Afterwards

It was my last night in San Miguel de Allende. Niels and I were standing atop an overlook, taking photos of the city. A few people came, had a look, stayed for a short while, then left. Eventually, a newer model Volkswagen Beetle pulled up. These two ladies got out of the car, the younger one made a beeline for me, her camera photo thrust out and asked me to, in Spanish, to take their picture. She even pointed to where to press the button.

I lined up the shot, using gestures, took a couple of photos, let them see, they were pleased. They got back into the car, admired the photos, laughed a little bit, then took off.

I must be an approachable guy because I seem to always end up with someone else’s camera in my hand, taking their photos, which I love to do. Who needs to understand the words?

The other day, Niels invited me to take a trip with him to Queretaro, Mexico, a little over an hour away from SMA. While there, we walked around and did photographer things. You know, take pictures. While Niels and his wife, Claudette, were getting maps of the area, I looked across the street, saw this beautiful, yellow building. I framed it up, but there were only 1 or two taxis in front. I thought, how great would it be to have a whole line of taxis in front. Light change.

The next stop light, my wishes were answered. Add to that, as I was about to take the photo, Niels noticed me framing it and said: Wait! There are some people in red shirts about to walk into the scene. I waited a beat, saw them, and clicked the shutter several times.

I love the shot. The only thing that got to me was the drab, green trashcan in the lower left; however, as yellow and green go together, not an issue. I just didn’t have time to get in front of the can, but that’s OK. Better to have gotten the shot with the can, than to have missed the shot entirely.

I tried cropping the trashcan out, but that removes too much of the street, so, I just left it the way it is.

Sunday, I had an opportunity to see some Azteca dancers perform in the Jardin. From all around town, you could hear the drumming. Niels and I decided to check out, and I’m glad that we did. We saw them at around 11:00 in the morning. At that time, the sun was pretty intense, and the shadows deep. Most of the shots that I took were, as one might expect, not exactly dazzling, especially the far away shots, lots of hard shadows. However, I was able to come away with a couple of ‘keepers’, by getting closer, such as this dancer, framed between two observers. I like the vivid yellow headdress.

Later, I came back by the Jardin, and they were still there. This time, the street was in shadow, so no problems with shadows, but it lacked contrast. All of a sudden, I got the idea to try to photograph motion and get the ‘feel’ of it, rather than just static photos. That’s a hit-and-miss proposition, mostly miss, but I was able to get a few that I really liked. The rest of the time, I just watched and had a great time!