El silencio del cayado

Francisco Guardado began his photographic career in 2015 after retiring, and since then he has been documenting the lives of the sheep and goat herders in the Seville Spanish region of Campiña Morón-Marchena, where he lives. Paco uses photography to preserve the lives and trade of these shepherds who carry on their backs an ancient tradition passed down from generation to generation; men and women who, as the social anthropologist Estefanía Fernández Fernández writtes down in the book, are bearers of culture and managers of the territory through which they transit.


The day that Paco showed us his project, the first thing we thought was that it was an honest job, also connected to a tradition, the humanistic photography that laid the foundations for documentary photography. His images conveyed respect for what the camera records, and captivated us with his search for a lyrical language that allowed him to ennoble at the sight of the profane what he showed without falling into manichaeism, paying special attention to gestures and looks . We also felt inmediatly identified with its formal austerity, starting with the distance at which the photographs are taken. Probably the author's age is what makes his approach as delicate as respectful. In times where old age has disappeared, the present continuous has replaced the future and speed is the natural state of the human being, and Paco, with a whole life on his shoulders, has come to tell us about the silent lives of those who walk alongside their herds since immemorial time, taking care of the animals and the landscape, that is, what there was and what should continue to be.
That's why we feel so proud and grateful to publish his first book.


When its protagonists, the shepherds, claim the right of passage of their herds through the territory, they are preserving the physical memory of the place, just as the photographer tries to fix the visual memory that allows to conserve what can be lost. That was probably the first of the functions photography had, and it's still valid today. In short, it is about bequeathing to future generations a document so that they remember where they come from and who they are.