Fleeting Roots
One of my very favorite Instagram accounts to follow belongs to Scott Bennett, a photographer with a keen eye for the unexpected. His photos almost always feature people, often in motion: tiny snapshots of full, multifaceted lives. Last September, Scott graciously gave me permission to include one of his photos in that month’s edition of The Bookshelf. It’s a photo (of this art installation) that continues to do its work on me.
When he’s not teaching Spanish at a university in San Diego, Scott is likely to be found exploring some new corner of Latin America—from Mexico City to La Limonada to Rio—or making a day trip to some Latino enclave closer to home, like Barrio Logan or Tijuana. I never know what he’ll show us next, but I know I won’t be disappointed.
Fleeting Roots: Moments in Latin America is Scott’s first book, bringing together six photo projects in one place. Included is an introduction by Margarita Pintado in both Spanish and English, as well as brief chapter headings by Scott, also presented bilingually.
In the collection, we meet Ximena, a barista in Mexico City—and we visit coffee fincas in Costa Rica and Guatemala, getting an up-close glimpse of the people responsible for growing some of the world’s best coffee. Two of the chapters take us to Rio de Janeiro, where Scott led a participatory photography project with favela youth and captured some downright otherworldly images of young people playing soccer, at sunset, on Ipanema Beach.
The final section invites us into a celebration called La Posada Sin Fronteras, which takes place annually at the border near Tijuana. This celebration—a borderlands variation of a tradition practiced throughout Latin America—is a re-enactment of the search of Mary and Joseph for lodging in Bethlehem. “Participants on both sides sing, hear brief inspirational talks, and recite the names of immigrants who died while trying to cross the border during the past year,” Scott writes.
The most meaningful section, to me, is the collection of photos from La Limonada in Guatemala. When Katie and I first walked those labyrinthine streets in the spring of 2013, Scott was there with us—and the photos in this book are from that trip. Familiar places, beloved faces.
Photography like this helps us see the world—and the neighbors with whom we share it—in a new light. It transports us to places we love and to places we’ll never get to experience for ourselves. Best of all, with a collection like this in our hands, it can transport us there again and again and again, each time catching new nuances. Each time seeing something new.
