scenes from my mexican hometown

it's easy for a photography hobbyist to fall in love with san miguel de allende. aside from the colonial architecture & the plethora of color, the city always seems awash in sunlight & fiestas.

i'm no camera expert. far from it. my cameras are basic & i kinda like it that way. it's a nice personal challenge to go against tech tide. i do feel that what i have learned from my day job is a nice plus too. arbus, avedon, adams, lange & the other giants made more with less & simply trusted their eye.

and no, i am not comparing myself to them -- just in case that ridiculous notion was clumsily implied here.

maybe someday i'll find an old film camera & learn to develop film myself. i took a summer class once, but that was long ago & i don't remember much of it except for being perennially late for class. i was not who i am now.

easter sunday 2009. blowing up of hanging judases. life sized paper mache replicas of hated figures (some replicas of real politicians or ex-presidents and even a witch etc. i think i saw g. bush last year).

lots of dogs in this town. i find them quite friendly. i see more than a few dogs perched on the rooftops of houses. always looking down, guarding the fort.

wednesdays in sma

a few weeks back, i decided to join a figure drawing workshop here in san miguel de allende. though i've attended hundreds of these types of workshops before, i haven't actually done one in about 4 years. the rust was clearly showing & i ended the first session a little bit frustrated with myself.

the f.g. workshop i joined is the ana julia aguado gallery right in jardin. the poses were about 30 minutes and i was quite impressed by the variety of trained models. there is also a short gesture workshop on tuesdays, but i've been skipping those.

2-3 sessions later, i saw a bit of improvement. still not yet close the level i wanted but it definitely calm me down some. those close to me know that i can be a bit harsh on myself when it comes to my illustrations (which i actually think is a good thing).

but my main excuse for writing this post is the view from the gallery window:

wine & cheese is also served. AND i also just noticed yesterday that the artwork hanging on the walls are actually original work from mexican art legends diego rivera, david alvaro siqueros & francisco toledo... and it took me 2 months to notice this.

*i have not posted anything new here in weeks. i chalk that up for being the americas slowest book illustrator. i'm currently busy working on a few books (not sure how many but at least four titles). by next month, things should get back to normal.