Peru, in the barren stretches above the Andean timberline, there is a mining town named Morococha. In Quechua, the Indigenous language, it means "lake of many colors." At 15,000 feet, the air is scarce and breathing torturous. No greenery survives, not even the tenacious ichu, the wirelike bunch grass that can endure the gales of the high puna.
I came to Morococha to recover and research the work of an unknown Peruvian photographer Sebastian Rodriguez who had been the only photographer to document the life of the mines in South America beginning in 1928.
For two years I traveled between Morococha and the miners' hometowns throughout the Peruvian highlands searching for fragments of that past. I've continued to photograph the lives and culture of these people.
Bus Stop in the Andes
Measuring the Baby
Day of the Dead, Paccha Miraflores
Salt flats, Maras
Cuzco
The communal laundry, Morococha
Musicians at Mass, Colca Valley
Miners in Morococha
An act of faith, Baños del Inca
Peasant girls at play
The valley of Qachin
Girl with donkey observing the wedding
Animal Feria
Mass in the Colca Valley
Portrait of Estela, Morococha
In Peru, in the barren stretches above the Andean timberline, there is a mining town named Morococha. In Quechua, the Indigenous language, it means "lake of many colors." At 15,000 feet, the air is scarce and breathing torturous. No greenery survives, not even the tenacious ichu, the wirelike bunch grass that can endure the gales of the high puna.
I came to Morococha to recover and research the work of an unknown Peruvian photographer Sebastian Rodriguez who had been the only photographer to document the life of the mines in South America beginning in 1928.
For two years I traveled between Morococha and the miners' hometowns throughout the Peruvian highlands searching for fragments of that past. I've continued to photograph the lives and culture of these people.
In Peru, in the barren stretches above the Andean timberline, there is a mining town named Morococha. In Quechua, the Indigenous language, it means "lake of many colors." At 15,000 feet, the air is scarce and breathing torturous. No greenery survi...
Fran Antmann
Fran Antmann is a documentary photographer, writer, and professor. Her photographic work has focused on the lives and culture of the indigenous people of Guatemala, Peru, Mexico, the Dene First Nation people of the Western Canadian Arctic and the Inuit of Baffin Island, Canada.