LORRY SALCEDO PORTRAITS IN RHYTHM.

• Author: Snow, K. Mitchell

"I think my life has been based on impulse, says Peruvian photographer Lorry Salcedo-Mitrani. He says that he decided to document Afro-Peruvian communities because no one had done it before. "It also seemed to be an interesting theme, a novel theme, a taboo theme. People would ask me `What are you doing? You're documenting something that nobody in Peru cares about."

At the time, he admits, his critics' assessments were right. The only time Afro-Peruvians were mentioned was in connection with folklore. "Today the situation is different. People praise ethnicity, nature, all of the aspects that have been ignored."

Yet for all their documentary qualities, most of Salcedo's images recording Africa's presence in South American culture are really portraits. Framed within his dynamic compositions, the individuals he captures express their personalities while reflecting the rhythms of their communities' lives in vibrant black and white. In his project recording the life of the Afro-Peruvian community of El Carmen, his subjects played a role in inspiring some of Salcedo's visual music.

The series of photographs revolves around the family of Amador Ballumbrosio, community brick mason, violinist, guitarist, and dancer extraordinaire. Because music plays a central role in most of El Carmen's community events, the Ballumbrosios are an integral part of nearly everything that happens there. As Peruvian writer Gregorio Martinez observes in

Salcedo's book of photographs, Africa's Legacy, "Even the stones know don Amador Ballumbrosio." Salcedo's introduction to El Carmen came through Filomeno, one of Amador's fourteen children, who was performing as a percussionist in Lima. After a chance meeting at a rock concert in 1984, Salcedo mentioned his interest in working in El Carmen. Filomeno offered his family's hospitality, and Salcedo began a longstanding relationship with the Ballumbrosios, whom he now considers his second family.

The idea for working in El Carmen came from Salcedo's desire to make a documentary film about Afro-Peruvians. At the time he began his project, he was an engineer for the Occidental Petroleum Company, in Lima. He spent his evenings, however, studying with Peruvian director Armando Robles Godoy, who had gained international recognition for his film La Muralla Verde [The Green Wall]. When Salcedo first arrived in El Carmen, the equipment necessary for documentary filmmaking was well beyond his means, so he settled, out of frustration, for using a basic 35-millimeter camera.

The world of El Carmen, set some 125 miles south of Lima amid a wide expanse of fields, was not entirely alien to Salcedo. Chincha Province is also home to a sizable Italian community, who are owners of most of the area's vineyards and cotton farms. Several of his relatives lived in the area, and he spent his summers there in the company of his cousins. Most of his relatives' employees were Afro-Peruvians, "so we were always surrounded by these people who were different from us. We were raised seeing them in a servile role," Salcedo says. "One day I said to myself, there has to be something more there."

Shortly after beginning his project in El Carmen, Salcedo decided to leave his job as an engineer and study filmmaking full time in New...