Vertigo

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

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…

…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

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!

Toreador in Guadalajara, Mexico

Yep, that’s bull’s blood all over him. About 5 minutes later he got a bull’s horn in the stomach. He survived with broken ribs. Quite a day…

Patzcuaro cemetary by night

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.

5am in Tzintzuntzan, Michoacán

By the early hours of the morning most of the people keeping watch over their decorated graves for day of the dead were wrapped up in ponchos and nearly asleep. Not this lot though who shared their fire with us.

Crazy busy

as per always, but I’m trying to fit in as much day of the dead nonsense as possible in our last few weeks. So today I went for a wander round the Mezquitan cemetary and am off in a matter of seconds to a display of altars in Casa Vallarta, then tomorrow morning bright and early I’m off with Javier and Ofelia to Patzcuaro to get a taste of the day of the dead Michoacan style. It’s non stop and I’m loving it!

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Then to cap it all, I just won a camera for the aforementioned photo competition (see below and comments). Suffice to say I’m smiling even though my laptop’s about to give up the ghost. Aptly enough.

Día de las sonrisotas

This lad was helping his Dad sell the traditional marigold Day of the Dead flower (Cempazuchil and variations thereof). When his Dad saw him posing, he started chucking him huge bunches to catch until he was all but buried. The kids were loving it, bless´em.

Es mi gallo

Cockerel for sale in the baratillo Sunday market in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. They’re for fighting. I’ve never been to a cock fight, I wouldn’t rule it out though.

Un chien andalou

Un chien andalou

I can´t get my head around the time change yet and have been up for a while… Anyroad, just a quick post to thank Jana and Victor for hosting the pumpkin carving soirée yesterday, which was good clean innocent fun despite the Satanic connotations. And plentiful booze. Pumpkin carving is not really a big thing here, but there´s a host of other traditions available related to the Day of the Dead which I hope to be photographing over the next few days.