Scott Dalton - PhotoLucida “Critical Mass: 2009″ Top 50
November 24th, 2009
(all images © scott dalton)
Congratulations to Scott Dalton, whose book project “Macondo: Journeys in García Márquez’s Colombia” was selected as a PhotoLucida Critical Mass top 50 finalist; the ongoing project was also nominated for this year’s Santa Fe Prize and was a Best of Photojournalism 3rd place Portrait winner in 2007.
Begun in 2006, and photographed on 6×6 format color negative film, Macondo is a beautiful and touching body of work. Inspired by Marquez’s magical realism, these photographs are a lyrical portrait of a Columbia that Dalton calls home, which he has grown to know intimately over the years.
Artist Statement:
“Macondo: Journeys in García Márquez’s Colombia” is a documentary photo project that explores the people and places that inspired the work of Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel García Márquez, author of “One Hundred Years of Solitude.”
García Márquez was born and raised in Aracataca, a small town on Colombia’s Caribbean coast. For his writing, he drew from his childhood, his hometown, and the people and places nestled along the communities of Colombia’s coastal region, weaving them into a masterwork he titled “One Hundred Years of Solitude.” The novel captivated the world and set the standard for the literary genre of magical realism, which has been a potent international force in literature, film, and art ever since.
The setting and centerpiece of “One Hundred Years of Solitude” is the fictional town of Macondo. With its surreal charm, it represents the uniqueness of Colombia: eccentric and eclectic, timeless and earthy, a place where truth and fiction, myth and reality merge.
With “Macondo: Journeys in García Márquez’s Colombia,” I am trying to explore these concepts of truth and fiction, myth and reality, to discover how they co-exist and recombine to create and convey a complete sense of identity and place.
García Márquez has consistently said that his characters and stories, although embellished, are based on real people and events and that every town along the Colombian coast contains an aspect of Macondo. With this in mind, I have set out to discover for myself what survives of Macondo in today’s Colombia.
More of Dalton’s poignant and enigmatic Columbia work can be seen at: www.DaltonFoto.com
