Another year, another place
1000 km drive in a packed up car
I’m sick of Monterrey, and these last months are finally over.
I should have left a year ago, but well… I had all this time to find myself an inspiration; mine is to never get stuck there.
So yes, I’m back home in good ol’ Mexico City,
not a tourist stop, but mexico city, nevertheless
rays of light
one of the limits of mexico city. nothing but desolation beyond this places
weird palm that grows tomatoes near N’s house
nice place to go for a run
please refrain from playing with the beer tap… note the napkins underneath
you can’t call it a night until there’s broken glass and spilled beer
24 hour flower shops
Happiness is a cool glass of tangerine water
i’ve got this thing going on where my patience is super short, and my temper is very explosive. do or say something that pisses me off, and you’ll hear a not-so-nice version of me.
no fucking kidding.
now, the funny part is that I don’t like Mexico City anymore.
too many cars, too many people, and this air of being a huge cage.
i’m not going to rant about assholes who think that visiting Mexico City is so chick and a sort of statement. Please…
look how far you’ve arrived by now.
all on daddy’s expense.
yeah… my father paid for my college as well, but where I’m heading in a couple of weeks, you can’t buy your way in.
you have to earn that yourself.
i’ve lived this year totally independent from my folks. independent on a scholarship salary totally sucks. but it teaches you one thing: you have to make it; no plan B and no calling dad.
i’m even thinking about taking less photos; I’m getting to this point where much of the things I’ve done seem to take an awful lot of time and energy…
this is a “back to basics” type thing… that’s why 95% of the photos i’ve taken lately are made on an m6 and a single 35mm lens.
film shot with said m6:
portra 160VC
Monterrey “Cotemporany” Art Museum – Love the blue elevator. 1 seg at f1.4
i’m amazed at how certain people you don’t expect become very close friends. The one thing I will surely miss from Monterrey, are N’s friends… and the fact that by the end, a lot of them had become mutual friends.
It’s even better when you realize they’re geniuses in their own ways… and none of them are pretentious… even though most could lecture me on their specialties.
(and those who seem pretentious at first, well, they have the means to actually be)
I am seeing a sort of pattern here… go somewhere, make friends, and then leave.
…as if I was creating future nostalgia.
and right now i’ve got this feeling of saudade thinking of all the worthy people i’ve met and left eventually. thankfully all those who are worthy of a true friendship still remain in contact. no pretending, no convenience… truth and honesty when i ask them what’s up with their lives.
a church I’ve seen maaany times and finally decided to enter
bench store. Weird.
home safety. f2
stalled car just before rush hour
strange liquid coming out of the guy’s shoes
love portra+sky. I should do a series of these
ya never know when ya gonna use ’em huge sunglasses
watts humphrey at my school. I got an autograph for my PSP book at last
Daydreaming
shallow DOF – click to view larger
christmas tree in paseo sn pedro
sam
vecindad
for those of you who are fans of ass
stand for rent
since sam and diego had their cameras out in the open, people posed
portra shining
BW
Delta 400 – 120
a bit (and not so cheap) piece of egypt (or so they said)
crappy overpriced apartments just by the uni
mirrors
music guy selling memorabilia
delta 400 – 35mm
protection
walls held together by faith
the very last one of the personal stuff
“What I want is the world to remember the problems and the people I photograph. What I want is to create a discussion about what is happening around the world and to provoke some debate with these pictures. Nothing more than this. I don’t want people to look at them and appreciate the light and the palate of tones. I want them to look inside and see what the pictures represent, and the kind of people I photograph.”
– Sebastiao Salgado (Excerpts from an interview with Sebastiao Salgado by Ken Lassiter, Photographer’s Forum)
urban nonsense
for some weird reason, about a three weeks before we left, there was a huge festival where people drew famous paintings near the central plaza… right on the floor. you grabbed some chalks and did it.
maaaaany artists there
some others were not painting… well, not exactly
some others just dressed up and took a break
a close up of the process
love alleyways
saying thanks to the flock… a sort of marketing
taxi mirrors… last day i taught class at a high school
kermit visiting home
not being in monterrey means no jumps across the border to pick up stuff from my mailbox, or going over with friends to pick someone’s stuff up… like this-that mcallen visit with luis g., jules, and n.
yeah, like 2 hour wait to cross the border, but well, that’s how life is.
then drive back through god-awful-reynosa and then back home… all in one day.
truly bilingual stuff— when i think spanish is stronger than english in that part of town
bolsa “chivera” – the perfect bag to store your shit when crossing the border: huge and resistent for the trip
gum in the streets
mcallen bus station
and the compulsory stop at pizza hut
bus mirrors – awful exposure
one of the last meals
…and that was it. i still have many rolls to develop, but a pro-lab will certainly help me out with those… which means more time to read, write, and learn how to do what i’ll get paid to do.
N and i chose what to do next. not just what i wanted or what she wanted… what both of us wanted. i don’t think i could do that with anyone else… there’s something magical about everything working out perfectly in every way. timing, parents, and decisions.
i guess there’ll be a lifetime to keep that working.
hope life catches you well.
J