When the Sun Goes Down in Quimbaya: Noche de las Velitas
The first candle I ever lit for Noche de las Velitas was on our sidewalk in Ibagué. I was maybe seven. My mom handed me the lighter and told me to be careful with the wax. We lined up simple stick candles on the concrete, said a quiet prayer for the Virgin Mary, and went inside. That was it. Our family tradition, small and private, done by bedtime.
I left Colombia at 15. Twenty-five years later, I'm standing in Quimbaya watching an entire town transform into something I didn't know existed.
The first flame flickered to life just as dusk settled. Then another. Within minutes, every sidewalk, every doorstep, every corner of every block glowed with handmade lanterns and candlelight. This wasn't the simple December 7 I remembered. This was Noche de las Velitas as a communal art form, weeks of neighborhood collaboration poured into a single night of devotion.
I grew up thinking everyone did what we did—a few candles, a prayer, done. I had no idea entire towns were doing this.
The moment people started lighting the faroles in front of their homes, something rushed back. The muscle memory of striking a match. The smell of melting wax. The quiet ritual my family kept every year. But this version—blocks competing with elaborate displays, families traveling from across Colombia just to walk these streets after dark—this was completely different.
I met Carlos while photographing one of the displays. He walked right up to me, face lighting up as he gestured to the intricate lanterns surrounding us. "Me acuerdo cuando solamente colocábamos velitas," he said. "Después unos faroles pequeñitos, más adelante empezamos con cartulina, y ahora tenemos diseños y luces muy hermosas."
Simple candles became small lanterns. Small lanterns became cardboard designs. Now they're elaborate light installations requiring months of planning between neighbors. Carlos and the family next door have been collaborating on their block's display for decades. The tradition evolves, he explained, but the reason stays the same: devotion to the Virgin Mary, and keeping something alive that matters to them.
He spent ten minutes telling me where to find the best displays, pointing down different streets with the enthusiasm of someone showing off their town's pride. He was right about every single one.
I wasn't interested in photographing just the lanterns. Everyone shoots the lanterns. I wanted the people experiencing this. The kids whose faces showed pure awe as their neighborhood transformed around them. The families gathered on corners, lighting candles together. The elderly woman carefully arranging her display after years of practice. The human part of the tradition that makes it matter.
The technical challenge was real, though. Low light, high contrast between bright lanterns and deep shadows. I brought my Fujifilm XT3 with a set of prime lenses—12mm for the wide street scenes, 56mm and 85mm for portraits that let me shoot wide open and gather as much light as possible. My tripod came out for the longer exposures when I needed to hold still. Shooting RAW meant I could pull details from the shadows later in Lightroom without losing the mood of the night. The Fuji handles low light beautifully, which meant I could stay present with people instead of fighting with camera settings in the dark.
I met Fran and her mom from Bogotá standing in front of one of the larger displays. First-timers, they'd traveled to Quimbaya specifically for this after hearing about it for years. We talked about their favorite streets, the displays that surprised them. They'd been walking for hours.
My last stop was the church at the center of town. Projectors cast moving images across the interior walls—scenes from scripture, patterns of light that shifted and changed. Inside, people knelt in dim light, lighting candles in front of statues of saints, the Virgin Mary, Jesus. Each flame represents a prayer, a request, a hope offered up. The tradition says the light carries your words upward.
I didn't hear what anyone prayed for. But you could feel it in the room. The weight of it. The collective hope.
As we left, the projectors shifted to cast an image of the Virgin Mary onto the church's facade. Everyone in the street stopped. Phones came out, but so did candles. Families gathered right there on the pavement, lighting their own flames with the illuminated church rising behind them.
That's the shot I wanted. Not just the spectacle, but the people participating in it, creating their own moment of devotion in the middle of this larger celebration.
As a kid in Ibagué, we lit our simple candles and went to bed. I had no idea entire towns were turning December 7 into this—neighbors planning for months, blocks competing and collaborating, strangers traveling hours just to walk streets transformed by devotion and light.
Twenty-five years away from Colombia meant missing not just the tradition I knew, but its evolution. What my family kept small and private has become, in places like Quimbaya, something shared and built together. The candles are the same. The prayer is the same. But the scale of it, the way communities come together to create something bigger than any single family could—that's what changed. That's what I missed.
I'm grateful I got to witness it. Not the version I remembered, but the one it became. And I'm grateful these communities keep choosing to pour their time and creativity into one night each year, keeping something beautiful alive, together.
