A face with character

When I am out doing street photography I always keep an eye out for a person whose face has a lot of character. I came across this women on the streets of San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. I sat down on the door stoop and talked with her as best as I could with my limited foreign language skills. She was a delightful woman and I could instantly see she had a quality of wisdom in her eyes. I asked her if I could take her picture and she was honored by the request. Later in the week I returned to her location and gave her copy of this picture. She is one of the many people of the streets that you will find in a town like San Miguel. Here is a link if you would like more information on the city and the culture. http://www.visitmexico.com/en/san-miguel-de-allende

The Train of Death

While photographing an abandoned train station I stumbled onto the the "train of death" in Mexico. The depot has been closed for many years and the old rusted locomotive engine sitting on a short piece of track next to the building was interesting. I heard a train coming and positioned myself to photograph it expecting it to pass the depot. Instead it stopped at this abandoned train station and sat idle on the tracks.  All was quiet as I stared at the motionless train. Suddenly I noticed some movement in an open car and I investigated who was there. As I climbed up the ladder and peered into the coal car I saw two extremely poor looking individuals staring back at me. They had intense fear in their eyes as they looked at me. I said, "Hola" and offered them my water and a couple of power bars I was carrying. They sheepishly accepted as I climbed in with them. I asked them in my poor Spanish if I could take their picture. They nodded in agreement and I climbed up the and positioned myself on the pile of material that was in the car. I asked where they were from and where they were going. The young one spoke some English and I was able to find out they were from Central America and were hoping to get to America. I took what Pesos I had in my pocket and gave it to them. In their eyes were the look that I have seen in a starved and abused animal. I shook their hands and said, "adios". I had never heard of the train of death at the time I took this photo. (later when working on the image I noticed the hand of the of guy on the left was pulled up in his sleeve, possibly hiding a weapon). It was only when I got back home a few months later that I saw this video about it. Open this link to watch video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7UZk6Hg-Xo

It is sad that the people of the world can't live with the basic human needs.  It is usually the corruption of governments that starve their own people. We who live in the U.S. are blessed and should be thankful for everyday we live in a land of abundance. We as a nation can not harbor all the needy of the world. We should protect our borders and demand that immigration is carried out in a lawful and orderly process.

This dog understands Spanish

Taking chances and considering the risk; I was walking with friends in the mountain town of San Joaquin Mx. We were shopping and looking for a nice restaurante to have something to eat. As my wife and friends walked along as I was straggling behind making some images of the streets and people. Rarely do I make any meaningful images while out with others sightseeing and enjoying the day. This particular image was made at the spur of the moment without much thought as to my personal saftey. I came around a corner and saw this young man with his dog in an alcove and realized the reflected light and the scene was interesting and asked him permission to take his picture. The only Spanish I know is "Puedo tomar su fotografia por favor" (may I take your picture please). I hardly ever take a photo of someone without their permission. The young man nodded in agreement and I dropped to one knee and made one exposure and quickly stepped back and said "por favor" and moved away. After looking at the image days later I realized that this was probably a risky move on my part in making this image. The dog certainly has the look of attack in his eyes and I figure he understood Spanish and he didn't give me permission to take his picture. A risk yes, but making a meaningful or powerful image sometime puts you ar risk.

San Joaquin - http://www.tourbymexico.com/quere/joaquin/joaquin.htm

Mexico the land of color

We enjoy traveling to Mexico. We like the people and the culture that Mexico has to offer. You really need to spend a good amount of time in Mexico to lose the uptight feeling that comes with our daily lives here in the States. When we lived in upstate NY we would drive our old Buick down to spend four months each winter in wonderful small towns in central Mexico. We like to explore all of the back roads through mountain towns and photographing everything of interest. I often get asked, "don't you have a fear of being in Mexico"? and I ask in return, "would you have a fear of walking in Central Park at night"? There is danger everywhere in this world and being aware of your surroundings is your best protection. The truth is that you can live behind fear or live your life and feel alive by experiencing things outside of your comfort zone.
Don't put off what you desire to do with your life. My Mother never took the time to enjoy her life as she could have. Her plan was to put it off until retirement, but she never got there. Her life was ended in a car accident long before she had ever reached retirement age. That event changed my life and I started traveling to remote places and I guess as some would say, taking chances. My wife and I are now in our 60's and we have our kids call and ask "when are you two going start doing something safe like taking a cruise". Our answer to them is we aren't old enough yet.

Street in Tequisquiapan Mx.

The Journey

Moonlight Orb

I call this image "The Journey" that I made recently in Fort Pierce Fl. on the beach under a full moon. It is usually not my style to do night photography with special effects. But I do think it is good every now and then to experiment with photograph like I did in my early days of photographing. The exposure time was around three minutes with an f-stop of 9.5.  I used a sturdy carbon fiber tripod with a cable release. Because it was dark I placed an LED light on the beach in the location where I wanted to create the orb and used that point to focus my camera. The long exposure required the camera to be set to Bulb mode for the three minute + exposure.  The orb was made with two miniature LED lights tied to a cord I was spinning. Notice that I am not shown in the middle of the orb. That is because the time to make the orb was only about 30 seconds of the total exposure.