For the entire month of January I’m taking my photography in a slightly different direction and exploring the colonial mining towns of central Mexico.  My blog will act as my travel journal.  I’ll be  posting images and stories about the project here every couple of days.

Guanajuato Sunrise

So, why this particular region of Mexico?  Several reasons actually.  Guanajuato, the city that I will be based out of, is the  sister city to my home town, Ashland, Oregon.  The two towns  share geographic and cultural similarities.  Both are located in valleys in the mountains, both are university towns and both have theater festivals and strong art culture.  Since the two towns became “sisters” there has been a continuous exchange of students, teachers, musicians, artists and city leaders.  My wife has been coming here for several years to attend Spanish language school.  This year our sons are old enough to begin taking Spanish lessons, so we decided to move the entire family down for a month of language immersion.  I made a short trip to Guanajuato about three years ago and fell in love with the photographic potential of the architecture, character and beauty of the town.  During this more extended stay I hope to do the kind of in depth photography that comes with familiarity with a place and also travel to some of  the other towns and environs in the region.

Early colonists came to the mountains of central Mexico to mine for metals and minerals.  The towns are often built on steep hillsides in narrow valleys.  In Guanajuato, most of the roads are in tunnels beneath the city and the town is accessed via pedestrian streets and very narrow and steep alleys.  The colorful houses are stacked upon each other like a big game of tetris and the alleys can be almost as narrow, deep and winding as slot canyons in Utah.  Needless to say, Guanajuato and the other mining towns in the region are popular with photographers.

Calle Potrero, Guanajuato, Mexico

My focus this month is to continue the photography that I started on my previous visit and try to create the most beautiful, dramatic and expressive images of the area that have ever been taken.  I have a virtual office set up here so I can continue to work and do business via the Internet.  Processing images on my laptop is difficult.  The lesser contrast, resolution and  speed mean that the images I post during the trip will be as good as I can get them, but will be in rough draft form.  All of them will need to be remastered when I get home, but hopefully they will give you an idea of what I’m going for.

For those of you who think I’m in Mexico to relax in the sun, not quite.  Guanajuato sits almost 7,000 feet above sea level and the average temperature is 62 degrees F.  January is the coldest month and temperatures at night can drop into the 30s.  Today it is cold and rainy.  So, this isn’t a Mexican beach vacation I’m on here.  While I like to sit on the beach and surf as much as anyone, the culture, scenery and history of this place will make it a very rich experience of living, learning, spending time with my family and doing my work.