Happy New Year!

I've thinking a lot about what image should I use to end up 2008. As this has been a rather strange year for me, not meaning good or bad, but just that: strange, unusual, different.

There have been loads of new images, faces, and places... and also farewells, but my friends have always been by my side. I don't have a picture with all of you in it, but this one should be a good example of the good times we shared this past year.

All I wish for 2009 is to be able to keep on celebrating life with all of you, my friends.

Wish you all the happiest year ever!

I'll see you around!

When life was easy...

...and everything was possible. Can you remember it? It really was...

Pearls before swine

Couldn't but post this comic strip from Stephan Pastis... Because it so perfectly expresses my feelings about photo albums. Guess how many albums do I keep at home... you guessed it right: none.

More Pastis under http://comics.com/pearls_before_swine/

Valerie

Must be that the end of the year is quickly approaching, or maybe it's just nostalgia... but I've been visiting my archive files lately. The result are the last 2 images I've posted. This one, is a portrait of Valerie.

I'm posting it because this picture stands out as my ideal of what a perfect portrait is. Absolute charm.

Not that it really matters but, Agfa Scala B&W slide film, a Pentax Super A with a 50mm f1.4, and Joe's Basement developed it...

PD.- If by any chance of destiny you're reading this and you happen to know Val, send her my regards!

The end...

...or the start of the race?

Sometimes you don't know if you're going towards to, or if you're coming back from...

Directions, welcome.

Betsy Pecanins

My camera run out of batteries that night, so this is one of the mere two images that I managed to capture before a blank screen made me long for my old, film, totally mechanical and trusty Contax S2b.

Can't understand how Canon could think that not including a battery charge indicator in the G7 was a good idea. Fortunately the G10 has one...

Anyhow, the performance was magical, and she was full of grace. Betsy's concert was part of Xcaret's Day of the Dead celebrations, this past November. It was the first time I saw her, and words won't do justice. If you have the chance to see her performing live, do not miss it.

THEhotel...

Somebody had a really hard time coming up with this hotel's name...

A night view from my room at The Mandalay in Las Vegas, captured a couple of weeks ago.

Lightworks

I have said it before... I've something about windows. I always find them incredibly romantic. I guess for a photographer they're, what would we do without light? Windows are exactly that... an opening for light.

This is from the Alhambra in Granada.

Tulum ruins at sunset

Trying out my new Nikon D300 and 18-200 zoom lens, at sunset in Tulum. Still playing with my new equipment, and very happy with the results so far.

Jardines del Partal

It's been a long time since my last picture. As life has been full of travels and changes lately. One of the good parts was being back home...

This is home for me. The Alhambra in Granada. A view of the Partal (a reflection in fact). And introducing my new Canon G10.

Looking for dolphins

During a ferry ride to Holbox Island, a little girl and her granny look to the ocean, searching for dolphins. A high key image, but its color rendering is not that far out from reality. This is the 2nd image of this set that I'm publishing.

And finally... "Coox Janal Pixan!"

…I’m back!

A very busy October with loads of work and very little sleep is coming to an end. On the 30th, in 10 days, my exhibition with Mario will open its doors in Xcaret.

Has been a while since my last show in Berlin, so I can’t wait to see the pictures hanging on the walls. The quality of the printing was pretty good, in fact much better than I’d anticipated. I’d forgotten how much better printed pictures are (compared to computer screens).

Only 10 days more to go!

Brooklyn

This picture it's all about texture and light. I like it. Reflects well what this neighborhood it's all about. I loved Brooklyn.

Can't wait to go back to NYC. After Photokina announcements, I'm longing for a new Canon G10... and a 5D Mark II (plus cool Zeiss lenses) too. I won't miss B&H this time!

Hawelka Café

I took this picture a long time ago. It's the charismatic Hawelka Café in Vienna. When I went there for the first time both Herr and Frau Hawelka were still attending the place. When I returned in 2,004 I was lucky enough to chat (in German, I knew those two years in Frankfurt would come handy one day) with Frau Hawelka and to have a last slice of those very famous Buchteln wafts of hers. And I even managed to get a picture taken of her and I.

Why do I tell you all this? Maybe because this is one of the very few places in Vienna that I like. I was talking to Celeste about her forthcoming trip around Europe, and the image of this café quickly came to mind.

This picture was part of my 4th exhibition, and I still like it. Like Sergio, I also miss those good old film times.

PD.- Apologies for the quality of this scan. The original it's buried inside a box somewhere and I'm too lazy to photoshop it...

Mahahual

South of the State of Quintana Roo, and with a beautiful coral reef... It has the cleanest waters of the peninsula.

La Carrera del Darro

This is a very personal image. I don't even expect it to be understood. It's sunset at Granada, by the Darro (Dauro in Latin) river, on the skirts of the Alhambra.

I'm posting it because it seems that Kodak it's considering to stop producing what must me the best film emulsion there ever was (or will): Kodachrome.

For years (decades) it was the standard National Geographic film... I used to shoot loads of it. And I love its color accuracy and the density it has. Nothing (and I mean NOTHING, being digital or analogue) can capture colors the way Kodachrome does.

Even under low light, these slides will return solid colors. I love this image because it captured the fall of a winter night perfectly. It's an atmospheric shot. Apologies about the quality of the scan though.

Nothing matches this film... I really really hope that Kodak decides to keep it alive.

PD.- Check this link to read a fascinating story (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodachrome)

Flamencos... only that these ones do not sing or play the guitar

Flamingos are called "Flamencos" in Spanish. And flamencos are not only birds but also musicians who play "flamenco" style music. I miss Teo Sanchez's radio program in Radio Nacional de España RN3: "Duendeando - un programa para flamencos y pelicanos". So I came up with this picture today.

Public radio in Europe (being BBC or RNE) it's the best. I really miss that. At least now I can download the radio programs into my iPod... which rocks!

Check out this link for some awesome World Music podcasts: http://www.rtve.es/programas_radio3/musicas_del_mundo.php

You can tell that I used to work in the radio before starting with my "camera act"...

Coming back to the photo, Rio Lagartos and Celestun in the northern part of the Yucatan Peninsula are two great places for bird watching. For a reasonable fee, local fishermen will give you a boat ride to the nearby manglar islands, where you can see the flamingos and other local species. If you're lucky. you may even see one of the rare fishing eagles that from time to time come to fish there. I went there with Bruce a couple of years ago.

I took this one with the Oly E500. These flamingos are very shy and very quick to fly away... quick reflexes are needed to photograph them.

Those moments before sunrise...

...when time's still, even if only for a few seconds...

another picture from last weekend's trip to Tulum.

Room with a view

The view from cabaña no.40 at Copal. No A/C or Plasma TV, or even electricity, but when you have this view (through the mosquito net, that's it) from your bed... who cares?

Hotels can be this beautiful

Took it today, at Tulum. A view of Cabañas Copal.

I love Mexico, I really do.

And I do consider myself very lucky to live here.

TGIF

And that I'm a bit closer to the beach that I was on Monday... I think the beach is the single best thing on Earth.

Once upon a time...

I was lost in Budapest, and the night was falling, it was Easter Monday and the city was deserted, everything around was pitch dark... and then the Danube appeared in front of me. Magic.

Silversands

This one is for Sara, who misses the beach. An image of Holbox Island. I miss it too!

Izamal sunset

It was this red... really. Sunset at Yucatan's yellow city.

Happy Birthday little G7!

I reached the 8,000 pictures mark with the Canon G7. So I'm posting picture #1, captured at San Francisco Airport on March 4th, 2007, as a little homage.

This G7 has traveled and seen so much in the past year and a half. I bought it as a traveler camera and it’s been a good and dependable photography tool. Easily my 2nd best buy ever (for sentimental reasons as well as for number of pictures taken, my old Ricoh ranks first).

Happy Birthday little Canon!

God's own Pharmacy...

... it's located in Morelia (Mexico), in case you need a godly recipe. "Farmacia de Dios" translates, literally, as God's Pharmacy...

London cab

My always faithful Contax 139Q and Zeiss Planar 50 f1.4. Tri-X and D76. Why am I writing all the tech specs? Maybe because I'm about to mix some D76 powder again...

Chemical heaven.

St. Isaak Cathedral

St. Petersburg on a cold December morning.

Half Moon over Manhattan

Nobody is sleeping in the sky. Nobody, nobody.

Nobody is sleeping.

If someone does close his eyes,

a whip, boys, a whip!

Let there be a landscape of open eyes

and bitter wounds on fire.

No one is sleeping in this world. No one, no one.

I have said it before.

No one is sleeping.

But if someone grows too much moss on his temples during the night,

open the stage trapdoors so he can see in the moonlight

the lying goblets, and the poison, and the skull of the theaters.

Federico Garcia Lorca, 1929

A fragment of "City That Does Not Sleep"

(from the poem book "Poet in New York")

Happy Family

I've been meaning to call Mario all week to get us back working in our exhibition... but I've been way too busy lately.

I love the B&W one I published a while ago, but this one works too in color.

Alhambra

One rescued from the archive. I can't wait to go back home.

The Andes (II)

One of the things I miss the most: mountains.

Yucatan is a pretty flat land.

Tribeca Sunset

This is Tribeca at sunset. One of those NYC sunsets in which the light has to play hide and seek with the walls of the skyscrapers to finally win a spot in the pictures.

I had created an image of the place before I ever got there. I had Tribeca linked to Scorsese, to images of Ranging Bulls, of course to De Niro who once even said “I’m Tribeca” and for some reason to Edward Hooper (even if he was a Village resident).

Getting ready for the wedding

A Mayan community wedding is something very different to your average medium class stiff and pretentious ceremony. To start with the entire family helps in the preparation of the party like cooking the dinner (usually “cochinita enterrada” – textually that would mean buried pork, meat that it’s cooked in a hole covered with stones and coal) or making the decoration (with palm leaves, or even glittered paper).

He was very skillfully making the decorations that were going to be used in the church. The bride was very young and totally relaxed. The entire atmosphere was one of celebration and joy. We were cordially invited, shame we couldn’t stay…

Uncertain

Today I remembered the 1st time that one of my exhibitions was awarded a newspaper review. It was a photography exhibition in Contemporanea (www.contemporanea.org) and the reviewer wrote:

"One leaves the exhibition feeling haunted and with the certainty that there is no hope, no escape, no future left for humanity"

It’s funny because nowadays all my pictures are full with color and light, quite different to what I was producing 10 years ago. I guess this is what living in the Caribbean makes to you... plus I was reading too much Jean-Paul Sartre back then.

I'm not quite sure if I've become a better photographer though.

Blue walls

I've something about windows and doors. Thinking about using it for a forthcoming exhibition. One clean and simple image.

Pool

This is my idea of what a cool pool is. Amazing beauty and detailing all around the property.

Color walls

Under a bright sun, you need bright colors... Otherwise they wash out. Another one from The Hacienda Santa Rosa.

Red walls

I want a house with doors that look this good... Every little detail in The Hacienda was simply beautiful.

Paradise

Today's sunset at The Hacienda Santa Rosa, not far from (happy coincidence) Granada, in Yucatan, Mexico.

I love Yucatan. After all, this is my place of choice in the world. And as Desire Charnay once said: "Anyone who can leave Yucatan with indifference, has never been an artist and will never be a scholar".

Window to Paradise

View from room no.1 of the Xaloc Resort at Holbox Island. Not this weekend, but next weekend's destination... I miss the island so badly.
There's something about windows. I find them so poetic. They bring us light, they give us views... and what's a photographer without light and views? One day I'll make an exhibition exclusively about windows.

About to hit the road now. Check out this space next Monday for some gorgeous images. It's time to escape and look for some adventure. Happy weekend to all of you!

Calle Pereza (Laziness St.)

My favorite address in the world. Calle Pereza (Laziness St.) in Bubion (a little and nicely preserved village set in Las Alpujarras, part of Sierra Nevada Natural Reserve, in the South of Spain). The name matches the street beautifully. A place to get lost and do... nothing.

I'm so tired after such a busy week that I can't wait for the weekend. I'm looking forward to having some time to do lab work and process the film from the trip. Mario and I had our meeting with the Art Director at Xcaret and we're ready now to start editing the video and printing the pictures. Hope to post that one soon! As always... stay tuned!

Reflections

One from the New York series. Need to go back soon because I missed B&H this last time...

But first I'll wait to see what Photokina brings us this year :)

Beauty

This shot has a little story to tell… During hurricane Wilma I made the conscious decision of not shooting anything of what was happening, because I didn’t want to remember any of it. I was alone at home on the second night, in the middle of storm, on a pitch dark night, reading El Quijote, and the view of my table with my glass of red wine, the candles and the book, stroke me as something beautiful. So I took my camera and shoot it.

As we have another storm nearby, this image came to mind this evening. What’s the moral of this story? I guess that there’s beauty hidden in every situation.

Das Riesenrad

My 1st camera was a Ricoh, and that's what I got as a birthday present from Kika last weekend. It's in top-notch condition and exactly like the one I had :)

So I have a perfect excuse to post another "vintage" picture that I took using my humble Ricoh. This time is from Vienna's famous Wheel at the Prater. It's cross processing (c41 film developed using e6 chemicals, or was it B&W film? I can't quite remember it...).

Good old film times are coming back.

The Andes

The Andes as seen from Machu Picchu, very early in the morning of a December day. Surrounded by clouds that filled with mystery a place which is already enigmatic enough under a clear blue sky.

I would love to go back to Peru just because of those mountains.

No bullshit here, please

He certainly won't take any... a character larger than life. Different style of picture this time. The movement and the warm colors match well his gesture.

The Making of...

This entry is a little tribute to Kena, as none of this would have been possible without her (pictured here with Teresita). She was the one that took us in her recruitment trip through the Mayan communities. I like this picture because it shows well the dynamics of our meetings.

Today Mario and I met with Daniel, one of the members of the Production Team at Xcaret, to go over the concept of the exhibition and site the proposed areas to display our work.

Mario took the lead and wrote our project. It's a cool one. I'd miss the production side of an exhibition, when the concept takes shape little by little and you start picturing the photographs hanging on the walls...

Of the three proposed spaces, we particularly liked one of them (the hacienda), and I hope we get it. The pictures will look so great in there.

Now we've the weekend to adapt our initial project to the space we want, to make a rough cut of the video materials and to select some of the pictures that we want to display. We'll be meeting them again next week and we want to have a great dossier to show.

BTW the icing of the cake is that we may even have our documentaries and pictures projected on the giant film screen that they will build for the occasion.

Sisters

Yet another one of the latest series of Mayan communities portraits, I still have to develop the B&W film, but this is pretty much the core of my part of the exhibition. Mario has some amazing video footage to go with it. I hope to upload it once he finishes editing it. It's really cool stuff.

Today we are meeting the folks at Xcaret to discuss our project and the spaces available for us. Exciting!

Regarding the sisters, they didn't talk much... but they didn't need to. Their facial expressions said everything they needed to say. They were something, believe me.

Can't stop thinking about how much did I enjoy taking these pictures...

Teresita (2nd one)

She is quite something, as you can see on her face. She's character by bucket loads, and charm too. I was sad we couldn't stay for the ceremony in memory of her father in law. That would have been very interesting to us. But nevertheless we'd had a great time talking to her, meeting her daughters and seeing the preparations.

We definitely have to come back one day.

Mario and Kena confirmed yesterday that we've the space to showcase our work in the forthcoming Dia de Muertos Festival at Xcaret. That was one big birthday present. It's been so long since my last exhibition that it feels great to be working on a new one.