Scrub
An afternoon scrub after the rain somewhere along Canal de Miramontes in Coyoacán, Mexico City.
Keeping things clean is a common struggle in this city. Sometimes, dust just seems to appear out of thin air within seconds of its removal. This sweeping and scrubbing of sidewalks is a practice that still intrigues me given
Regañado
Dog tied to a concrete seat in front of a restaurant in Mexico City.
I was thinking today about thinking. This cognitive process does not come easily to our species. We are used to letting others we call "experts" do all the complex research, analysis, and comparison of texts, ideas and what have you. We are accustomed to having others do all the repackaging of ideas and knowledge for us. Just how much of what we think we know is the sum of our own thinking and understanding or a collection of ideas and information we simply regurgitate at will?
Nobody Sees, Nobody Listens
Miembros de los 400 Pueblos protestan en el Centro Historico de la Ciuadad de Mexico.
Members of the 400 Pueblos protesting in downtown Mexico City in April of 2015.
Smiles and Lipstick
Readying up for photo at Chapultepec Park, Mexico City.
A couple at Chapultepec Forest a moment before posing for a photo by photographers taking the traditional horse and charro hat image in November of this year.
Sombras
Chasing light and shadows in Mexico City's historic downtown area. A lot has changed since I first came to know this area. I worked here for five years. Though I don't commute into the area everyday as I did then, much of my photography is executed in this very exciting niche of this vast urban space.
Calling It In
Improvised hazard warning.
After residing here in Mexico for several years I can boastfully claim that I shed my tourist identity a long time ago. Each return visit to my native United States becomes an out of body experience as I progressively feel more like an outsider; though I haven't fully assimilated the culture of the place that has become my new home since the year 2000, I don't feel as "American" as I once had. Not that I am anti-American. What I mean is that I simply don't see the world like I used to; I no longer take many things for granted as I once did. Some of my compatriots back home, if not many, behave as if they have a right to security, peace, and prosperity having no idea that in some ways that life is the exception when compared to what other folks --as human as themselves-- face in other parts of the world. My Mexico experience hasn't been an easy road: I've had to battle my inner streaks of ethnocentrism, adapt to a different way of seeing the world, to a whole new set of realities. All this has served to help shape who I am today, even towards personal growth.
Something I've had to get used to are the lumpy, pot-holed streets of Mexico City's roads which can make you quite deft at defensive driving as you are forced to add this to the list of potentially hazardous phenomena to watch out for when traversing this urban chaos. The above image illustrates an act of solidarity where folks will warn others of a danger ahead. Sadly, a lack of proper street lighting at night may foster the very accident the protrusion was signaling you to avoid.
An Oligarchal Tyranny?
Street labor in Mexico City.
Street labor in Mexico City. A literal illustration of what some are forced to make a living in Mexico.
I've been re-reading Robert D. Kaplan's Empire Wilderness in which the author describes what he believes the United States is transforming into: an interconnected globalised network of city states united and governed by concerns of economy and growth in which the poor are left behind while the better able move to suburban gaited communities isolating themselves from the "threatening and unsightly poor" while at the same time avoiding the moral obligation to be their brother's keeper. A picture that better outlines the socioeconomic divide in places like Brazil, Teheran, or even Mexico which the author describes as an oligarchal tyranny --a depiction I find hard to disagree with after having lived here for near 20 years. Be it the U.S.A., Brazil, or Mexico, what can be said of democracies that not only fail to provide for their most deprived citizens but simply don't care to?
Blow
One of my initial images circa 2006. I had asked him to pose for the shot; instead, he began to blow into the crucible. When I first came to Mexico, and until recently, you could find these shaman all over the city's largest municipal square -- El Zocalo. I speculate a recent policy move by the federal district authorities has kept them from operating in the area; It has been a while since I've witnessed any shaman executing their alternate medicinal practices at the Zocalo. Instead they have been dispersed to other parts of the downtown area and in dwindling numbers.
Digital Kills The Analog Stars
Back in 2006 you could still run into photographers in some parts of Mexico City who made a living making images of folks in "touristy" areas. The ubiquity of digital sent most of them into early retirement.
Tengo miedo...
Seen in Parque De Los Venados, Mexico City circa 2007. The quotes on the cardboard read: "I am afraid of losing my job and being broke "; I am afraid of not finding a partner and having no children"; "I am afraid that if my father dies I will have to face life alone."