Yucatecan Still Lifes: Flow of Images

Training and working as a photographer teaches your eye to look at the world in a certain way. An experienced photographer observes things differently than most other people. It has been many, many years since I created images for a living, but the habits of looking and visualizing, of seeing the world as a series of compositions and qualities of light reflecting off of surfaces, persist.

I don't do much photography anymore. When I do decide to pick up the camera it's usually for fun, for recording events and places for myself, and to share with others.

I also pick up the camera occasisonally because the act of creating images sometimes puts me in a place that few other activities can. Psychologists call it flow. Flow happens when a person is so immersed in an activity that the outside world and the passage of time hardly seem to exist. The activity is so engaging that it seems to fill all the available processing space in one's brain, and a sense of extreme contentment, intensity of purpose and serenity ensues. In this state, you don't start wondering if you are going to be late for an appointment. You don't feel tired, hungry, thirsty, or check your watch. Your inner dialog (that little voice in your head that just asked you "what inner dialog?") has no room to operate. It's peaceful, you have purpose, and you feel pleasure.

Athletes, artists, musicians, artisans -- or anyone who does something that makes them feel energized focus, full involvement and at which they achieve success -- can experience flow. I have a friend who experiences flow when working with plants in the garden. For me it usually happens when I notice something visually interesting and decide to get out the camera. As I focus on that object or composition, I notice details I never knew existed. I intensely sense light, shadow and color. One observation leads to another. After awhile perhaps I notice something else interesting close by. As I spiral into intense focus, my problems, my body, the weather, in fact the rest of the world, disappears for a little while. It becomes a meditation. This only happens when I am alone, and involves observations in a very small space. If I have to get up and move around much, talk with people, or if my attention is divided, there's no flow.

I am not presenting these pictures as examples of high-level photography. They are simply products of observations I have made while in this intensely focused state. Although good images sometimes emerge from this process, it is the process and not the photos that is the point. The greatest payback for me is the concentration, minute observation and that feeling of intense involvement I experience as I make them.

With the exception of one, which I made on an earlier occasion, these photos were made this morning over a short time period in and around my Mérida house.

Top: A Jaguar mask I bought in Michoacan years ago sits on the edge of my desk.

Upper middle: Bright sunlight shining through (transilluminating) a leaf creates soft images of raindrops on its surface, viewed from underneath.

Lower middle: A ripe Nopal cactus fruit, tuna in Spanish, has fallen and speared itself on a hennequen cactus leaf.

Bottom: A wildflower blooms in the shade of an orange tree.

Yucatecan Still Lifes: Small Things

This is a praying mantis little bigger than my thumbnail, found scurrying up a plant stem one day alongside a road near the pueblo of Kantunil. Its dull green body was the color of the new leaves; its golden eyes sparkled in the sun. These insects know no fear. It sat confidently in my hand. When I neared it with a finger, it held its ground. When I moved my finger away, it rapidly chased as if in pursuit of prey.

I love to find beauty in small and unobtrusive things, and end up with interesting photos that don't really fit into a topic for this blog. So, this week, I'd like to share images of some small things, details that do not call attention to themselves, scenes unknown or easily missed by someone passing quickly or without paying careful attention.

Huayalceh is a hacienda south of Mèrida, where massive ruins of old colonial buildings dominate the scenery. However off on a side path exists a grotto whose well-worn stones indicate that people were likely coming here to dip cool water from a pool in its depths long before the Spanish came along, divided the land up and build these structures. You don't really notice the place unless you walk up close. The huge, gnarled trees and roots hanging over the cavern's entrance give it an ancient, mysterious feel. This looks like a good place to see aluxes (a-LOOSHes), the Mayan mythological equivalent of elves or little people who live out in the woods and possess supernatural powers. This might be an interesting place to visit under a full moon.

Later the same morning on which I passed through Huayalceh, I was looking for a store where I could buy a cold drink and stumbled upon the preschool in Junku, another hacienda a bit south of Mèrida. Junku is small, and there is likely only a single teacher in this one-room schoolhouse. I wrote recently about my love of the simple and elegant traditional Mayan house. Here is a beautiful one, curved white walls as perfect as a fresh chicken egg, constructed of plastered and whitewashed stone, with the traditional guano (palm frond) roof.

One day when I was looking at property near Izamal, the agent asked me if I wanted to see an old hacienda nearby. She knows the owner, and said it would be OK to take a look. There's a caretaker and the owner has slowly been restoring the main house so it's in pretty good shape, but still has an abandoned feel to it. The house was wide open and no one was around, so we walked through. It is a nice old place, with only a few rooms, but spacious, and apparently a true colonial, judging from the architecture. Among the interesting details are these original window openings, the design delicately molded into the plaster around the frames.

Where this orchid grows is a secret. I will say no more than that it grows somewhere in the state of Yucatàn, because I promised the friend who showed me the place that the location would remain protected. This bloom is one of more than one hundred similar blooms on a single plant. The stem on which the flowers grow reaches to above my waist; some examples are even larger. There are not just a few of these plants growing here. This is a colony of rare orchids, largely unappreciated by local residents, and therefore the plants remain unmolested.

Unfortunately here, as in places all over the world, publicity and popularity often destroy such wonders. If crowds come, there will be paths, trash, damage to the ecosystem, and flowers will be plucked and plants stolen. Many of the native orchids in Yucatàn are in danger of extinction due to agriculture, burning, and harvest of firewood, which destroys habitat. The other danger to the plants is that they are valuable. Orchids are pilfered from the wild by traffickers who sell them to collectors. I am glad that this place remains unknown, unappreciated, and in its natural state. I'll visit it to enjoy the spectacle and to take pictures, but I will not spread the word.

Yuctecan Still Lifes: A Walk Around the Corner

Assignment: See what kinds of photos I could make on my routine walk to the store around the block where I buy the morning paper. The round trip takes less than ten minutes, and I did not allow myself to take much more time than I normally do, nor deviate from my normal path. This means not crossing any streets: to get to the store I turn left out of my front door and walk to the corner where I make another left, and continue to the next corner where I turn left once more. Tendejon Miguelito is a few doors down the way, just about back-to-back with my house. I walked to the store, observing, and bought the newspaper. On the way home, I took pictures. They reveal details about life and culture "por mi rumbo," in my neighborhood.

#1. (above) A barred security door, propped open against the wall of a house. Someone slipped an advertising flyer into the bars. This is a daily occurrence in Mèrida, where many families do not have internet or receive the newspaper. Advertising is often done via these types of leaflets.

#2. Trash in a planter. Some wrappers, a plastic spoon, a bottle, two chunks of cement and what appears to be a photo of a child soldier in the Mexican Revolution have been discarded in this planter in front of a home.

#3. Old bakery. This late 19th or early 20th century-style building has been empty ever since I moved onto the street. During the Yucatàn hennequen boom of this time period many Mèrida buildings were renovated or built in this Europeanized style. I am told this once was a factory or a bakery. Some of the original wooden doors, like the one on the right, were replaced by modern steel overhead doors, a common practice over the years here in Mèrida where a good proportion of the oldest buildings were converted to industrial, retail and warehouse use. For years this building has been for sale or for rent, but nothing ever seems to happen. Recently workers have been painting, cleaning and renovating the facade. The sacks contain some of the rubble and debris from the work that presumably will be hauled away some day.

#4. Renovated house. These neighbors decided to redo the facade of their old house, creating a garage door where once there was a window, and putting ceramic floor tile on the lower part of the facade. Supposedly these types of alterations in the Centro Historico are prohibited, but many flaunt the rules. Or perhaps this house is modern enough to be exempt. Maybe no one noticed. Whatever the facts are, they redid the front of the house. It's not exactly to my taste, to be gracious about it, but everyone has a right to their own aesthetic.

#5. The carpenter car dealer. This building is just about five doors down from my house. The guy, who seems to be a Chilango (from Mexico City) and is definitely not Yucatecan, used to build and sell furniture, tables, chairs, shelving, beds, things like that. Now he seems mostly dedicated to selling used cars. These he often has parked along the street while leaving his huge private parking lot empty, taking up a lot of the limited public parking and annoying some of the neighbors. However, mostly he seems to play very, very loud music and invests his time cruising around in a convertible, top always down and with his elbow resting on the window ledge, or holds court on the sidewalk with a six pack and various neighborhood characters. You get the idea. About a year ago, he built this coffin, and it has been outside leaning against the front of his shop since. Maybe the person who ordered it got better. Maybe the buyer put off making his last payment until it was too late. Or maybe the carpenter made it as a joke. He did have the lid open and a mannequin dressed up like a monster laying inside for Halloween. I like it; brings up the neighborhood a bit. Best thing that guy's done around here.

#6. Neighbor's door. Frankly, looking at the front of this house with any kind of concentration gives me vertigo. Fortunately it's not directly across from my house, so I don't get dizzy walking out the door. A lot of homes in the city have some tile on the facade because it is more durable and requires less maintenance than a painted surface. This tile pattern apparently was fairly popular some years ago.

#7. Gilda's tree. This is a piece of a flor de mayo, or plumeria tree that my neighbor and friend Gilda put out against the front of her house to be taken by the trash collectors, who apparently balked at hauling it away. After resting there for a few days, it fell over and stayed that way, as you see it here. Right after I took the photo, someone collected it.

#8. Neighbor's plant. Three doors to the north of my house is a very old, very traditional home. When the doors are open you catch glimpses of chandeliers, paintings and old furniture that look like they have been there since great grandma's day. In the front garden there are several potted plants. This is one of them, in front of a window grille.

Yucatecan Still Lifes: Ticul, Tecoh, Tekit

I took three days right after Christmas and drove around southern Yucatán, an area that I don't know well. I plan to write more about that trip, but meanwhile am posting a few extra pictures that I took along the way.

Ticul, Yucatàn: hat on a pew. I spent a night in Ticul, famous for clay pottery and a rustic red limestone that is very popular for finish work in construction in Mexico. In the morning after breakfast I walked across the street to the church, which was pretty much empty except for two very old men praying in one of the chapels. Apparently one left his Panama near the entrance as he came in.

Niche in the church, Tecoh. I stopped in the pueblo of Tecoh my first morning, after a couple of hours on the road, to take a short rest break. I walked through the church, took a couple of pictures including this one, and afterward stumbled upon a wonderful bakery, Panaderia Mayapàn, where I bought a bagfull of orejas and polvorones. I crossed the street and sat on a bench in the beautifully-tended garden of the main square, eating the delicious cookies.

Christmas tree in the chapel, Hacienda San Antonio Xpakay. I stopped by to visit Jonathan Harrington at his hacienda near Tekit. He has a tiny Christmas tree (on the small table) in the old chapel there.

Spare room, Hacienda San Antonio Xpakay. This is one of the rooms of the old casona on the hacienda, which Jonathan uses as a catch-all for storage of tools and materials. The roof caved in long ago, and when Jonathan bought the place, he built a new roof structure with trees from the land. A couple years back, I bought four of the old ceiling beams, which had rotted on the ends but were still solid in the middle. I trimmed them down to solid wood and they now form part of a structure in my patio in Merida.

Floor detail, Hacienda San Antonio Xpakay.