In a remote mountain pueblo in Mexico, incense swings in the hand of Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, and another tableau is recorded by Antonio Perez. Stealthily, he moves behind the altar at the Catholic Mass, facing the hundreds of people, most of them shawl-covered women, gathered to see this beloved priest from Chicago. Perez’s resulting photograph is striking in its scope, its reverence and its agelessness. It is an image that could have been made 100 years ago.
In another photograph, a man raises his infant child to be blessed by the image of El Senor de los Milagros, Our Lord of the Miracles, as the icon is carried through the streets of Rogers Park in a procession holy to Chicago’s Peruvian community.
The photos by Perez, a photographer for the Tribune publication Exito, reveal an intimate devotional fervor that brings to mind the paintings of religious artists from past centuries. They do what photography does best: capture a moment of the human experience for inspection and appreciation. But they are also iconic images of rituals that have endured.
“I want people to stop, if for a moment, and see the pageantry, traditions and beauty that are very much alive,” says Perez, 39, who was born and raised in South Chicago and now lives in Berwyn.
“I first saw religious processions as a way to complete my school assignments” says Perez, who studied photography at Columbia College in 1982. “There were these great faces, this great emotion” in the parish and community festivals he photographed. Perez seeks out all faiths in his work and has photographed the rituals of Jews, Muslims, Baptists and Buddhists, among others, but he gravitates toward his own faith, Catholic.
Photojournalists are charged with bearing witness to the human condition, but can only do so in small doses, one assignment at a time. By returning to the same subject over the 20 years of his career, Perez has achieved a continuum of imagery that helps illuminate the world of faith.
