lego my photo.

"Some people find it funny," said Stimpson. "Some people find it a bit disturbing."



decide for yourself:
wired.com/culture/art/multimedia/2008/08/gallery_legophotog/

thanks, jamie, for the link!
jamieslist.wordpress.com

estoy una turista: san cristobal

11 hours on the red-eye bus from oaxaca led me to san cristobal de las casas in chiapas, mexico. i scored a seat towards the front, next to a lady from tuxtla with her 2-yr-old son in her lap, and immediately focused my energy on letting the spanish-dubbed early-90s teen melodrama send me off on a 10 hour nap. only problem was, the particular path we took consisted of hairpin turns on the edges of cliffs (in the pitch black, nonetheless). 20 minutes into the second feature presentation, pirates of the caribbean (also dubbed), is about when i thankfully fell asleep; apparently i had grown tired of repeating a silent prayer, willing the elements to come together and protect me and my bus mates from our driver's need for speed. when we reached our destination, i woke up to the 2-yr-old's head in my lap. hey, everyone's gotta get comfortable somehow.

pernille and julie, two recently-graduated danish chicks and fellow bus survivors, joined me for a day of wandering around town. we hit up the local artisans market, trying our hand at bartering and each gleefully coming away with handmade mayan jewelry and souvenirs. most mayan women in this particular area have the strong belief that being photographed steals the soul; i fought my instinctual urges to employ my trigger finger and instead appreciated their gorgeous brown faces and hands in the moment for myself. those women, each standing no taller than 5'3 at best, donned black sheep wool skirts and intricately hand-made colorful satin blouses that one young mother explained take over two months to complete.

the church of santo domingo, whose eastern wall marks the border of the market, has a gorgeous, famed western facade, showcasing ground to roof relief sculptures that provide ample turf for pigeons, including one that i saw stuck in the net towards the top. by night, locals and tourists alike convene in the zocalo (main city square) to sell/purchase souvenirs, people-watch, and dance with firepoi.


we walked our tired legs back along the cobbled streets to our hostel and were greeted by manuel, an overly excited english-teacher-slash-salsa-enthusiast, who announced that lessons were starting in two minutes. never one to turn down an opportunity to be twirled, i convinced the girls to join me, on the grounds that i would buy their first round at the bar.


the next morning i groggily piled into a van with twelve other curious travelers, hungry for adventure, and we journeyed through the gorgeous mountains of chiapas towards the canon de sumidero for a boat trip in search of crocodiles and monkeys. it was like floating through a postcard; steep stone cliffs ascended hundreds of feet out of the dark, mirror-like water, covered in emerald foliage and overlapped by white-gray clouds.


for an hour, we coasted through the maze of smooth rivers, spotting cartoonish pelicans, a few elusive monkeys, a whole lot of floating debris, and even a monstrosity of a tree growing along the face of a mountain with water cascading down its appendages.



just as the couple behind me chanted 'we want a crocodile' to the point of annoyance, our guide halted the boat 10 feet from the shore, pointed, and i finally encountered such a predator within reasonable distance for comfort. i squealed and snapped photos along with the other thrilled, lifejacket-clad passengers, though my lens alone was quadruple the size of their point-and-shoots. a mile and a few minutes later, our guide once again proved his keen eye when he slowed the engine, reversed, and pointed to what i took as nothing more than a group of logs half-immersed in water. two by two, my companions started to exclaim (in languages ranging from spanish to english to hebrew to french), pointing at where he had pointed, as i continued to struggle to decipher the riddle of the magic logs. eagerly listening in on the instructions one patient father was providing his daughter who was just as frustrated as me ('okay, look under the little group of leaves growing along the stick that's laying on the log'), i scanned the perimeter through my lens, convinced myself that it wasn't cheating to do so, and alas, stumbled on the pair of dare-i-say adorable baby crocs, perched under the little group of leaves growing along the stick that was laying on the log.


with a successful croc-spotting as grounds for celebration, several of us from the hostel pooled our free drink tickets we had accumulated (from the strategy of walking back and forth past the same bar, of course), and collectively swayed along to the feel-good local band with the rest of the bar-goers, an equal blend of ticos and gringos sporting equally full hands of complimentary mystery shots. salsa music filled the break between band sets, and i grew dizzy being spun and dipped by the young local boys close to a foot shorter than me. as the clock's hour hand crept towards 4, i bid adieu to the short local boys, the free mystery drinks, and the feel-good band finishing up a killer rendition of sublime's 'badfish.' as the golden lights from the church of santo domingo illuminated our path back, i focused my attention away from the fact that i had to be up and ready in 3.5 hours, and more on where i would be headed: finally across the guatemalan border.

scroll down.

oops. obviously i've been behind on posting up to date, but i realized i posted oaxaca before my post about chichicuaxtla was complete. so please scroll down to the next photo post ('a slice of humble pie') and check it out!

cheers.

playing tourist, part one: oaxaca

after 2 1/2 straight weeks of 12-hour-plus days of shooting, it was time to leave mexico city and take 'the gringo trail' south towards guatemala. first stop: oaxaca, a charming colonial town, famed for its handicrafts markets featuring local black pottery and hand-woven textiles and for its vast array of churches and ex-convents, scattered throughout the cobblestone streets.


after breakfast and a nap (i took a 7-hour overnight bus from DF, arriving at dawn), i set out with my camera and a rough sketch of a map. perousing the streets led me to an old man peering into a garbage can. throughout our conversation, he got me so many times, i was fighting back tears.


me: (en espanol) what's your name?
him: ignacio suniga morales
me: (after writing it out, pointing to his name) morales with a z or s?
him: i dont know how to write it [strike one]
me: (pause) oh. don't worry... so how old are you?
him: 91
me: (stopping, eyes wide) 91? i don't believe you! you're too handsome to be 91!
him: (with a shrug) that's what happens when you don't work [strike two, ouch]
me: maybe i should stop working and i'll stay young too
him: no, then you will end up on the street like me [zing. that's three.]
me: .................... so where are we walking?
him: i need to find food or some money for lunch
me: (pulling out a packet of crackers and a 5 peso coin) you can have these if you want
him: (eyes even wider than mine) how much do these cost?
me: it's okay, maybe 10 pesos (US$1)
him: a lot of money!
(throws his arms around me for the biggest hug i've gotten since leaving CA)
him: thank you. you are an angel, thank you. [four. that one made me cry.]

so we kept walking for another block or so, him pausing to look in garbage cans along the way and smiling for photos i would try to candidly make. after i would drop my camera, laugh, and say he doesn't have to look at me, he would just hug me again and say thank you, though the cycle repeated anyway. oh well. i shook his hand, thanked him, he grabbed one last hug, and we parted ways. i wiped tears from my eyes as i looked back at him and thought about my late grampa, and headed to the zocalo (the main square) to just sit.


post map consultation, i walked west towards the oaxaca artesians market, where i ran into catarina ramirez, 73, whose beautiful moreno skin drew me in as her hands methodically wove a series of brightly colored strings through the matilar. she has been a vendor there for 30 years and has been working on this particular piece for five days. i picked out two scarves from her pile and made a few frames of her at work. when i asked how much they cost, she said with a smile, '40 pesos for the scarves, 10 for the pictures.' i stopped myself from retorting when i remembered that it was only a dollar. that catarina is crafty in more ways than one.



after loading up on a few local souvenirs from the market, i let myself get lost in the colorful surrounding streets. until i realized i really was lost. i made my way to the main drag of the city, stopped a woman on the sidewalk who looked honest enough, and she helped me get on a 4 peso bus towards el tule, a tiny town just outside the touristy area thats claim to fame is a 2000-year-old cedar tree.

i paid the 3 peso entrance fee in order to circumnavigate the 636-ton monstrosity at the angles i wanted. and this is my attempt at that fancy photo-illustration panoramic image-lacing thing.

with hunger pangs closing in and my crackers long gone with ignacio, i popped in to a nearby building that houses 43-some-odd food stalls. i didn't get far before i was called over to 'antojitos by rosita' by two chatty men and rosita herself. i let her make me her specialty, an empanada amarillo con mole y pollo, and we shared a shot of mezcal (tequila's wicked stepsister) to commemorate the occasion.


so the two chatty men, eduardo (works for the oaxacan govt) and roberto (already several shots deep of mezcal), chatted me up about the states, my mexico experiences thus far, and my nose ring, which eduardo offered to 'fix' with the tools in his truck. we cracked jokes in spanglish (eduardo lived in rhode island for three years), with rosita's contagious giggle on repeat. when i tried to excuse myself to walk to the bus stop to head back into town, they insisted on driving me so we could detour to las azucenas, a lake named after a flower from the huayapan pueblo that blooms only at night in july. lucky me!






up next, san cristobal de las casas, in gorgeous and infamous chiapas, mexico.

a slice of humble pie.

after working with the protesters in mexico city for almost two weeks, one of the families graciously invited me to visit their home in chichicuaxtla, a little town near poza rica, in veracruz state. the five-hour drive from DF reminded me of the drive from nadi to suva in fiji, which i coincidentally made with another local family there a few years ago. they explained that their farm has no electricity or plumbing, and i gladly reassured them that i would be ok; it was the simplicity that intrigued me even more.





on friday morning, we rose at a chipper 6:30am for a breakfast of freshly made tortillas (of course), frijoles negros, and cafe con leche. one thing's for sure: this weekend was definitely centered around eating. i answered the routine questions about my family, job, and travel plans, then jumped in the truck with the three brothers and one of their sons, benito, to head into the fields a few miles away.



let me just say, all i did was haul my small bag around and do the usual photographer dance (bend, tiptoe, squat, lay, etc), whereas the boys were the ones hacking machetes, throwing nets, and lifting full bags of maize and platanos... but something about that overbearing veracruz heat had me drenched within minutes. my bottle of lukewarm water never tasted so good.



we returned to the casa, all in dire need of a cold beer and hot lunch, and i was promptly whisked over to the three sided shed that served as an outside shower. i've been fortunate enough to have had some great adventures, but there's something quite liberating about bathing outside with a bucket of crisp water from a well, looking up at the gorgeous sky and then down at the curious duck that decided to join me.

after an amazing (seriously, it was mindblowing) lunch of mole and fresh tortillas, the family took me to the local tourist spots: a tiny pyramid in tihuatla and a giant concrete jesus.




that night i tried to help the women cook a dinner of salchichas (glorified hot dogs) and frijoles negros, but my offers of assistance were answered with instructions to just sit and watch as they worked by the illumination of only a candle and a flashlight.


on saturday, two of the uncles drove me to yet another local point of interest, the tajin ruins, with a soundtrack of the beegees and air supply on repeat. making looooooove out of nothing at aaalllllllll...
we arrived just in time to catch the dance of the voladores, five men in traditional garb about 100 feet up in the air, with one in the center playing a pipe, while the other four did a pole dance, totonac style: tied by their feet and swinging around slowly towards the ground.



as rain clouds closed in, we made our way to tecolutla, a beach town that struck me as the ocean city (in maryland, for you non-east coasters) of eastern mexico. and on the way back to the farm, even though i was incredibly stuffed from lunch, they made me try a local drink (whose name i still cant pronounce) made from young corn. starchy, and way too sweet, i thought.



i enjoyed an atypical saturday night sitting at the table with the men, being served up homemade pork tamales (quite possibly the best i've ever consumed) and 40s of corona. miguel, one of the brothers, led the group in serenading me with spanish cansiones by candlelight. i patiently attempted to teach them how to 'salud' in three languages (kanpai, cheers, mabuhay), but while the number of empty 40s grew, so did their trouble with remembering those three words. 'kambrice?'

sunday morning was the big day: la ceremonia de graduacion de escuela primeria, generaciones 02-08. hm? basically a gaggle of local multi-generational families (with yours truly playing a minor role as the distant white cousin in town for the weekend) huddled around a makeshift concrete stage, applauding for the unenthused, overdressed kids performing ridiculous dances to the backstreet boys and 'total eclipse of the heart' (apparently i just can't escape that song). it was almost painful to watch. the second grade class was a welcome comic relief to the whole affair when one of their little dance skits included a blessing from a 6 year old priest and a live turkey offering.




i basically became the aguilar family's personal photographer, receiving the same set of instructions every 8 minutes. my mission, which i had no choice but to accept: capture the magic of their 12 year old daughters' joy of receiving their primary diplomas. only problem was, the joy was nowhere to be found on the faces of eveli and ivete.



post-ceremony, our sweaty, worn-out troop headed back to the casa for (you guessed it) a big celebration lunch of barbacoa and chicharonnes, from a pig freshly killed and grilled the day before. i got to sit at the big kids' table and enjoy an ice-cold cerveca with the uncles, while the women (eveli and ivete included, surprisingly) served up plates of food, condiments, drink refills, and stacks of tortillas with the speed and attention as if they were running a packed restaurant with an hour wait.


after lunch they sent me off in a car back to mexico city with chicharonnes to go and instructions to 'regresa con mi novio y familia' (return with my boyfriend and family). who needs a touristy resort when you can have genuine life lessons and hospitality like that? gracias, aguilar familia! estoy llena... de comida y vida!

a surreal sunday.

after a bountiful hangover breakfast at a mexican-style denny's that was both easy on our wallets + stomachs (we counted some-odd 7 courses for 8 bucks), allison + i took off for the Aztec ruins of Teotihuacan, a wonderfully majestic tourist trap about 45 minutes outside the distrito federal. as our bus driver mouthed lyrics to 80s power ballads (imagine olivia newton-john with a mexican accent), we were mesmerized by window scenes of street vendors selling everything from cigarettes + candy to brakelights + a 6-foot tall hat rack. i laughed my hangover away in record time.


we trudged along the mile-long avenue of the dead in the blistering heat for a good hour, ascending and (carefully) descending the stone steps at angles that demanded a defiance of gravity and sheer faith. as the sun pyramid grew larger and more daunting on the horizon, so did the clouds overhead.





by the time we started up the first flight of steps (there were 4 or so) it was evident that the situation could be either (A) disasterous or (B) absolutely magical.

(couldn't make an editorial decision which frame i like better. your thoughts?)

turns out it was, thankfully, more of the latter. in true hollywood fashion, our altitude and the size + frequency of the raindrops were directly proportional. by the time we reached the top, i was laughing at the irony of wishing i had a jacket to cover my soon-to-be see-through white tshirt, when 20 minutes earlier i wished it was socially acceptable to not wear one at all. those thoughts were forgotten once i scanned my surroundings and realized that i was experiencing something bigger than myself; a representation of this whole trip so far, really. as ominous and potentially hazardous as it was, i stood there at the top next to a family huddled in prayer and closed my eyes for a few moments, taking in the scene as a sign of good luck.
i guess they don't call it 'the place where gods are made' for nothing.


(oh so necessary tourist photo by allison williams)
_________________________________________


after adding and crossing off 'climb a pyramid' on our 'do before i die' lists, we headed to lunch down a nearby dirt road, dodging 'Pasele!' calls and plastic menus being thrust in our hands from every direction. it was like trying to break through a strong defensive line (ahem, steelers); enough to make my head spin. maybe it was by default or an attempt at seeking solstice from the chaos, but we dipped into a little cantina with an even littler abuelita manning the tortilla station.




we came to find out that fidelia ortiga cruz, 84, has been running the tarp-rimmed joint for 30 years, most recently with her daughter marta and granddaughter maribel. as we anticipated our enchiladas (rojo for allison, verde for me), two men strolled up and charmed us into sitting through a harmonious, borderline humorous, rendition of 'besame mucho.'




after shamefully throwing in the towel with a mere three bites left, fidelia called me over for a hands-on tortilla lesson.

i failed miserably. broken tortillas, shattered dreams. [insert appropriate 80s power ballad in mexican accent here]

(photos by allison williams)


all in all, it was an amazing day that kept me visually stimulated and, corny as it is, spiritually satisfied. i'm so in love with this country!

foundry finale: photog debauchery.

all joking aside, the workshop was the necessary kick in the ass i needed and wanted. i met amazing photographers, both veterans + novices alike, who shared intense stories, thought-provoking work, and field-tested, fine-tuned insight. after such a nonstop, fulfilling week, no wonder we all needed a beer or three.

and when you have a minute, check out allison's blog: www.allison-williams.com/blog/
wicked eye, genuine character, and quick sense of humor. she reminds me so much of beth!