Margaret and Bill

This is my sister Margaret and her husband Bill. I photographed them in their dining room in a low natural light in Midland, Texas on October 20, 1995. I had come to Midland to visit them and to pick up photographs that had been in a show in Odessa. I was getting ready to leave this morning after breakfast. My camera was on the table and Margaret put her arms around Bill. I knew this was a special moment. I had never seen them be physically affectionate with each other. And while we talked and I photographed, Margaret caressed him and nuzzled his cheek.

As I said, I knew this was a special moment but I didn't know how special. Within one month Margaret who had been treated for breast cancer would find that it had returned in her spine and she was a paraplegic. Two weeks before she died in September, 1996, Bill found out he had inoperable lung cancer. Bill died in January, 1997.

My sister and I had been very close for most of our adult lives and Bill had become like a brother to me. I miss them every day.

More about Margaret here and here

Texas Holga

I did a little shooting with the Holga while I was in Texas.

On the way to Austin I stopped for a few minutes in Chappell Hill. I've photographed there before and I always drive over to this church. It could use a paint job right now but I just love the simplicity of it.

On Sunday, I went with Doug's family to their favorite nursery. I love it too. Besides being able to buy plants they have gardens where you can see how it all comes together.....even orchards and vineyards.

A Death on Our Street

Yesterday afternoon and night there were fireworks on our street. Rocket, after Rocket, after Rocket exploded in the sky. Not the showy kind of fireworks but the kind that rocks your ear drums. Ned went out and talked with the neighbors next door. One of the young men on our street had been killed in a car/truck accident. This young man belonged to the house on the corner that also is a barbershop.

We have a lot of young men and a few young women from our street who hang out sometimes in the afternoon and often at night near our corner because we have a street light and there is a video store just a few doors away. We speak and nod as we come and go and Ned sometimes talks with them while he walks the dog but we don't know their names. We have been trying to figure out who is missing. Who died in the accident?

As we have watched the street in the last 24 hours, we realize once again that we are outsiders. That there are cultural differences that limit our understanding of what is happening around us. The hearse came yesterday afternoon and we assumed that the funeral was yesterday. Although we did not see it, the casket must have been left at the house.

The young people from the neighborhood stood or sat in the street. Most of them took white T-shirts and wrote Luis Edgar Munas' name on the back of the shirt. Many people brought bouquets and food and by 9:00 PM last night the street was full of cars and people just talking, sometimes laughing softly. The street was completely blocked. No cars could get through and when one would come up the street, there was no honking. The driver just turned and found another way to where he needed to go. How did they know that this was a wake?

All day, there has been young people solemnly sitting on the sidewalk across from the Munas' house and from time to time we heard rockets. Just now there were again many rocket explosions and we heard singing in the street. The hearse had returned and loaded the casket. The young people all dressed in their decorated white T-shirts were following behind it as it headed toward the San Juan de Dios church.

We still haven't been able to figure out who is missing from the mix of kids on the street. Which one was Luis Edgar Munas? But as parents we can only imagine what one family on our street is going though. God Bless this family and Rest in Peace, Louis Edgar Munas.

Traveling Photographer

It is getting harder and harder for photographers to travel. I had a tiny taste of that this past week.

I didn't take much equipment....just a DSLR loaded with one lens and a Holga camera. But then I had a card reader and battery charger...in one direction. Coming back home, I had a new expert trackball mouse, a new film holder for the scanner, 220 ml ink cartridges all in one suitcase that was opened and inspected after I checked my baggage....but the nice guys at the Transportation Security Administration left me a note in my bag that they had done that and that if I would have had it locked, they would have broken the lock and inspected it.

AND, I was bringing back about 65 rolls of 120 film which I didn't want to go through the x-ray machine when I went through security. I had taken the film out of boxes and put it in plastic bags. All of this was to no avail. They insisted that I put it in one of the plastic boxes going through the scanner. Most studies say that one pass through the scanner for low ISO film shouldn't affect it. Yeah, I know that the regulations also say that you can ask for hand inspection and that they should comply but I was intimidated.

Basically I was traveling with almost nothing but today I read this story of a professional photographer traveling with lots of cameras and lighting equipment. Makes you wonder about the next time you have a fully loaded camera bag when you are flying the friendly skies.

An Evening to Remember

Readers.....sorry I haven't posted in a week but I've been on the move in Texas.

First I want to tell you about the Evening of Fine Art at the Federal Reserve Bank in Houston. It was marvelous. I'm so honored to be a part of their art collection and I had no idea of the scope of the collection.

The building is near downtown on Allen Parkway with an unbroken view of the Houston skyline. Designed by the architect Michael Graves who made sure that you were able to see the downtown of the fourth largest city in the USA. Not from walls of glass sheathing like so many contemporary buildings but from spaces framed by the skeleton of the building. The Tuesday night of the event, Houston had a clear blue sky that gradually darkened to a deep velvety navy blue. The buildings reflected the gold and salmon setting sun and the lights inside offices were like twinkling Christmas lights. It was quite a backdrop to the Reception.

It is as if the building was built for art and actually the architects worked closely with the art consultant to be sure that the art contributed to the ambiance of the building. I found my four pieces in the Brazos Room. It is a large conference/dining room and the pieces were well-lit and I was almost in tears to see them in their "home."

The collection is built primarily around Houston artist although there are certainly some wonderful pieces by some other Texas artists. Just to give you some idea of who is included in the collection........Ellen Frances Tuchman, Karin Broker, Benito Huerta, Leamon Green, Robyn O'Neil, Geoff Winningham, Al Souza and Dixie Friend Gay.....but that isn't the whole list by any means.

As we would say here in Texas.....and I know I'm bragging but I have to tell you that I was "walking in tall cotton." This was definitely an Evening to Remember.

What is happening with Fuji?

Since I'm going to Houston I've been ordering stuff to bring back with me. I need film for the Holga. The shop here in San Miguel that develops my 120 film has three rolls of film. That is it, three rolls.

Would you believe that I can't order Fujifilm from B&H or Calumet and get it delivered to Houston in time to bring back with me? True. B&H just says out of stock and Calumet says it will be 4 to 11 days before they have it in stock. Fujifilm is changing the designation of their color film from NPH to just H. I don't know whether it will be new and improved but probably so and also cost more. I can get Kodak color film from Calumet or B&H but for a 20 pack the difference in price is about $1 a roll....and guess which one is cheaper....the Fuji of course. At the rate I'm shooting the Holga right now, I want at least 60 rolls. I'm trying to decide what to do. See what I can get in the camera stores in Houston or "waste" $60 for the difference in Kodak over Fuji.

The cost of shooting with the cheap plastic Holga is significant. I want to bring enough film back with me to last until Christmas time. I estimate that I'll shoot 2-5 rolls a week. At 5 rolls a week, I need to bring back 60 rolls of film. More or less the Fuji is $3.50 a roll and the Kodak is $4.50 a roll.....times 60 rolls. Now add in the cost of processing the film at $3.00 roll (cost in San Miguel) and you are around $500 for film and processing for three months time. So in a year's time I could buy 3 Canon XTi cameras for the cost of film. Mmmm.....Ned reads my blog....maybe I shouldn't post this!

Since I've been shooting digital cameras and not worrying about the cost of film, keeping film on hand and traveling with film for several years, I'm kind of bummed out about it. I've never needed film and not been able to get it when I wanted it. Hello.......the world is going digital and film is going to be harder and harder to get. I use to be able to always get my film hand-checked through security but now I'm not sure what I will run into. I know what the "rules" are but you never know how the security people will be feeling on the day you go through the airport.

A friend recently told me that I have a special voice with the Holga camera images. That voice could be turning into a scream.

UPDATE: Just went to the B&H website and they now have Fuji film back in stock. So now I just have to worry that it will reach me before I come back to San Miguel and worry about getting it through security without it getting zapped.

Evening of Art

I'm heading for Texas tomorrow. A short trip.....just one week.....by myself.

One of the reasons I'm going is an Evening of Art. The Officers of the Houston Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas and Kinzelman Art Consulting have arranged an Evening of Art where they will present the artists and the artwork in the Houston Branch art collection to invited guests. I am very honored to have four pieces in the collection. I've not seen the work since I delivered it to the framer in Houston so this is a real treat for me.

It will be a fast and full trip. Besides doctor's appointments and shopping, I'm going to Austin for the Texas Photographic Society's PHOTOTexas weekend. I'll get to go to the auction, check out galleries, and see photography friends. I was planning to take a 1/2 day workshop but it was cancelled due to a death in the instructor's family. I'll also get to meet with a group of Houston photographers who get together monthly to show what they are working on. I do miss these monthly meetings while I'm in Mexico.

This is mostly a week about photography but of course, I'll get to spend some time with family both in Houston and Austin. Really looking forward to catching up on what the grandsons are doing.

Viva Mexico

Viva Mexico, Viva Mexico, Viva Mexico!

Early in the morning of September 16th in 1810, Father Hidalgo rang the bells of the Parroquia church in Dolores Hidalgo and urged the crowd to take up arms against the Spanish Government. This is a picture of where it all began in Dolores Hidalgo. And last night we were there for the Grito.

We always say that we don't drive at night in Mexico and certainly not at night on the Dolores highway on a Mexican holiday. I use the word highway but it isn't really what you would think of as a highway. This year we decided to throw caution to the wind and live it up. We went to Dolores with three other crazy gringos. Going over was no problem. It was still daylight.

We found a parking place facing in the direction we would be leaving and almost back to where you enter the downtown area....this means maybe 12 blocks from the Centro. We had a lot of time before the Grito at 11:00 PM so we decided that maybe we would have a drink. Not easy to find because no alcohol or beer was being sold from 8:00 PM to 11:00 PM. But we stopped in a restaurant on the square and had a drink and some botanos just in the nick of time. After that we walked around the plaza to see what was happening and figure out where we might want to position ourselves. The plaza in Dolores is very big with the Parroquia church at one end, government buildings on one side and the other two sides are colonial buildings occupied by offices, restaurants and stores.

After a slow cruise around the plaza and through the market, we headed back to a street that we had seen earlier that was lined with taco stands, tables and stools. We found one that looked good and we ordered plate after plate of tacos of beef, pastor, chorizo, grilled onions and chiles. Yes, my friends, we ate the street food including the raw veggies on top of the tacos and sliced radishes and cucumbers. So far, so good. Unfortunately you couldn't linger over the table because there were other customers waiting. We relinquished our stools and headed back to the plaza.

Another turn around the plaza and now there were street performers for the gathering crowds, ranchero bands looking for gigs, flag, hat and horn sellers, and lots of face painters. They were even putting on glittery eyelashes. We found a curb to sit on and people watch. About 10:00 PM the lights went out and a movie was shown high beside the Dolores Parroquia church. I was thinking that this was going to be nice. There was a huge crowd but it wasn't too bad. Wrong. About 10:30 the young people started piling into the plaza. One half of them wanted to go on way and the other half wanted to go the other way. No matter where you were standing there was a line of traffic shoving its way through the crowd that had already gathered. This wasn't what I was hoping for in Dolores. I had been in a crowd like this one time in San Miguel for the Grito and had said never again but here I was.

At 11:00 PM the most important government official in the town is suppose to come out to the crowd and shout, Viva Mexico, Viva Mexico, Viva Mexico. Last year President Fox was in Dolores for the Grito. This year we assume that the Mayor of Dolores did the shout but we didn't hear anything nor did we hear a band playing the National Anthem. But you could hear shouts across the plaza and there was horn blowing and flag waving. A few minutes after 11:00 PM the fireworks started. A wonderful castillo in front of the Parroquia and then aerial starburst fireworks.

Now it was time to go home, except for the young people who were ready to party and dance in the plaza. But we couldn't move in any direction. We were being pushed from every side. At the corner where there was a firetruck with some of the firemen up on top of it, some people handed babies and small children up to them to get them out of the crush. There were still people trying to come into the plaza and there were those of us trying to get out. The firemen were shouting at the crowds trying to clear a passage. We were stuck like this for maybe 15 minutes. Once again I was saying never again.

Finally the crowd from the plaza was able to break through and it was such a relief to get out into some open space. We headed back to the car. The traffic out of town wasn't bad at all and there were police in lots of places along the highway. Still I was very relieved when we pulled the car up to the house safe and sound.

Happy Birthday Mexico.....but next year I think I will watch the fireworks in San Miguel from my terrace.

Jose's Bouquet

While I was waiting for Jose to cut my hair, I photographed some flowers in a bouquet that he had on the table. I was using the Holga lens cap on my digital camera. To get this close up you have to completely unscrew the lens from the cap and hold it like a magnifying glass until you find a focus.

Maria's Beauty Shop

The shop sits on the corner of Orizaba and Refugio with big double doors open on Orizaba to catch the breeze from the North. It is tiled in white with heavy chrome beauty salon chairs upholstered in red. These chairs are from the 1950s. They line one side of the room.

For a while the shop was on my street just a few doors up the street from me. But about a month ago it moved to its new and prime location facing a busy street. While it was still on my street I had stopped in to have a pedicure late one afternoon. The young woman who gave me the pedicure couldn't speak English and so our conversation was limited because of my poor Spanish but I did find out that she was from the campo and that her father and brothers and one sister were in Mississippi working. She thought that she might go there someday too. Yesterday I stopped and made an appointment for today.

Today only Maria, the shop's owner, was working and so she did my pedicure. Maria lived in Los Angeles for a while and she spoke some English and I spoke some Spanish and so we had one of those weird conversations where both languages were mutilated but somehow we communicated. I'm not sure how long Maria lived in Los Angeles but her husband retired after working for one company for 40 years. She had worked in a beauty shop in the States and talked about beauty shops being licensed. I'm not sure what she did in the beauty shop but she has some experience. She is proud of her shop and told me that she brought the chairs for the shop from the United States.

Maria has seven children, six boys and one daughter. The daughter is a doctor with the Mexican social security system in San Miguel and she is what brought them to San Miguel to live. But as kids do, the daughter recently had to move to Leon for her job. One son was born in the United States and is in college in California. At this point, he doesn't want to live in Mexico. The other sons are scattered in Mexico and the United States. Maria and her husband live in our Colonia. I asked her if her husband was working here in Mexico and she said no, that now he was retired he like to read.....well who can't relate to that.

Maria asked me if I liked living in San Miguel and if I missed Texas. When I asked her the same questions, her answers were a little tentative. She said she had only been here for five months but she was getting use to it.

My friend Marcia walked by and stopped to talk while my toes were getting "done." Before I left, someone stopped in for a manicure and then someone else came in and asked Maria a question which I didn't understand, but he sat down to wait until she was through with the manicure. I think her shop is going to do okay.

I love using the shops and tiendas in our Colonia. I don't know of any other Colonia in San Miguel that has such a wonderful neighborhood feeling. Barber shop, paper store, tienda, restaurant, pizza shop, taco stands, internet cafes, bakery, tortilleros, meat markets.....they are all right here. And now a Beauty Salon.....right on the corner.

Too Busy

I wrote earlier in the week about the 1950's here in San Miguel and said that someone should be writing some of these stories. Some of my dear readers encouraged me to do it. I like to write in my journal. I like to write in my blog. All of that is pretty straight-forward writing. When I read a story written by my friend Dianne, I see how she sets up place and describes the characters. I'm sure I could try to do a better job of that in my writing but I don't think I could do it as well as she does. But to write a book or a screen play..........no, no, no. It would take time to learn about all the technical stuff, time to research the stories, time to do some serious writing, and time to do PR and marketing in a field that I know nothing about.

I'm already far too busy with my work. My photography.

I'm processing old work for a couple of projects. I'm still shooting new work. I have an idea or two for some new projects and those will take time. I have to get ready for a show next March.

And then there is living.....shopping for groceries, cooking, gardening, washing clothes....and doing fun things like seeing friends.

No, I'm not the one to write these histories of San Miguel although if I hear a good story, I'll blog about it for you.

Oh, the picture at the top has nothing to do with this blog entry except that I shot it this week with the Holga.

Simple Stuff

Simple stuff....that is what works best with the Holga camera.

1950's....Putting A Few Pieces Together

I would have loved to have seen San Miguel de Allende in the 1950's.....at least I think I would because of some bits and pieces I've been told or some things I've seen. I hope that someone is interviewing some of the people who came here 40 or 50 years ago. I'm sure some of the stories would be hard to imagine now.

From what I've been able to put together, while this was a sleepy little village, it attracted a very interesting crowd. The glitterati from Mexico City. Some had homes here and some came to visit and party. The wealthy ranchers from the North side of the Rio Grande. And of course those on the GI-bill who came to study art.

One elderly matron told me about coming to San Miguel from a large northern city. She fell in love with the town and bought property and commenced building a house. I don't think she or her children went back and eventually the marriage dissolved. Oh, but she had tales of traveling across Mexico with her Mexican lover and being invited to all the parties in Mexico City, Puerta Vallarta and Acapulco when they were just fishing villages but still places for the glitterati to party. She told how she was able to keep up with all the gossip, like who was sleeping with who, because everyone had live-in maids. When the maids went to the market, they exchanged the news and brought it back to the Mistress of the House. There were only one or two telephones in the town and when you received a call someone from the Presidencia came running to your house to let you know that you had a phone call.

Another woman from South Texas, a little younger than me, told me about coming here as a young girl with her family and then bringing her own family during the summers. The kids would go off in the morning to play and when she wanted them to come home she would tell a cab driver to go to the Jardin and tell them it was time to come back up the hill for comida.

You see evidence of the this time period in houses and businesses up near Barranca and on up to Salida a Queretaro. We have a friend who rented a house that was in a time warp with faded chenille bedspreads, blond furniture, pink and aqua color schemes, 1940's upholstered pieces and ancient appliances. On Sunday when we went into the Posada de la Ermita Hotel, I felt like I had stepped back into the 1950's. The furniture, the carpet, the salon lined with cartoons from a famous Mexican cartoonist whose name escapes me now. In El Mirador where we had a light comida on Sunday, the bar was lined with movie publicity pictures of the Mexican stars from the 1950's movie era.

Just across the street from El Mirador Bar is the home of Pedro Vargas a world renown singer and native son of San Miguel de Allende. Once when we were volunteer docents for the Home and Garden Tour in San Miguel we worked in the Vargas house. It was a rambling house with a beautiful view of San Miguel but it too was caught in a 1950's time warp. I loved a room, which we might now call a den or media room, that was filled with pictures of celebrities from the music world such as Sinatra. I wondered how many of them may have visited Vargas in San Miguel.

I have read Edward Weston's Day Books about his time in Mexico during the 20's and 30's. I love the movie Frida with its lush sets and sultry atmosphere. Somehow I see some of those images happening here in San Miguel. The glitterati, the smoke, the long talks over wine, the love affairs, the mad dashes through the countryside, the ocean seen from the Vallarta hillsides, the clinging bias cut dresses, the hats tilted over the eye. Oh, if only I were a writer.......I just know that there are some grand stories here waiting to be told, waiting to be put on the screen.

Just When I Think I've Seen It All.......

Just when I think I've seen it all here in San Miguel, I find that there are new things to discover. Last weekend was the Celebration for Our Lady of Loreto. Part of the celebration was at the Oratorio Church on Saturday but on Sunday the celebration moved up the hill to the Templo de la Ermita. La Ermita is a tiny chapel on Salida a Queretaro that was constructed to commemorate when the figure of the Virgin was brought to San Miguel and she was declared the Exalted Patroness of the City. Now the figure is in the Santa Casa chapel next to the Oratorio church. But La Ermita still considers the figure, Nuestra Senora de Loreto, or Our Senora of Loreto, as their patron saint.

I can't believe that we haven't been up to La Ermita before to see this celebration but we have certainly "heard" the festivities. Maybe we haven't been up there because it is such a climb up the hill but Sunday we decided to go check it out.

When we arrived at Salida Queretaro and Loreto, Mass was underway in the tiny chapel and it was full. We hung out on the little terrace of the church and watched the traffic and the people still going in and out. Over an hour later when the service was complete, I slipped in an took a few pictures of this jewel of a chapel. We were told that the traffic would be blocked off on Salida from 2:00 PM to 10:00 PM for the festival. Of course when we were told this it was already close to 2:30 and the buses were still rumbling by. Salida Queretaro is one of the main entry roads into the town. We wondered how they would ever be able to close this road.

What amazes me is the amount of organization that these festivities require and everyone seems to pitch in and help get it done. While we were waiting for the street to close we did some exploring on Salida and decided to try out a place we didn't know about. It was a tiny hotel, restaurant and bar by the Mirador called....what else?....El Mirador. Up the stairs to the bar and we were the only ones there but the beer was cold. We ordered guacamole. By this time a couple of trucks carrying children's rides had pulled up blocking some of the traffic on Salida. The guys from the church had walkie-talkies and they were telling the bus drivers not to come this way again because they were getting ready to close the street. Now to add to the scene from the windows in the bar, a huge storm cloud was coming in from the North. This was all pretty interesting to watch so we ordered quesadillas and watched some more. We paid our check and headed back for the church. The traffic had been stopped and the trucks with the children's rides were unloading and putting them together. Some more booths had been set up near the church selling pizza, chips, cokes, clothes and stuff. A kid's dance troupe was dressed and ready and soon the Indian drums started in and they were dancing in the streets. The sun disappeared behind the clouds and it was looking more and more like rain. Another dance group, this one adults in elaborate costumes, feathered headdresses and anklets of shells were dressed. But before they performed they headed into the church to sing and chant. I though I would get a picture of them as they left the church but they backed out of the church en mass and all though I took some shots, it wasn't what I was hoping for. Almost as soon as they started to dance, the rain started. Lightly at first but then harder. We ran for the hotel beside the church, the Posada de la Ermita and had a drink and watched from the windows while the dancers continue on in the rain.

The rain let up and about 5:00 PM we headed back down the hill toward home even though we knew that there was much more to come but we had been up there since around noon. The Mexicans just have more stamina than I do. Still all evening after we got home, we heard fireworks from time to time and if the wind was just right you could hear the drums.

The Salida was suppose to open again at 10:00 PM but I don't think it did because the castillo and fireworks at the end of the festival didn't start until after 10:30. Next year we'll go to La Ermita about 6:00 PM and see the other half of the festival.

I don't think I'll ever get bored here. We've been coming here for years and have lived here for about five years.....still we haven't seen it all.

Vines

Almost everyday I walk by the house that has these vines growing on the wall. On Monday when I was trying out the new Holga, I stopped to take the picture. The Virginia Creeper is a more yellow green and the English ivy is a blue green. In color, it is okay but when I changed it to black and white and adjusted the tonalities, it became interesting to me.

I used the Quadtone RIP to print a small print. Just about 5x5 inches. There is something so intimate about small hand-held images. This tiny print about nothing really, feels right in the small size.

I know that the trend is for ever bigger prints for gallery walls. Today I was talking with a friend about big prints and how the size changes everything about them even the way you adjust their tonality. Would this image command a presence in a large size? I don't know and then of course I have the problem that it is a Holga image to start with. How big could it be printed before it starts to fall apart?

Holga Monday

Debbie brought me the new Holga that Randy at Holgamods had modified for me. So what's a photoing girl to do? I had to try it out. Left the house Monday morning with the Holga loaded with one roll of film and two more in my pocket. This one seems to have some pretty funky stuff going on around the edges and a fairly sharp just left of center focus.
This one might have some good Mojo in it. Some Mexicano Mojo de colores!

Don's Secrets

You aren't going to find this cookbook on Amazon.com. Copyright is 1958. I've had my copy since about 1962. This cookbook is from Don's Seafood and Steak House in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. It is small, just 52 pages long. Don's was a family business that started in 1934 when Don Landry opened his doors to the public as Don's Barbecue Stand. It was a one-table affair in a screen and frame building. Later, it became Don's Beer Parlor, then Don's Seafood Inn. The business grew as family members kept joining the business and the food just kept getting better and better and the business expanded into other locations. In the 1980's some parts of it were sold and are now know as Landry's Seafood House and it is part of a large corporation, Landry's Restaurants. But the original cajun seafood business still exists in a number of locations in Louisiana and Texas.

It is a pretty tattered cookbook these days but I love it enough that I brought it with me to San Miguel. I don't follow it exactly either because some of the techniques and the fat levels in the book are outdated but for the essence of cajun cooking, yes, I do follow it. Also some of the amounts that it makes are restaurant size. For example the Remoulade Sauce starts off with 1 pint of tomato catsup and 1/2 pint of mayonnaise and 1/2 pint of olive oil. With all the other things that are added in, you are going to end up with almost a 1/2 gallon of remoulade sauce. A bit more than I can use. And everything says serve with steamed rice.

The reason I'm telling you about the cookbook is because we have feasted on the Chicken Sauce Piquante recipe for the last two nights. Tonight it was even better than the night I made it. Over the years I've adjusted the recipe and while it is basically the same, I like it with less liquid so that it is more of a thick stew rich with the holy trinity or onion, celery and green pepper. How could you possibly cook any cajun food without the holy trinity? As you can tell from the splattered looks of this page from the cookbook, my very favorite recipe of all in the cookbook is Baked Red Fish. At least it use to be my favorite when you could buy "real" red fish. Let me tell you, farm raised red fish isn't Gulf of Mexico Red Fish....no way. The recipe is red fish cooked in a cajun sauce similar to the one used on the chicken. You need a thick, flaky fish and I've used Chilean Sea Bass and that works well but the cost of Chilean Sea Bass in Houston has gone over the top. It was definitely out of my everyday budget. I haven't even seen it here in San Miguel although I'm sure there must be markets in Queretaro where I could buy it...probably for a price similar to the price in Houston.

Yes, we do love Mexican food but aren't we lucky that I can still tap into Don's Secrets.

Change

I've been posting images of the Yucatecan churches that I made in 1994. I don't remember how many trips we made to the Yucatan while I was working on this project. We would get a hotel in Merida and a car and everyday we'd go out looking for the 16th century churches. Our guidebook was Richard Perry's book, Maya Missions, Exploring the Spanish Colonial Churches of Yucatan. It is a great book and if you are going to exploring the Yucatan I suggest that you get this book.

This is one of the altars in Mani. Perry writes,

"The collection of fine, early retablos at Mani is unrivaled in Yucatan. Particularly famous is an exceptional pair of late Renaissance side retablos, crafted in the mid 1600s by an unknown provincial artist, dubbed the "Master of Mani." These guilded altarpieces, while simple in form, are fused with a vigor and freshness of the carving that is the equal of any other Mexican work of the period."

Today my friend Deb told me that Perry had just posted a new newsletter about the altars in the church in Mani. They have been restored.

In a way this makes me feel sad but this is very wrong for me to feel this way. They are treasures and they must be preserved. But I guess my fear is that when I go back to Mani, the church will look pristine like a designer house. That it will have lost its homey feeling. The feeling that people come in and bring flowers and move things around and put down home embroidered pieces on the altars and light candles. Like in the image above, who placed the picture of St. Theresa (I think that it is an image of her) at this altar and strung plastic flowers and left an empty vase and lit the candle? And why did they do it? Will they leave the doors open as they did in the past so that anyone can go in and out during the day?

At any rate, Perry's pictures of the restored altars are colorful and beautiful. Maybe when I go back it will be time to switch the camera to color.

Grain or Noise

I've been scanning some Tri-X negatives from the 90's. I'm afraid I'm so spoiled from the smooth looks of digital files that the grain from the Tri-X film is driving me crazy. And here I've been worrying about noise in digital files from my Canon 5D. Ha! That is nothing and with the noise suppression software, like Noise Ninja, you can fix most of it and still not lose the detail in the digital image.

That isn't the case with the Tri-X negatives. Don't know why the grain surprises me though. You used grain focusing aids to focus the enlarger. When the grain was sharp and distinct, then the image would be sharp (if the image was sharp to begin with.) Seems like several years ago that I read somewhere about some techniques to lessen the look of the film grain when processing scans in Photoshop. I'm going to have to do some research especially so I can figure out how to smooth out the skies. I've tried only applying Noise Ninja to a selection of the sky because it will smudge up the detail in the grass if you use it on the whole image but I'm sure that there are better solutions. I've had to print some of them just to see if all those spotty dots I see when I'm working with the file at 100 percent were going to show up. Luckily it wasn't as bad looking printed on the paper as it is on the screen.

I have used Delta ISO 3200 black and white film for another couple of projects but those were with a Holga. The Holga can't make a sharp image anyway and the grain of the Delta 3200, developed for 400 ISO was really quite acceptable for those projects when the film was scanned. In fact, I think it added to the image. But with the Mexican 16th century churches, I need sharp detail.

This is a church in Sacalum, Yucatan built on the mound of a pyramid as all of the 16th century churches are in the Yucatan. Not the most exciting of my 16th century church pictures but it illustrates the problem with the grain. I didn't want the sky looking all dotty and I wanted the detail in the grasses. Thank God I was shooting 120 film. If these had been shot with 35mm film, I don't think I would even try to do anything with them. But I've always had this dream of pulling this long-term project together in a book. Now with being able to self publish, maybe, just maybe, I can make this dream come true.

Storm Front

Actually this isn't today but it was a couple of days ago. Ned called me up to the terrace to see "the light." See what being married to a photographer does for you. Instead of saying "the storm" he knew that saying "the light" would get me up there. Photographers have this big thing for good light, interesting light, strange light, low light.....but storms don't always mean photographic light. This storm cloud was amazing. The edge of the storm seemed to stretch over half of the city and yet there was still a glow on the buildings. We've had rain in the last few days but I can't remember whether this particular storm cloud was also one of the rain clouds.

Across the Street This Morning

How houses get built here never ceases to amaze me. Alfredo, our neighbor across the street, is adding on to his house. Today they are pouring the roof. Now this is a first class set-up. They have a automated cement mixer. Most of the time on smaller jobs the cement is mixed by hand. But the way to get it to the roof is still the same. Shovel it in buckets, hoist it up on shoulders and carry it up a ladder to the roof. Pour the bucket and go get another bucket, hoist it up on.......over and over until the whole roof is poured. Then the traditionally way to finish up the day is with a big comida furnished by the home owner.

Can you imagine doing this for six hours? even four hours? At least it is cool today.