Lost in the Yucatan

This is a portrait that I made of Don Miguel and his family in 1995. We met Don Miguel on one of our visits to the Yucatan in a tiny village just outside of Merida on the libre road between Merida and Cancun in maybe 1992 or 1993.

On the right-hand side of the road I saw a tiny church so of course we pulled off the road and bounced over the rutted path back to the church. It looked well tended while the hacienda ruins behind it did not. We got out of the car and walked past the dogs and chickens and into the little church which was little more than a chapel and then back out again and over to the ruins of the hacienda. It was a small hacienda with some portals. Most of the roof was missing but you could still see some of the "wall-paper-like" painting on the walls. I took some pictures of the hacienda. When we came back to the front of the hacienda we realized that there was henequen drying on lines strung across a field and then a shed where some men were tying and stacking the henequen.

We went back into the church and there was a man cleaning up in the church. Ned asked him if I could make some pictures in the church and he said yes. My camera was on the tripod and I shot some images and then we asked him if I could make a picture of him.

Over the next few years we stopped several times in this village and visited with Don Miguel and his family. One year they invited us to have comida with them during Day of the Dead. What I'm telling you is that we knew this village but on our recent trip to the Yucatan we could not find it. It was so small that it was not on any map. It was just a few houses on the side of the road where the hacienda was and a few more on the other side of the libre road. I don't think we ever even saw a name for the village. Still we knew it was between Kanasin and another small village that started with Pech??? and we found that village but not Don Miguel's village.

Everywhere we went in the Yucatan there has been so much widening of roads, building new roads, changing access roads that we were disoriented much of the time. In Tizimin, in Ticul, in Valladolid large parts of the town were torn up as new utility lines were being laid and new roads built. The old two narrow lane libre roads were widened and tied in to cuota roads. Overpasses were built to cross over the highways. And somewhere in these civic improvement projects Don Miguel and his village were lost in the Yucatan.

Remembering Mariana Yampolsky

A Mexican from Uruapan who sometimes comments on my Flickr site wrote, "Your photos remind me of Mariana Yampolsky´s." When I read that my heart skipped a beat. Such a wonderful compliment but it also brought back some special memories.

Many years ago when someone from Mexico was reviewing my portfolio, she said, "Your work reminds me of Mariana Yampolsky. She lives in Mexico City. You really should look her up the next time you are there. I think you two would have a lot to talk about." And that is what I did.

I was able to get her telephone number and so before I left Texas, I called to ask if she might have time to meet me. She was delightful and invited us to dinner in her home. I asked if there was anything she needed and she asked if I could bring her some photographic paper. Mexico was in the middle of a peso devaluation and she wasn't able to buy paper at that time but she needed some for a show she was printing. I took her some paper. She and her husband were so gracious to us and we had a lovely dinner. She asked me how much she owed me for the paper and I said that she did not need to pay me but if she had a work print that she could give me I'd love to have a piece of her work. She opened her flat files and gave me a print and then she casually mentioned that the Museum of Modern Art in NYC had recently purchased this same print for their permanent collection. I saw Mariana Yampolsky several time after that and she always remembered me and was so gracious.

Now I don't think my work holds a candle to Mariana's body of work in Mexico and yet I felt that we did have a kindred spirit in the way we approached light and the way we both loved the commonplace of Mexican life. So you can see why my heart skipped a beat when I read the comment on Flickr.

Mariana Yampolsky was from Chicago but in the 1940's she moved to Mexico and in the 1950's she became a Mexican citizen. Originally she was a printmaker but in the late 1940's she took up photography. Mariana was very much a part of the artistic and photographic community in Mexico. She was in many exhibitions around the world. Several monographs of her work have been published and she is included in many other photography books about Mexico. The monograph I like best was published by the University of Texas Press, The Edge of Time. Mariana died May 3, 2002.

Archive #14

I've been working on a project and have not been able to focus on the blog but I thought I'd post another archive image. This is another from a small village outside of Oaxaca.

Archive #12

Nearly everytime we are out in villages and go inside a church there will be a dog or two. Quite often we find them, like this old white dog, right in the middle of the aisle during a mass or wedding or funeral. Most of the time no one pays any attention to them and I don't think they are paying any attention to the congregation either. Just one more thing I like about Mexico.

Archive #11

Yesterday I was looking back in my old negatives. I had an inquiry from a design firm about using some of my images for one of their projects. It doesn't look like it is going to work out for a number of reasons. This isn't one of the images that they inquired about but while I was looking I saw this one and it brought back a day of wonderful memories from a two-week workshop I took in Oaxaca in the summer of 1994.

No Internet

Last night the internet connection went down and we just got reconnected about 3:30 PM. This isn't unusual here because if the internet goes down when the offices are closed there will be no repair until people come back into the office whether that is after comida or the next morning or after the weekend. Seems very strange to me as I worked for a cable company in the States and 24/7 repair service was expected.

I feel so disconnected with my world when we don't have the internet but we did get a lot of things done today. We ran a lot of errands and went to the Tuesday Market. We stopped by the Cable company to find out what the problem was with the internet because their phone wasn't working either. They said it had just come back on. This was about 9:30 AM. It still wasn't working when we returned home at 12 noon. And their phones still weren't working either so we couldn't call. Ned drove back to the cable company to report that even if they had repaired the problem our cable wasn't working. They told him some things to try. That didn't work either so he drove back and they said they would send someone out this afternoon. We haven't seen a repairman yet, but the internet magically came on again.

The internet being out wasn't all bad. It gave me time to scan a couple of negatives from 2000 from a series I did of gardens. I worked on the images and made prints. This is called the potting shed and yes, it is a holga image.

More 16th Century Mexican Churches

Most of the Catholic Churches built on Mayan religious sites that I have photographed have been in the Yucatan but these two are in the State of Quintana Roo. I've always like this church in Xocchel with its graceful palms.
The churches in the Yucatan and Quintana Roo were built as community centers to teach the Maya the way of the Church. They are different yet similar in simplicity. This church is in Yaxcaba and I had been inside photographing and now was exploring the wonderful afternoon shadows on the exterior. These two curious little boys were following me and watching me set up my camera and tripod. I have several shots of the exterior without them in it but I think I like this one best.

Shy

This little boy was running with the boys around the centro in Hoctun, Yucatan. He was so shy that I think this is the only image I got of him actually looking at me. The look only lasted a fleeting second. This image was made about this time of year in 1994, 14 years ago. I wonder what he is doing now. I wonder if he is still as shy.

Portraits from the Yucatan

On our trips to the Yucatan, we always stopped in Hoctun. At first I didn't have much luck photographing people but everytime we went back, I'd take back some of the photographs I made the last time. After a while the people working in the Mercado trusted me and when I asked permission they would pose for me. These two images were made in January 1998.

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.

Archive #10 - Yotholin, Yucatan

I was working on photographing the 16th century churches in Mexico. We had spent the night in Ticul in the Yucatan and our first stop that morning was Yotholin. The early morning light was flooding over this Madonna. I didn't move a thing. It was perfect as it was.

Archive #9 - Real de Catorce

In 1995 we went to Real de Catorce. It is an old mining town that you reach by going through a one-lane mining tunnel. I had heard that it was a strange place and it was. In some ways it was as if time has stood still. The village hangs on the side of the mountain and there are two churches. This one was up the hill from the main part of the village. The sun was in the right place and the sky was gorgeous. All the elements just kind of fell into place.

I wonder if Real de Catorce has become touristized (yes, I know that probably isn't a real word) or if we were to go back, would we feel like we were walking with the ghosts.

First Born

Michael was our first born. Born on July 1. I won't say how long ago but his next birthday will be one of those biggies with a "0" at the end. This portrait was made in a studio when he was four years old. I just love his little blond crew cut. He was the first grandchild on either side of the family and he was spoiled by everyone. He started walking before he was 10 months old and he was into everything. He liked music and he liked to build great structures with tinker toys. I thought he would be an engineer. But he ended up with an MBA from the University of Chicago and is into financial management.

Happy birthday, Michael.

Remembering Our Fathers

Edward (Ned) Bernerd Mercer, Jr

Alfred (Bill) Williams

Ned's Dad and mine. Probably made around 1933. They were handsome young men.

Looking at these pictures brings back many memories of these two men....far beyond the event that was photographed. In fact, neither of us was born when these images were made and yet because we have seen these images all our lives they are part of our collective family history. Steve Edwards in his book Photography, a very short introduction writes:

Photographs provoke acts of memory recalling us to things, places, and people. They establish connections across time and space, inducing chains of association. What will be dredged up in memory's driftnet cannot be predicted in advance; an item of clothing or decor in a picture can spark connections and associations. This may be why discussions of family photographs rarely dwell on the images themselves.

Snapshot #2 - My Dad

Bill Williams
March 31, 1906 to July 4, 1984

Stephen Shore says in his book, The Nature of Photographs, "As an object, a photograph has its own life in the world. It can be saved in a shoebox or in a museum. It can be reproduced as information or as an advertisement. It can be bought and sold. It may be regarded as a utilitarian object or as a work of art."

I've never seen the actual photograph from this negative that I scanned today but I've seen this negative for as long as I can remember. It was in a box with other pictures....not a shoe box but maybe a dress box. I'm guessing that my Dad was about 3 years old when this was made. It is a very strange negative. The material is very heavy and stiff. Nothing like what we think of as a negative today. The size is about 5.5 inches by 3.75 inches and the image only takes up 1/2 of the space so it looks like another oval image of the same size could be on the other side. It doesn't look like this was made by a professional photographer, certainly not in a studio.

Was this the original negative or was it made at a later time. George Eastman House has some of Lewis Hine's negatives....all clumped in the 1906-1938 time frame. Some are glass plates and others are gelatin on nitrocellulose sheet film. If this is an original negative, it is coming up on 100 years old. It is deteriorating badly. The emulsion is silvered and on one side it is bronzing. The "shiny" side of the substrate is crazed with tiny cracks. Or was this a negative made in the 1930's from an old photograph. I don't really know. This photograph/negative has had a life of it's own in the world. When did it end up in the box in my Mother's hope chest?

I was always told that this was a photograph of my Father but even without being told I think I would recognize the sharp brow over the eyes and the set of the mouth. I look at it and I think I see traces of my Father in my sons and in their sons. But seeing it, I also see traces of my Father's whole life. Family images are amazing possessions to have to remember things that we have witnessed and things that we did not witness but are still in our consciousness.

Archive #8 - Acanceh

Acanceh is another small village outside of Merida in the Yucatan. Yucatan Living recently wrote about Acanceh and their Passion of Christ pageant so that made me go looking for some of my negatives of the village. This church was built on the ruins of a Mayan temple and with the stones from other Mayan structures around it. One Mayan pyramid still remains more or less intact, just almost across the street from this church. This church has a long barrel vault and I don't remember seeing this type of log bracing in the ceiling in many other churches in the Yucatan.

The day I made these pictures I was standing just in front of some scaffolding where men were working at repairing the ceiling of the church. You can see how high the ceiling is and they were hauling buckets of paint up from the floor by rope and guiding the rope between their toes since they didn't have pulley. Hey, the job had to be done so you do what you gotta do.

Archive #7 - Don Miguel

Driving out of Merida, we passed by this hacienda and there was a chapel so we stopped. I photographed some around the ruins of the hacienda and then we went into the chapel. It was in fairly good repair and was still being used. A older man was in the back doing some cleaning. We asked permission to photograph. He said "Si." After I photographed some in the Chapel I asked if I might photograph him. He went and found a chair and "posed" for me. This is very typical of older Mexicans. Don Miguel had a dignity and an expectation of how he wanted to appear in a photograph. On our next trip to Merida, we took a photograph to him.

Archive #5 - San Bernardino de Sisal

Another church from the Yucatan. This one photographed in 1994 is also from Valladolid just a few blocks from the central plaza. San Bernardino de Sisal is a rambling 16th century monastery. I had been photographing in the main chapel and wandered out the side of the church to find the circular well house. When I came back through the cloister I saw this "modern mess" of ice chest, coke bottles, light switches and plastic sacks of garbage. Finding these "scenes" of how these places of worship have adapted over 400+ years was a part of my facination with the old churches in Mexico.

Archive #4

This is the Cathedral in Valladolid in the Yucatan photographed in February, 1994. I worked on a long project of photographing the 16th century churches in Mexico and the Cathedral isn't from the 16th century but instead the 18th. Still it sits on the main plaza in Valladolid and is a built solidly like a fort. We were wandering around in the church and found our way back to this room. Who would miss out on photographing this wonderful light just because the church missed the criteria by a couple of hundred years.