We introduce amateur photographer, Jose Angel Hinojosa of McAllen, Texas to our IberoAztlan audience. Jose Angel was born and raised in McAllen, Texas’ south side, in a neighborhood called El Barrio de la Hacha. Working many summers in the agricultural fields with his parents and grandparents, he decided at a very early age that he wanted something better out of life.
Jose Angel Hinojosa tells us, “I graduated from McHi (McAllen High School) and Pan American University (now, the University of Texas at Rio Grande Valley) and worked for forty years as a clinical chemist. I seemed to have always had a camera in my hands. But, it wasn’t until the mid-eighties that I actually started to learn how to take better pictures and to develop and process black and white images. I see photography as an interpretation of life. Life can be captured in many different dimensions other than linear and horizontal. I try to show emotion in my images, something which is hard to capture, but very worthwhile for me.
“The first image of the tree is entitled Dancing in the Dark. I’ve seen this tree many times on my way in and out of the Valley and it has always drawn my attention, I see it alone, but it is dancing in the early evening, dancing to the Gods.
“The second image is of my family, my wife, daughter and me. My wife would die three months after I took the photo. The beach was her favorite place. .She went to say good bye there. The title of this is “Goodbye”. The third image is that of a young boy and his father, titled Solitude. I could feel this young boy’s look, as having a sense of not quite fitting in. This was shot at a skateboard park with lots of other kids playing. The boy had no shoes; he looked lonely, hungry, lost and overwhelmed by life at such a young age.
“The next image is of a saxophone player and singer, I was at a jazz festival and he was the headliner, In the middle of the set he began to talk about his playing in the bands of Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston and how much it hurt him to realize that they would never again share their love of music. The title is Memories. The next two images were taken in Chicago at Millennium Park. I was able to capture the young lady taking pictures of herself. I sought to show an almost complete symmetry of her reflection. The title of this image is thus Symmetry. The last image is also from Chicago and it shows an illusion of the buildings across the street from the Bean, The title is Illusions.
