Vertigo

Written by Gwyn Fisher 5 Comments

Granted, this shot of a stairway in a multi-storey car park in Guadalajara is a tad clichéd, but with the kid in it and the coloured handrails I reckon it´s a nice shot. His T-Shirt says “You with those curves, and me with no brakes”

Hemispheric Cow

Written by Gwyn Fisher 12 Comments

I just got a new camera which has an in-built autostitch function, hence this photo… Taken by the Paraninfo of the University of Guadalajara. I’m not convinced the dimensions work for this photoblog. What do you reckon?

I got me camera…

Written by Gwyn Fisher 8 Comments

…it´s this one. Even better than I thought, 7 megapixels, wide angle and various other bells and whistles, just what I needed for when my bulky but lovely Pentax DSLR is overkill. It’s charging now and then I’ll wander off and try it out. Tomorrow I get me mugshot in the paper and I reckon a fair few Flickr peeps will also have their photo published too.

I bought a tripod the other day as Day of the Dead is when you really need a steady camera to take long exposure night pictures. Here´s one from Myrna´s house of the altar she made for her mum.

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I watched Carlos Reygada’s latest yesterday, Luz Silenciosa, which is a relatively restrained film about the Mennonites in the North of Mexico. Very nice photography in it, but not really my cup of tea. By a long way. Frankly, I’d rather read a book of the pictures than have to bear 2 hours or so of very, very slow moving plot. Luckily Jose, Javier and Franz came round to provide a commentary throughout. Without that I’d’ve been asleep after 15 minutes. No gerontophilia this time, and that is something to be thankful for. After watching Japon I badly needed the mind bleach. I just looked at the IMDB page, one user has the perfect one-line review: “Art-house pretension at its most tedious” Amen to that.

Sita’s being interviewed today in america, and I haven’t heard from her today yet but yesterday she seemed well impressed with the place. It’s in the foothills of the Rockies, so that means I have no clue where she is. Upper Left Gringolandia? Looking forward to a phone call later…

Marimba en Tlaquepaque, Jalisco, Mexico

Written by Gwyn Fisher 2 Comments

The Marimba is the huge xylophone type instrument that is often shared between several players at the same time. Usually one of the musicians has the scrapey wooden thing (Comment if you know the name, maraca?) and wanders round collecting tips. Then they carry the whole shebang somewhere else and start playing plinky plunky versions of classics like Cielito Lindo and La Bamba. *edit* Nope, they’re not maracas. Google turned up this page on how to make your own marimba though, happy hammering!

Patzcuaro cemetary by night

Written by Gwyn Fisher

Day of the dead in Michoacán was a crash course in night photography and setting exposure. I never worked out how to lessen the reddish hues that came from candle light despite using every white balance setting available. That said my night there was unbelievable, one of the most moving religious spectacles I´ve seen yet and everyone was incredibly welcoming and friendly. A beautiful Mexican tradition.