Exploring and documenting new areas of Panama: living in Santa Ana neighborhood

What I love about photography, is the constant appearance of new people and settings for each photoshoot; this makes the experience super exciting, and the way I see it, is to always try to focus on the client’s very personal environment.

Most of the clients I have are also good friends, or turn into an interesting new level of friendship.

This is the case of my friend Lili. I met her through the Theater Guild of Ancon, the magic place where all begun thanks to my husband, where I first got the opportunity to experiment my photographic skills with people during non-profit theater productions, where I met my first clients, and where I always have fun and feel at home.

Lili is part of this community, where she sometimes helps out mostly with costumes and make up. I got to photograph her randomly during Point Break Live Panama production, she loved the photo I took of her, and asked me to capture more photos that captured her essence the way she saw in that photo.

For me this is the most flattering request, since the whole idea behind my photos is to express a very personal essence or moment, so I was really happy to do it. Plus she lives in a very interesting area of Panama’s downtown Casco Viejo / Santa Ana, so for me was going to be one of the most exciting photoshoots, capturing her in her day to day living area.

Even though I work very close by this area and I have been there in the past, I never went there with my camera before. In the beginning I felt it could be quite dangerous, but since Lili knows the folks pretty well, she assured me there was nothing to be afraid of. So off we went… into a series of interesting, sometimes hidden spots, and ran into interesting characters that hang out there.

This is the result of this fun shoot!

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What happens to Casco Viejo’s old houses?

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Many poor families have been living for generations in most of Casco Viejo’s old [unrestored] buildings, and some of them are forced to leave their homes at a certain point, due to restoration needs and their costs.

Most of these buildings were abandoned by the owners who let them fall apart: these houses have received no maintenance for years (some of them up to around 40 years) and many of them became dangerous to live in.

It’s a hard reality in Casco Viejo, where most of its charm comes from these local residents and their lifestyle. When they leave their rented homes, the property is usually restored by the owner or promoter, and then sold or rented to someone with better financial facilities, since the cost of construction is now so elevated. Usually it’s a foreigner or, who just wants to have a beautiful colonial house in the Old District of Panama.

Unfortunately, the government doesn’t help much either to promote Social Housing in Casco Viejo, in order to maintain a higher percentage of locals living in the area.

The Green Room of Casco Viejo

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This is where real casco life can hide sometimes…. You see a beautiful, old and huge building from the outside, it’s all messed up, most of the doors are blocked by wooden panels and the whole structure totally needs a deep restauration… it’s hard to believe, looking from the outside, that there’s actually a “day to day life” inside those buildings, with families living there since generations… poor families that find their way to adapt to those magnificent spaces, once very elegant apartments, taking advantage of common spaces with multiple uses… those families are often forced to move somewhere else, in order to let the restaurations follow, but once the work is done, the rent raises incredibly, not to mention the selling prices….