The Next Day

I promised food pictures from the dinner party. Sorry, folks, it didn't happen. Right after our friends arrived I took this one but then I was in the visiting/cooking mode and forgot about the camera. So I'll just have to report on how the evening went.

Right after this picture was made we adjourned to the terrace and watched the sky darken....of course talking all the time. Barry and Tracy had not met Patricia and Don before even though we all live in Colonia San Antonio. I ran down the stairs a couple of times to get the oven going but when it was time to put in the rack of lamb we all came down. The salad with roasted beets, toasted pecans and blue cheese was very pretty on the plate. I served the rest of the meal on a large platter with the wild rice in the center, surrounded by a ring of the roasted carrots and then the racks of lamb were sliced and placed around the outer edge of the platter. We sat it in the center of the table so the meal could be informal and additional lamb chops were easy to reach.

After the plates were cleared and water glasses refilled, I served the chocolate glazed peanut butter tart. I almost always try at least one new recipe for a dinner party and this was the new one for this party. It was very pretty. It tasted somewhat like a Reese's peanut butter cup. The recipe was from Fine Cooking Magazine and I thought it was "okay" but for me it isn't one of the keepers from that magazine.

It was almost 11 PM when our friends left. Needless to say the kitchen clean up waited until the next morning.

Tonight's Menu - Update

Well the menu has changed. I couldn't find Ricotta cheese so the creamy ricotta and orange tart is out. I might have found the ricotta cheese if I had gone to a couple of other places but what the heck, I'm flexible. Now I have to decide on a chocolate tart or a chocolate glazed peanut butter tart. I can do the chocolate tart because today I found mascarpone cheese at Bonanza's. If I would have actually been looking for it, I wouldn't have found it.

I really wanted asparagus but couldn't find it. You would think that in the spring it would be easy to find but I haven't seen any in the last week. So I decided to switch. Since I'll be roasting the beets, I'll roast some carrots too.

This has nothing to do with dinner tonight but I saw the first squash blossoms. Mmm.....well another dinner with chicken breast in a squash blossom sauce....but not tonight.

Stay tuned. I'll try to take some photographs as things progress.

Tonight's Menu

The working menu for dinner tonight........but I still haven't been shopping so I'm never sure if I can find my ingredients. But not to worry, the rack of lamb and wild rice are in hand already.

Melon and prosciutto
Roasted beets on red-tip lettuce with toasted pecans and blue cheese
Rack of Lamb
Wild rice with mushrooms, onion and garlic
Asparagus
Creamy ricotta and orange tart

Stay tuned. I'll report back during the day on what I find in the market and on the preparations.

First Day Back

Drifting between sleep and awake
Pale light in the sky
Roosters
Roosters crowing
And crowing and crowing
Soon sparrows have chimed in
Fluttering from leaf to leaf
Sun is warming the patio
Flooding in the windows

Walk across cobblestones and up
Past the man leading a donkey
Milk cans tied to his sides
Past fushia bouganvillea
Spilling over raw umber walls
Under sky so blue, so crisp blue
The light is crystal

A new restaurant on Orizaba
New street lights in the colonia
More construction on Allende
Road work on Prolongation Refugio
A wedding party across the street
Espino's grocery the same
El Tomate's produce invites plans for dinner
Street visits with Carrie and Deb
Time passes swiftly but gently
Quickly connected with San Miguel again

A siesta across the bed
The lugustrum tree outside the window has grown
Bedroom? Treehouse?
Treehouse? Bedroom?
Today, a treehouse

My little kitchen
Basket piled high
Mangos, serranos, tomatoes, oranges, broccoli
Perfume of cilantro
Onion and garlic sauteing
Satisfaction of creating food for friends

On the terrace
Drinks with Dianne, Tom, Meg and Dick
Spread out across the mountainside, the town
Setting sun reflecting on the buildings
Another Meg arrives
More conversation
Dianne, Tom, Meg and Dick move on with other plans
Dinner with Meg
Lingering over the dinner table
Talking.......
It grows late

That was the first day back in San Miguel de Allende

Houston to San Miguel de Allende

The trip to San Miguel was easy.....as easy as 900 miles of driving can be easy. But we broke it up into two days. We left Houston about 11:00 AM and drove to about an hour on the other side of Nuevo Laredo spending the night at El Rancho.

Nuevo Laredo is always a worry and this time I needed to stop and get a visa as my FM-3 was expiring on the day we left. I don't know how it is in the downtown area of Nuevo Laredo because we always go on the by-pass around town. But on the by-pass it was very tranquilo along the Rio Grande. There are lots of soccer and baseball fields along the river and they were all filled with people and games. Nothing seemed amiss. No signs of the drug wars, just people going about their lives. However I have read that many of the wealthy Mexicans are moving out of Nuevo Laredo. Also day-trippers from the USA have slowed to a trickle and that is creating a very bad impact on most of the businesses in Nuevo Laredo.

This picture was made just as we left the immigration place where you get car permits and visas. Getting there is an adventure. The street signs are now a "little" better but it is so counter to our normal sense of the rules of the road. You are on the right side of the highway going east and you need to turn all the way across the traffic coming west and then back in a U-turn to also go west on a road on the other side of the highway. The road that leads to the immigration offices parallels the highway and is two lanes although it isn't marked very well and you are surprised to see cars heading toward you. In this picture the Rio Grande is to our left and the four-lane highway is to the right.

The next morning we were up at 5:00 AM and back on Mexican highway 57. The light of the rising sun is beautiful on the mountains. Just past the first toll-booth on the Cuota road lots of truckers had stopped to have desayuno (breakfast). It is amazing how so many little buildings spring up seemingly overnight add a few plastic tables and chairs, a grill and you have a truck stop/diner or in the case of this toll-booth, you have many diners.

It is really beautiful coming through these mountain passes in the early morning light. I love seeing the big sky. The stretch of the horizon. The tiny villages tucked here and there on the mountain sides. The shapes of the cactus across the plateau leading to the slope of the mountains. The open highway stretching into a curve. The spring green of the huisache and mesquite against the raw umber and ochres.

As we drove down the mountain and into San Miguel de Allende as always I was thrilled to see the town spread out across a little valley and up the sides of the mountain. And at this time of the year it is dotted with the most amazing purple color of the blooms of the Jacaranda tree. So beautiful. After we have settled in I'll make some pictures to post.

Everything was good at the house. One of the orchids is outdoing herself. When I left she had just lost her blooms but it looked like she might be putting out some auxiliary spikes on the main spike. Sure enough, she did produce two small auxiliary spikes. One orchid is open and two more are about to open.

Enough for now. I have to get in some fruits and vegetables. Meg is coming over for dinner.

The Opposite Direction

We are going in the opposite direction today....heading south to our Mexican home. And wouldn't you know, Nuevo Laredo made the front page again today. The Police Chief resigned yesterday and today they announced another murder. We are always relieved when we clear the immigration station outside of town. We may do that today or we may spend the night in Laredo....just depends on how our time goes.

Next entry from San Miguel de Allende.

The Flying Trapeze

The flying trapeze act was always my favorite at the circus. There they were so high above the floor in sparkling costumes swinging out over space higher and higher. Suddenly they let go of their trapeze and did some flip or spin and then reached for the trapeze from the other side. But for a few seconds they were suspended in air, holding on to nothing. In my child's mind I thought it was the riskiest thing I had ever seen. They were changing from one trapeze to another and they were taking a risk everytime they did it. But there was no way to get from one side to the other without letting go of what was safe. Oh, how I admired these daredevils.

Change always has risk. Change is stressful. Change has uncertainties. Change can be good. Change can be bad. But we'll never know what is on the other side of the trapeze unless we let go of the old and grab for the new.

Mexican Waters

The aquamarine to deep blue waters off the coast of Cancun
The Gulf of Mexico of gentle blue waves
Surfer waves on the Pacific
The Agua Azul waterfalls
The second longest single drop waterfall, Cascada de Basaceachic
Deep cenotes
Hot water springs near San Miguel de Allende

I've seen all of these beautiful places of water in Mexico but I'm not drinking the water from the tap. No thank you. The Mexican Government has initiated a campaign touting the safety of the drinking water and I'm sure they have made great strides in improving it. In places like Cancun which is a new city, the water pipes and treatment plants are modern.

But in San Miguel even if the treatment plant is well run, I don't trust the water pipes. It is a weekly occurrence in our Colonia to have water pipe breaks with water running down the streets. Oh they come and fix the break faster than "On Mexican Time." Still the safety of the water has been breached. Add to that, some of the old houses in our neighborhood have a septic tank of some kind. We know people who have have found them when remodeling and while they might not be in use now, I think I'll continue to drink the bottled water.

Just one thing worries me, I've also read that 85% of the companies in Mexico that bottle water lack adequate hygiene controls.

Paul's Question

After my friend Paul Ruby read what I wrote about the opening of my exhibition he wrote me:

billie
it sounds like you are getting a lot from this adventure.
lots of praise from people you respect,
you get to put a mile marker in the ground,
and if you are interested - maybe you will sell some.
what do you want from photography
(you got me thinking).
the exhibit was a lot of work.
exhibits are a lot of work.
regards, paul

Paul writes in his own voice but he often asks some pithy questions that go to the heart of an issue or an image.

He is so right. Putting together an exhibition is a lot of work...mental, physical and emotionally and it is expensive. Everytime after I have put together an exhibition I always say, "No more. I'm not going to do it again. The next time someone asks me, I'm going to say 'No'." When Nancy Goldesberry asked me about doing the current exhibition, I started to say no but suddenly ideas started coming into my head. I had wanted to make large prints from the negatives made in the Garden of Sir Edward James but up until this year I had not had the printer or the software to do it the way I saw it in my head. I guess the challenge and the opportunity just overcame my "No's." Not only did I have a vision of the way I want the images printed but soon I knew how I wanted them framed and it wasn't the least expensive way.

But the real question from Paul is, "What do you want from photography?" I'm not sure how to put that into words or if I even can put it into words. This is one of those issues that I'll probably write about in my personal journal of morning pages for a while. This is definitely one of Paul's pithy questions that seems so simple on the surface but it isn't.

Goodbye Toyota

We said goodbye to the little Toyota Camry that we bought 6 years ago. We left her at CarMax and I hope a nice family adopts her. She hasn't been very happy being left in the garage for month after month. Her battery kept dying and her tires would get flat sides while we were gone to Mexico. The mechanic also told us just sitting there for long periods of time wasn't good for her long term health....she needed regular exercise.

We have been talking about downsizing to one car for about a year. When we are in Mexico, of course, we are only using one car and when we are in Houston about 90% of the time there is always one car in the garage. We think that with just a little planning we will do just fine with one car. So, I hope that it works out but it does seem strange. You know Texans just expect their horse to be ready to ride at any time.

MY EXHIBITION OPENING

I had a marvelous time at the opening of my exhibition at Goldesberry Gallery. First of all I feel good about the work. Secondly Nancy and Oliver Goldesberry are great to work with. And last but not least, I had such a great time visiting with the people who came to see the work.

During FotoFest in Houston you kind of have a built in audience since the FotoFest Organization loads up buses of the gallery owners and curators who come to participate in the Meeting Place. Then there are photographers who are in town to also participate in the Meeting Place and enjoy the 120 something photography exhibitions around the city. Goldesberry Gallery is in a group of galleries on Colquitt that have art patrons who regularly attend their openings. Added to that many of my friends and neighbors also came to see my work. Now who wouldn't have a good time under those circumstances.

It was interesting talking to the photographers.....they always want to know what camera, film and paper. Then the location where the images were made. But one of the nicest parts of the evening was talking to the people who had been to Las Pozas in Xilitla and photographed there. They knew the difficulties of making images there and they also knew the atmosphere....how it felt in the jungle. Knowing that they felt I had captured that feeling was nice.

If you are in Houston between now and April 15, please stop at Goldesberry Gallery, 2625 Colquitt and see the exhibition.

Feed the Hungry

Oh, that I could write as well as my San Miguel friend, Dianne Hart. Dianne has been working with Feed the Hungry to take oral histories from some of the cooks who work in the kitchens of that organization. I've mentioned before about all the charities that the foreign residents in San Miguel help support and this organization sets up kitchens in schools in poor areas so that the children will get at least one nutritious meal a day. Dianne's stories have been in Feed the Hungry's newsletter. My readers who like an inside look at Mexico will enjoy Dianne's writing and the stories she is telling.

Mary Murrell who is the Executive Director for Feed The Hungry, says, "Please help us feed more children by sending a donation. For $65 US a hungry child will receive a hot meal every school day for an entire year. For many of the children the food at our kitchens is the only regular nutritious food they get." For more information on how to help feed one child, or 10 or even build another kitchen, click here.

Nuevo Laredo's Struggle with Drug Smugglers

Four Mexican under-cover Federal Drug Agents were gunned down in Nuevo Laredo this week after they discovered a "safe" house used by one of the drug cartels that are trying to control the drug traffic through the city.

We've been hearing about the "War on Drugs" for years. We don't seem to be winning and neither does our neighbor to the South.

I sometimes write about the news but I generally don't editorialize but last night we watched a History Channel program about moonshine and prohibition. No matter what the government did, the smugglers and bootleggers were one step ahead. Until prohibition was overturned, it funneled money to the Mafia and we had no control over liquor. So this morning as I read more of the news about the drug cartels and their fights along the border I'm think I'm beginning to side with the "radicals" who want to make drugs legal and control them like liquor/alcohol is controlled.

Yes, I know that meth and cocaine are destroying the lives of many of our young people. Still, the current approach isn't stopping it either.

First Blogaversary

Yes, it is the one year anniversary of Billieblog. Three hundred thirty-six entries later, I'm still at it.

Since I have kept a personal journal for more than 10 years, three pages every morning whether I want to or not....keeping this blog going isn't a surprise but in a way it is. I can bitch and moan and groan about stuff in my journal that are thoughts just passing through but not that I'd care to share with my readers because the next day I might feel differently. So I do use some filters on what I put in the journal because I never know who I might meet who will say something about what I wrote last week.

And the other thing that is different about keeping a blog, at least for me, is the awareness that there are readers and while I'm writing about my life, I don't want to bore them too much.

The readers of the blog have grown steadily since I started it last year. I think my sons read it and a few friends but I think there are people I don't know who click in on a pretty regular basis. This isn't a focused blog because I cover whatever topic that is on my mind. And this isn't a literary blog with great writing. I wonder....who is reading it and why.

So I'd really be interested to hear from you guys. Who are you? What is bringing you back?

The Best FotoFest Exhibition I Saw Today

I wanted my Austin friend Kay to see my exhibition while she was in town so we headed over to Colquitt Gallery Row. After Kay's suitable Oohs and Aaaahs over my work which is up in Goldesberry Gallery we headed down Gallery Row. At Hooks-Epstein Galleries was the work of Kathryn Dunlevie. I'm sure some of you will click on the link but the images on the link do not do justice to the work we saw. The prints are collages but so skillfully done with changing planes of perspective and distance that you are enjoying the emotional impact long before you realize that this is a collage.

Anyone who is in Houston this month, be sure to stop at Goldesberry Gallery, 2625 Colquitt to see my show, then head down the street a little further to see Kathryn's work at Hooks-Epstein Galleries, 2631 Colquitt.

Maxwell is Six Years Old

Last week was Maxwell's 6th birthday. Last year and for several years before that it was trains...first Thomas the train and then Electric trains but now his passion is StarWars and his new birthday bike. He is studying martial arts, Kuk Sool Wan. He is in kindergarden. He loves to read and is reading at the second grade level.

And he is a counter. He knows how many days he has been to school, how many of this and how many of that. But he also bends his numbers to meet his objectives. He had decided that he is going to have two birthdays every year. One on December 25th when he will be 7 and another on this birthday in 2007 when he will be 8.

His parents aren't so sure about that....they aren't ready for him to grow up. They are enjoying their little boy and six years old is enough for now.

Optical vs. Aesthetic Reality

In The View from the Studio Door: How artist find their way in an uncertain world, Ted Orland writes about his early days as Ansel Adams assistant when he says he watched as Ansel manupulated the print in the darkroom to convert the optical reality captured by the camera into a deeper aesthetic reality.

I like that play of words....optical reality to deeper aesthetic reality..... and it has made me think about my work. When I look at the world my eyes see the optical reality but if I photograph it and print it "flat out" most of the time I'm not adding my emotional filter to the image. Whether it is in the darkroom or in Photoshop or with the camera itself, I need to do something more to convey my aesthetic reality. I want to make my own statement about the person or the place or the thing caught in this fraction of a second of time.

I Miss My Gardening Shops in Houston

They are less than a half of a block in size but they are packed with plants and gardening accessories. Unfortunately they are here in Houston. Why isn't something like Buchanan's Plants and Another Place in Time in San Miguel. As I looked around at the accessories and furniture, any or all of them could be made in Mexico and probably some of them are. Oh, I miss my favorite garden shops in Houston when I am in San Miguel.

For the last year or so while we have been spending most of our time in San Miguel when we did come back to visit in Houston, I stayed away from the temptations of Buchanan's and Another Place in Time which have long been some of my regular stops when I'm out shopping. I went to Buchanan's this week to pick up some new plants for the Houston garden. It was like I had forgotten how wonderful it is with markers on each type of plant giving some information about it. I was looking for Martha Gonzales roses and in the rose section I found roses that were touted as good for containers even giving suggestions on the size of the container. Roses for hedges, climbing roses, miniature roses. I could read how often they bloomed and what size I could expect at maturity.

There were complete water feature kits. One that I just wanted to put in my car immediately. Glazed ceramic birdbaths, concrete birdbaths, concrete benches laid with glass tiles in wonderful designs, windchimes, clay and glazed ceramic flower pots in all sizes, garden statutary.

It was so wonderful, so inspiring. I could have stayed there all day just wandering up and down every aisle. But now the big question, how do I implement some of the ideas I picked up with what I CAN find in San Miguel.

Crime in Paradise and NPR

Several weeks ago I wrote a story about the rape of a friend by a serial rapist who has targeted gringas living in San Miguel de Allende. I followed it up with several other reports including another rape. Now you can listen to NPR's report on the rapes.

Is Photography Your Hobby?

In the dictionary one of the definitions for "Hobby" is:

An activity or interest pursued outside one's regular occupation and engaged in primarily for pleasure rather than financial reward.

I don't feel like my photography is a hobby. In fact when someone asks me, "Is photography your hobby?" I find it difficult to give a civil answer. In my head the word "hobby" just doesn't reflect my passion or commitment. I may never make a significant financial reward, I may never be considered a great photographer by curators and museum directors. That doesn't matter. My photography isn't a hobby.

The Weekend

This weekend we were off to Austin to see Doug and his family for the weekend. Maxwell's birthday was Friday

Max has a new bike, a gameboy and a remote controller for the playstation....remote has become necessary since Dexter became mobile.

Dexter will be one year old on April 1. He has six teeth and he is a speed demon on all fours and cruising around the furniture on foot. I don't think it will be long before he is walking.

Doug and Susan are doing a good job with these boys. We are truly blessed.

Another Night, Another Ballgame

Jack's little league team played last night. Jack started off pitching for 3 innings, then he moved to shortstop, then catcher. He made some good catches as shortstop and got a hit to the fence with bases loaded bringing in 2 runners.

Zarela Casa

I've often written about using Zarela Martinez' cookbooks. Now I find she is not only a writer, a talented chef and restaurateur but also a designer of Zarela Casa, a colorful new Mexican-inspired collection of things for the home.

Bloglet

For my regular readers....that includes two or three of you....I've set up Bloglet. You'll find a place to sign up in the sidebar down on the right side. When you sign up you'll receive a email notice whenever I post a new entry. This is pretty cool. I found out about Bloglet from Yucatan Living. It is free and it is easy.

From the Mouths of Babes

He was a National Geographic photographer. I wish I remembered his name. Years ago I heard him speak at a one-day photography symposium. He told a story that has remained with me all these years.

He was on assignment and staying at a house with a garden. He got up early and went out to photograph in the garden. A little boy about four years old who belonged to the family in that house, followed him into the garden, saying nothing just watching him bring his camera to his eye and photograph this then that. The little boy disappeared back into the house and a few minutes later came out with a box that looked like a camera with a little squiggly thing coming out of the top. Actually it was a container with a straw but it looked like a camera.

The child quietly followed him, doing as he did. Stopping to study what was before him and bringing his "camera" box up to his eye. The boy and the man continued to "work" side-by-side. No words passed between them. The sun got higher in the sky and it got warmer. The man sat down under a tree to change film. The child sat beside him and sipped from the squiggly straw in his "camera." Finally the child spoke to him and said, "Mista, does youwa camawa got juice in it?"

That is the question. Does our camera have juice?

What Is In The Box?

It looked neat....the Houston workroom just outside the door of the darkroom. So many times I've gathered up a stack of prints that have accumulated from the darkroom and put them in a box and stacked them away.

The Houston workroom has shelves built to hold boxes of prints, paper, mat board and all of the "stuff" in a photographer's life. But when I started opening boxes, it wasn't quite as tidy. The box might be labeled Puebla but there are prints from Yucatan and Oaxaca too. At some point I must have been pulling prints for some purpose and everything didn't get back in the box it came out of. Even more difficult is that I want to keep at least one darkroom print of an image because I don't know if I'll make anymore darkroom prints of these negatives. So I'm trying to figure out how many prints I have of each image because I have someone who wants to buy some prints from the Mexican church project.

And then there are boxes of prints from other photographers that I consider part of my collection. So each box of prints is taking a lot of time to go through and look at them in detail.

Five-by-seven boxes of proof prints that haven't been opened in at least seven years have been dumped. I am finding boxes of prints that I have no idea why I saved. Early prints and bad prints (most of the time an early print is a bad print), they are going in the trash too.

At this point, the workroom is in chaos. Hopefully when I get through figuring out what is in the boxes, the useless trash will have been hauled away and each box that remains will be properly labeled and everything will look neat again.

PeeWee Ball

Six year old Grandson Will showing his Jeff Bagwell style at first base. (sorry I'm not much of a sports photographer) Not only does he look good but he caught the ball too.

Garden Life, Houston

The smell of the earth, the warmth of the sun, the soft breeze on the skin, the joy of seeing new growth, creating order and beauty. This is the joy of gardening. And yesterday all of these sensations came flooding back as we worked in the garden. It had gotten out of hand with many plants hogging more than their share of space.

This shrimp plant had overtaken a trellis that was beside it. I don't know if it had smothered out the climbing bahinia that was suppose to live on the trellis or if the cold weather had snuffed it back. But the shrimp plant has become a bully wanting to take over the whole bed. I will have to deal with it. But this bed had always been troublesome and I've changed it several times trying to find a solution that fits.
Just one week ago this Mexican Sycamore didn't have a leaf on it. So far the crepe myrtles are leafless but once you see one leaf, they seem to turn green in just a couple of days. We don't rape and mutilated our crepe myrtles cutting off the branches to nubs so they spring to life very quickly.

This Mexican sun face has been living in our garden for several years and I love the little greenies that he sprouts when we have rain.

This is a Martha Gonzales Rose bush. The Rose Rustlers found this rose bush growing beside the door of Martha Gonzales house in Central Texas. The Rustlers are always looking for roses that have survived in cemeteries or old farm houses. Roses that have adapted to Texas and grow without pampering. Well Martha is a hardy soul. I had her planted in one place and dug her up and put her somewhere else. Before too long I looked at the old spot and there was a new Martha so I must have left a bit of the root there. Although Martha is suppose to be a three foot high rose bush, she grows to five feet in my garden and she blooms most of the year. I have never pampered her in any way other than fertilizing when I have fertilized the whole garden. The foliage is beautiful and while the flowers are not the most gorgeous of all the roses, they are there for color most of the time.
It is nest building time. A pair of mockingbirds are building this nest just outside my kitchen window. Can you see the nest, tucked in just behind the left wing of this violin playing angel? Once they lay the eggs, I'm sure everytime we walk by the one standing guard will screech at us to distract our attention from their little family. But it will be fun to watch from the safety of the kitchen window.

Yes, it was good to work in the garden yesterday and catch up with what the plants had to tell.

Alhambra at Casa Mercer

Image of the Alhambra from Chrisflyer

I've read that the most noteworthy features about the Alhambra garden in Spain is the close relationship between inside and outside spaces. Sylvia Crowe in her book Garden Design writes, "Halls, porticoes, arcades and patios lead one into another. The patios with their fountains, flowers and cypresses are rooms open to the air." That is what I want...open-air rooms at Casa Mercer but probably with a little more chaos than I've seen in pictures of the structured spaces in the Alhambra.

Garden space is limited in Casa Mercer in San Miguel. A small patio with a cistern under it and I don't know how deep that cistern is below the surface. A ugly fountain in a strange location. Beds straight along a wall that are about 18 inches deep. The redeeming feature of this patio is a huge lugustrum tree of some native variety under planted with clivia. Oh, one other item that I like is a potted variegated ficus that has grown into a nice size tree....maybe 8 feet tall. And we have two terraces. One that looks okay and the other, the new terrace that is begging for help.

We have had some plans drawn up for refurbishing the patio but I have procrastinated. Something was just nagging in the back of my mind that this plan was nice but it wasn't quite "right." But I didn't know what to do. I just wasn't inspired or excited. That has changed!

David Little and George Lewis who garden in the Northwest United States and wrote the inspirational book A Garden Gallery: The plants, art and hardscape of Little and Lewis, have bought a place in San Miguel and to facilitate gardening talk they have started a yahoo forum about gardening. I've been meaning to buy their book but finding out they were in San Miguel finally pushed me into ordering it. What an inspirational book! For the first time I'm finally thinking about the patio and terraces beyond just pots of bouganvilleas and geraniums. I'm thinking beyond the usual wall fountain for a water feature. I'm thinking wall colors. And the other exciting thing is that though this forum I'm finding other San Miguel gardeners who have a creative spirit about gardening in San Miguel.

Maybe I will be able to create a garden in the spirit of the Alhambra at Casa Mercer.

$FILM$

Oh my, I picked up 3 rolls of 120 color film that I had developed at a lab, no prints, film not cut into strips. Cost $24.84. It has been a while since I had medium format color film developed....maybe a little more than a year....but I remember a cost of about $4-5 dollars a roll.

If I'm working on a project, I could easily have 15 to 20 rolls of film a week. That is a conservative guess. At $8.28 a roll....................that adds up fast. But so far nothing I have tried in Photoshop gives the same aesthetic quality as the Holga camera/lens. So a photographer has to do what a photographer has to do to make THE image. I'm afraid the cost is going to go even higher as film becomes the "Alternative Process."

Holgas Here, Holgas There

Ted Orland, Assistant to Ansel Adams, co-Author of Art and Fear, Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking and now I find he is a fellow Holga user who always has his Holga with him.

Ted's Artist Statement reads:

....I'm afraid I really don't lead a fine-grained life. More often, I think,life is what happens while you're trying to set up your tripod. But my little $10 Holga camera (bless its little plastic heart) sees the world just the way I do, capturing life en passant.And really, what more could one ask for than for tools that become a natural extension of one's own spirit?

....Actually I own a whole bunch of Holgas. (Holgi?) They multiply like Tribbles: one for dim light, one for bright, one for time exposures, one with a magnifying glass taped on for close-ups. They beat Hasselblads at every turn, and for good reason: 1) Holgas float! 2) you don't have to buy a separate $65 Vignetting Filter; and 3) no one bothers to steal them. They're even optically superior, carefully filtering out excessive sharpness so that realism doesn't get mistaken for reality.

....And so I carry my little camera with me most everywhere, and then photograph pretty much whatever crosses my path. My theory is that if you lead an interesting life, you'll make interesting art. How could it be otherwise?
Ted Orland

Printer Wars

Up until now Epson been THE printer using archival inks and the choice of fine art and pro-photographers but now there is serious competition with some new printers. Canon has announced a new printer, imagePROGRAF iPF5000. This is a 17" wide carriage 12 ink printer that will retail for less than $2,000, a close price point to the Epson 4800. Individual ink cartridges are large, heads are self cleaning and user replaceable, and paper paths include roll, front, rear and paper tray. No cartridge changing is required when switching from matte to glossy papers. Print quality is reputed to be excellent and the printing is high-speed.

Self-cleaning heads that are user replaceable instead of a $500 part and service call. No wasting of ink in order to change cartridges when switching from matte to glossy papers. Yes, Yes, this looks like serious competition for Epson.

Up until now, papers and profiles all seemed to be built around the Epson printers but I think all of that will change rapidly. I know I will be following user tests and reviews on this new printer as well as studying the archival data. Self-cleaning heads that are user replaceable certainly gets my attention. If the printer can deliver the print quality, Epson is going to have some serious competition. Who knows, I might be in the Canon camp with my next printer purchase.

Clogged Nozzle Anxiety

For my readers who don't make prints with Epson Printers, you are probably wondering what the heck the title means. It means that all nozzles in the print head need to be firing properly to make a photographic print. I just fired up my Epson 2200 which has been sitting idle since last May. I printed a nozzle check pattern and found that three colors were clogged...cyan, magenta and yellow. I ran the clean routine. Right away the cyan and yellow are back but the magenta only shows one or two dot-lines. Another clean. The magenta is almost back. Another clean and the printer is ready to go. This doesn't surprise me since I've never had a problem with an Epson printer having clogged nozzles except when I was using the Piezography inks in the 1160. After I took the Piezo inks out of that printer and cleared the clogs, it has worked perfectly. The Epson 1160 and 2200 were aimed at the high-end consumer market.

That is in contrast to the Epson 4000 printer which is supposedly the Pro Printer. It is built like a tank weighing about 80 pounds and sitting on a 30-36" foot-print. Just looking at it you would think it would just run print after print after print with hardly a problem. No. It seems to be plagued with clogging problems. So far I haven't had too much of problem but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that when we go back to San Miguel and I fire up the printer after sitting idle for a month I don't have a major problem. And major clogging problems and potential solutions are discussed almost daily on the Epson 4000/4800 Yahoo group forum. From reading on that forum, I tried to be proactive about keeping the 4000 unclogged. I left it with full cartridges and also with a humidifier running to try and keep the humidity at about 40%. Although I bought it about a year ago, I didn't put it in operation until last August. But people seem to run into clogging problems at about one year.........like right after the one year warranty runs out. What I don't understand is why Epson has launched another printer, the 4800, and from what I'm seeing in the Yahoo forum, it has the same clogging problems. They have had to replace so many printers under the one year warranty and gotten such bad press, why didn't they fix the problem?

I'm not a tech or mechanic. I'm a photographer and I hate the thought of trying to release print heads and move them, then flush waste tanks or whatever might have to be done to clear the clog. It would not be so bad if you had nice clear drawings of what you need to do and what this or that looks like but you are working from email messages on the forum.

I definitely have clogged nozzle anxiety about the Epson 4000.