In the mountain-bound town of San Pedro Totolápam, Oaxaca — home to just over 3 000 people — a strange procession takes shape. Each year, as the sun dips behind rugged hills, masked figures and a brass band move house-to-house, climbing narrow dirt roads and gathering people from hidden courtyards to steep paths.

These 15 photographs follow that wandering caravan of music, masks, laughter and unease. I didn’t arrive as an outsider; I followed, I waited, I listened. What I felt: the thrill of being part of something local, wild and fleeting.

This isn’t a festival aimed at the world. It’s the people of Totolápam opening the door, stepping outside, and letting their ritual ripple across the hillside homes.

I made these images not to explain. But to stay close to what it felt like: skin heating in the twilight, sequins catching the last light, children watching the masks with wide eyes, the buttons of shoes slipping in dust, voices rising in the canyon.

A small town climbing its hills, a band behind them, a parade half-dream. “When the Masks Walk the Hills” is what happens when you follow where the music leads.

November 2025