Photoquai

Last year while strolling along the River Seine in Paris last autumn, I stumbled upon Photoquai, a biennial photography exhibit put on by the musee du quai Branly.  I can't imagine a more lovely setting for a photography exhibit-on the banks of the river, in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower.  Among the many interesting photos were a collection of shots by Chilean photographer Roberto Candia.  Candia is a photojournalist who was covering the rescue efforts of the miners trapped underground in the Atacama Desert in October 2010.  

To capture the full strangeness of the situation, Candia used his cell phone to photograph the trivial objects and other signs that symbolized the waiting process and the families' anxiety as time dragged by and the outcome remained uncertain. Plan B – the second rescue attempt, which proved to be successful – used a special capsule to extract the miners. Candias personal plan B was the cell phone and an application that turned it into an instamatic, producing square, low definition images with altered colors.
Drawing on 33 images captured during the wait, the photographer assembled 33 fragments, among them cranes, the journalists' observation deck, children’s drawings, good luck cards, the morning light and paths winding out into the desert. Candia offered another vision of things, a narrative that avoided the over-dramatic. This break with his usual way of working resulted in an idiosyncratic coverage of the period between the announcement of the collapse and the ultimate exit of the miners.