Nashville, Tenn.-based industrial photographer Hollis Bennett recently braved an armed drug cartel, intense rains and an earthquake for a wild assignment in mountains of Guatemala. The job came from a Nashville civil engineering firm that wanted Hollis to document their team of engineers as they installed a gravity-fed water system in a remote Mayan village. Always up for an adventure, Hollis agreed to join the team in Guatemala as they worked through demanding conditions in a area with no power or running water.
Other than a short “essentials” shot list, Hollis was given full creative reign over the project and was able to shoot how and what he pleased. However, this didn’t make the job easy. Hollis, and the nine other team members, faced a lot of trials along the way.
It seemed like everything was a challenge. We were working at the same elevation as Denver so we were literally up in the clouds 95% of the time. There was constant rain, which was a bear to shoot in with my gear. Lenses were constantly getting wet. I was trying to keep everything dry since I couldn’t just send an assistant to the rental house and get replacements. It got so bad at times that I had to just lock the gear in the truck and grab a shovel and work until the weather let up a bit.
In addition to the constant cold and rain, the terrain was impressive. We were regularly working on slopes of 50 degrees and higher and had to wear these heavy rubber boots that didn’t fit so well due to all the mud. I destroyed every piece of outerwear that I brought from slipping around in the mud and snagging on trees.
There was also the language barrier. Where we were, the people spoke a dialect of Mayan that, well, is indecipherable. It has nothing in common with Spanish, so we were having to translate from English to Spanish to Mayan. Factor in no showers, sleeping in a shed on cement and various other inconveniences and it made for some long days. The coffee was really good though.
These weren’t the team’s only problems. Things got even more intense after they were warned that they were being hunted. Yes, hunted.
We’d planned to leave the valley early Friday and head to Antigua, Guatemala for two nights in a nice hotel. Unfortunately, things took longer than expected, so we left the village well past dark Thursday night and were heading back to our ‘compound’ about 45 minutes away in the next valley. Well, leaving at night was not so great an idea. We made it back to our accommodations and were shortly summoned by our hosts (American missionaries) for a meeting. We were told that there were armed men in the valley hunting us. So, not good. I excused myself, took all my memory cards and hid them where I was staying and pocketed a few crisp US $20 bills to perhaps bribe these armed folks away.
We promptly left the next morning and when we got to Antigua we received more information that it looked like we were about to be caught up in a drug cartel turf war. So, good thing we left but I have a vivid memory of a couple middle age white engineers from Tennessee grabbing machete’s and sharpening them on the concrete floor. It was comical at best, but a good memory nonetheless.
The group also experienced a 6.2 magnitude earthquake during lunch one day, which just added one more level of intensity to this already wild assignment. Despite everything, Hollis got home safely, and with some beautiful photographs to boot. The company was pleased with his images and plan on using them for internal communications as well as external PR. Even with all the challenges Hollis faced in Guatemala, he says he’d love to go back. He took away a lot from his time there and says that, “Guatemala is a beautiful country that I would love to explore more.” However, Hollis also says that the most important thing he learned from this adventure is the true power of the sleep medication Ambien. “It’s an amazing drug—only way to get some rest under such adverse conditions.”