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.