I Missed Good Friday

Yesterday I kept thinking about Good Friday in San Miguel. I was missing not just Good Friday but all the San Miguel rituals around Easter. Yes, it is Easter here too but about all that exists to remind you of Easter are colored Easter eggs and chocolate bunnies. Oh, and grocery store advertisments about food for Sunday.

Since I wasn't there to photograph the procession in Colonia San Antonio for Good Friday, I started looking back through my files at what I had photographed in prior years. When I got to 2007, I stopped. I had almost 100 images from that Good Friday and none of them had been processed. I don't know what happened that year but for some reason they have just been sitting there. I worked on them in Lightroom and put some of them in a gallery if you'd like to go see them.

What Do You Think?

Some of my readers may miss this comment on the blog entry about Luces de Historia y Libertad. I think it brings up a couple of good points so I'd like to know your thoughts on these issues.

JW's Comment: Of course, we are just looking at small static images online, but my first reaction was that this is not really appropriate for a church, not even with today's popular culture. Didn't say anything, just showed the pics to the Mexican better-half who is, quite frankly, in a word, appalled.
JW
-Mexican bicentennial/French artist?
 
My Reply: JW, You bring up a couple of interesting points. I thought it was a little strange that the Mexicans employed a French Artist to do this work. In general the Mexicans are very nationalistic. I can't imagine them employing an artist from the USA but maybe a Frenchman is okay since they killed off Maximillan by way of the firing squad and got rid of the government imposed by the French.

The other issue, the light show on the church.... I did not think that was odd at all. There is such a strange mix between the Country of Mexico and the Catholic church. We were in the Jardin with hundreds of Mexicans watching the light show and all of them seemed delighted and proud of their country and the bicentennial celebration. I have not heard of anything negative in any of the Mexican newspapers about the light show or the fact that it is projected on the face of the Parroquia church.
 
Calypso of Viva Veracruz blog has already weighed in with a comment about the light show being projected on the church: JW - I guess throwing some colored light on the Cathedral is more disrespectful than pummeling its surfaces with explosives? Often the case in our area; much celebrating with fireworks that often pellet the building. Oh well one mans revelry is another's revoltion I guess. 

What about some of the rest of my readers:
 
1. What do you think about a Frenchman being employed to do the light show?
2. Do you think it is inappropriate for the multimedia light show about the history of Mexico to be reflected on a Mexican church?

The New Photoshop, CS5

I'm digging in again after the book blitz. I have so much to do. I am learning CS5, the latest version of Photoshop. Doing the book gave me the opportunity to use some of the new features but there are others to explore. So far one of the best new features is the improved noise reduction in Camera Raw. I was using a third party plug-in that did a good job but I like to keep all my workflow in Photoshop. Makes my life simplier.

Selection and layer improvements are appreciated. In general Adobe fixed a lot of little things that just make the workflow smoother. Then there are a couple of things that have changed which aggravate me and I'm sure that there is some way to go back to the old way but I haven't had time to figure that out yet.

There are two new things that might be helpful for commercial photographers and they get a lot of play on videos touting the new Photoshop version but I doubt I'll use them much. One of them is the content aware fill. I've tried it. Sometimes it doesn't work very well but other times it can fix something that you would have sat at the computer for a long time gradually filling the area. It worked for me when I wanted to take an ADT sign out of one of the images in the book. Zap! It was gone. The other is puppet warp. The tutorial videos are amazing but I don't think it is a feature that I will use.

So, okay. I've paid my Adobe Photoshop tax. I'm probably good to go for another 18 months.

I made the image above last February. We went to Mass at the Chorro Church. Some Mexican friends say that prayers made in that church have been answered. It is a tiny church and the service was beautiful. I said my prayers. I also made a few photos with my little point & shoot camera the Canon S90 at 800 ISO. The camera starts to get a bit noisy at higher ISO's so I used the noise reduction in CS5 and the Post Crop Vignette. They worked very well.

San Isidro

Yesterday was the Day of San Isidro. He is the Patron of Rain and Agriculture. Village priests bless the livestock. In some villages they decorate the livestock before they take them to be blessed. This morning it is cloudy and feels like it could rain. Some good prayers must have been said yesterday.

Viernes de Dolores

Last night we walked with some friends through our neighborhood to look at the altars built in the doorway of homes. The occasion was Viernes de Dolores and commemorates the pain and sorrow of the Mother of Christ.

People use their religious objects of Jesus on the Cross and a picture of Mary in great sorrow and usually with tears in her eyes looking up at the cross.

The color scheme is purple, white and gold. They use sprouted seeds, oranges, herbs and greenery to decorate.

Fruit waters and small ice creams are served to those who come to pray at these home altar.

In the Centro the altars are more elaborate and the crowds are huge but I much prefer walking in my Colonia and seeing my neighbor's altars. For me it is much more spiritual experience.

Click this link to learn more about this event that is usually considered the start of Semana Santa.

Hell, Purgatory and Paradise

I've seen figures like this in a number of churches in Mexico. This one I took during October in the Salud church here in San Miguel. Most of the time the ones I have seen have been similar to this one but sometimes it is a single figure immersed in flames from the waist down. Not being Catholic I didn't understand the meaning of it and so I asked Mexico Bob who is Catholic. And would you believe that he was preparing to write a blog entry about this very subject so he asked permission to use my photo. Sometimes God leads us in ways we do not understand.

Mexico Bob's explanation is complete so if you don't know what it means either, click on this link. Now I have a better understanding of hell, purgatory and paradise. And in the future anytime I encounter these figures in a church, I'll stop to say my own prayer. Thanks Bob.

San Miguel Goes Visiting

The San Miguel Festival is over for this year. Today San Miguel was taken out of the Parroquia and he was taken to visit some of the other churches in the centro. San Miguel can't go without an entourage. He had a full compliment of dancers, drums and bands although I don't think it was quite as elaborate as the last few years. Certainly the number of angels was down. Sometimes we have lots of them walking and some riding on a flat bed truck/float. Today we only had about five little angels. Maybe another sign of the economic times. But it was a beautiful procession.

Blessing of the Taxis

We are headed into a busy weekend with the San Miguel Festival. Last night was the blessing of the taxis. Every taxi in town was decorated and lined up and came into the Jardin. Then they were parked in front of the Parroquia. I have never seen the priest actually come out and bless the taxis but this year I did notice that a number of the taxi drivers who had bouquets on their taxis, took them and went into the church so maybe the blessing happens there.
One of the things that made me smile was the taxis lined up with their hoods up like they were waiting for holy water to be sprinkled on each one. If any holy water was sprinkled, I missed it. Still I'm glad to know that when I get into a taxi this year that it has been blessed.


And off of the subject of taxis, some of you may be glad to know that we had garbage pick up again today. Two days this week. Maybe by next week we'll be back to three times a week.

Returning to Atotonilco

Before Easter I wrote about Senor de la Columna's procession and arrival at the San Juan de Dios church. Today he will be returning to Atotonilco. I guess I have never been to the San Juan de Dios church on his departure day but today on my trip to the mercado, I noticed the booths that had been set up all around the church. I walked over to check it out.

The church was full although no service was being conducted. Everyone was kneeling in prayer. The smell of the wilting bouquets and burning candles was heavy, almost like liquid. The spiritual feeling was overwhelming. I sat down and let the moment flood into my senses. Some of the people had stopped in from their daily routines and some appeared to have come a long way to pray to Senor de la Columna. There was a long line of people, mostly women, waiting to go to confession. The church was quiet, dark and solemn.

Outside the church the sun was brilliant and the street was filling up with temporary tiendas. One one side of the street the tiendas were full of religious objects and on the other side of the street the tiendas were preparing food for the pilgrims who would accompany El Senor de la Columna back to Atotonilco.

I had the holga lens on the digital camera and I am glad that I had my camera with me.

Palm Sunday

We haven't been in San Miguel for Palm Sunday for a couple of years so of course I wanted to see the processions. After a great breakfast at the Parroquia Cafe, I headed up San Francisco to the El Calvario chapel at the top of the street. The procession assembled very quickly with Jesus on a donkey in the lead. It only travels a couple of blocks to the San Francisco church. It is a tough procession to photograph because the light is behind the procession and traffic is barely stopped for the procession. If you move out into the street you can get mowed down by a bus.

Today I tried to take advantage of the difficult light and I was hoping that when I photographed into the light I would get a string of light reflections across the image. No string of reflections but I did get this light blub leaking light. And somehow having Jesus and the donkey squeezed in by the bus and the car just seems appropriate for San Miguel.

The next procession starts in Parque Juarez and comes down Sollano which is a fairly narrow street. The sun is still a strong side light which reflects off of the painted buildings and back on the procession. I decided to use narrow depth of field and try to isolate some faces in the procession.

There were lots of photographers out today. All kinds of equipment from a simple point and shoot to some very impressive big long lenses on high end DSLRs. I think that everyone with a big camera was impersonating a National Geographic photographer. Get in, get close and get the shot no matter what. I hear there is a photography workshop or two here in town from now until Easter Sunday. I don't think I can stand to watch. It is like they paid their money and the religious processions have been arranged for them to photograph. I really don't think I want to see what they do at the solemn and silent procession on Friday night.

Blessings

I think I want to be blessed. Is that what you call it when the priest sprinkles holy water and reads from the Bible? Well, whatever it is called, I think it would be very comforting to know that a man of God was putting in a good word for me.

On this evening we were hanging out at the plaza in front of the Oratorio church when this car pulled up and parked. In a few minutes the man came out of the side of the church with the priest. It took about five minutes for the ceremony.

You know if I don't know what is going on, I make up my own story. I think this is a mother and son. At first I thought that maybe they had Dad in the back seat and the priest was coming out to give him last rights but I looked and no one was in the back seat. So, my next thought was that the son had bought a new car and Mama insisted that it must be blessed so he would be safe and the car would not be in a wreck.

Blessing things are big here in the Mexican Catholic church but this is the first time I have seen just one thing blessed in public. Usually it is in front of the Parroquia and it is all the taxis in town, or all the horses, or all the buses, or all the pets, or the new police equipment, or.........there are lots of things to be blessed.

I'm just saying that I think asking for God's blessing is a good thing.