The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men Often Go Awry

It is the merry month of May. I had great plans for May. I had signed up for a photography tour In Oaxaca with Gary Goldberg. It has been 26 years since I've been there on another photographic tour with Geoff Winningham. This year the tour included visits with Mexican photographers and artists, time to photograph but also we were going to stay at Casa Colonial which is where I had stayed 26 years ago. I loved Casa Colonial, a huge garden, comfortable rooms, delicious meals, and filled with wonderful Mexican art. 

I was planning to go a few days early and stay a few days after the workshop. Unfortunately, the Pandemic changed those plans but I was thinking about the trip this morning so I opened the Oaxaca folder that had some scans of the black and white film I shot with my Pentax medium format camera. 

Digital Photography has brought many changes to the way most photographers work so looking at the scan of a film negative was shocking. Film had grain! And to print the negative you had to go into the darkroom, mix chemicals and spend hours on one image making test strips and multiple prints until you were finally satisfied with the resulting print. Then you had to spend a few more hours washing and treating the print for archivability. If you were able to finish two prints in one day, you had accomplished something. 

Looking at these negatives brings back some wonderful memories but I don't want to go back to the darkroom although I do want to go back to Oaxaca. 

This image was made just outside the village of Tlacochohuaya where we had stopped on the side of the road to look out across this wide valley with magnificent clouds hanging in the sky. 

The Rio Grande

 



This is the Rio Grande as it snakes between Mexico and Texas in Big Bend Texas State Park. The thin line that divides two countries. Everytime we stopped at some vantage point to look at the river, I wondered; "Where are they going to build The Wall in this rugged country?"  "What will it cost?" And don't tell me that Mexico is going to pay for it.

Today, Sunday Morning News on CBS ran a segment on the United States/Mexico border at the small village of Boquillas which is on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande but it had long been an informal crossing point between the two countries. Many Americans liked to visit Boquillas to say they had been to Mexico. After 9/11 the United States stopped anyone from crossing. Now there is a formal Port of Entry for checking in and out with a passport and people can once again cross back and forth. But the informality of going between the two countries hasn't totally disappeared. This crossing is just about a mile South of the Port of Entry and the guys on horses went back and forth several times while we were making pictures from a ridge above the Rio Grande. It felt very old west.



This is facing East from Boquillas toward the Gulf of Mexico.

The Sunday Morning News showed the reporter wading in this area at the entrance to Santa Elena Canyon. I doubt it is more than knee deep. I almost felt like they had stood in my foot prints to make their video for the show. But this natural wall between the two countries is a favorite of photographers. With the right light and from the right place I've seen fabulous images.

 



I was surprised at the emotional response I had in seeing the Rio Grande from these vantage points. I almost wanted to weep. Maybe it is because I live in Mexico but the United States is still my country. Maybe it was because of the vitriol that is being generated against immigrants during the Presidential campaign. While I was looking at the River I thought that I would write something very political on the blog. I'm not going to do that except to say I hope The Wall does not ever happen.

 





Free Range

Mustang Island earned its name from all of the Spanish horses that bred and roamed freely on the island. The settlers brought cattle. They too, roamed freely and when it was time to take them to market they were corralled and driven across to the mainland at wherever the best crossings were at that time. There are pictures of herds of 100's of cows swimming across to the mainland. At some point the residents got tired of stampedes through the town so the free range disappeared. And gradually so have the most of the cattle.

I've been looking for cattle on the island for a while because there are so many Mercer Log entries about cattle. One time I saw some off in the distance but couldn't get close enough to photograph them on private property. But the wonderful people at the Port Aransas Preservation and Historic Association gave me a contact and he arranged to have the cattle brought to the fence line for me to photograph.

So far I have not found a horse or a pig on Mustang Island although I have heard that there are wild pigs on the bay side. If you know of a domestic pig or a horse on Mustang Island, let me know. I really do not want to have to go looking for a wild pig to photograph.

The Other Side of the Island

I came to Port Aransas hoping for some weather, fog and or rain. I've gotten it. Plus the first few days I also got a lot of wind in the 20-25 mile per hour category. But today was wonderful. In the 50's, fog and a misty rain. Also, today, instead of the Gulf of Mexico side of the island I was on the bay side where there are wetlands. Such a different landscape from what most of us think of when we think of Mustang Island. Sometimes the horizon line disappeared into the fog. At times most beautiful and mysterious. I'm working on my small laptop and I need to get on my big monitor to work on this particular image because the tones are soft and light.

Fire in the Sky

Last night we ate at Snoopy's Pier. Snoopy's sits on a little spit of land, almost under the Intercoastal Bridge by the Corpus Christi ship channel. It isn't up-scale dining by any means. Instead you order at the counter and within a few minutes they call your name. Your gulf-coast fried oysters or shrimp along with french fries are ready. They serve wine in the little airplane-portion size bottles and beer. Texas gulf coast fast food and it is okay. The main attraction in the evening is watching the sunset. Although we had wind and clouds all day the photo god blessed us with a beautiful sunset. The sun had already dropped behind the horizon but it left us this a fire in the sky.

The Mountains of Guanajuanto

I've always envied my friends who have horses here in San Miguel because they ride them out across the countryside and get the most wonderful views of the State of Guanajuanto. I'm not getting a horse but I thought that maybe the next best thing might be joining up with the group of hikers who hike on Sunday and sometimes mid-week. I've been a little hesitant because most of the time the description of the hike talks about a steep climb to the ridge of a mountain and then a walk along the ridge before circling back down to the starting point. This week, they announced a walk which didn't sound too steep and it described a beautiful view across a valley. So I did it.

I met up with the group at 8:00 AM and off we went. This particular walk was about two hours away in the eastern part of the State of Guanajuanto in a preserve called Joya Fria. The drive was beautiful because the rainy season has turned the countryside green. The further along we went the higher we were and the road became more curves and switchbacks until at last we turned off on secondary roads and finally a deeply rutted dirt road.

We parked the car, took our backpacks and started up the dirt road passing a few ranchitos along the way. Finally the dirt road ran out and we were walking across fields and up trails. There were some places where we crossed what I would call a narrow creek if I were in Texas. A time or two we could step across on stones but there was one where a small log had been thrown across the creek. Since I'm not very good at tight-rope walking, I hate crossing on small logs but I managed to get across it without falling about three feet into the rushing water. There were other interesting crossing too. Some places where you picked your way through the water covered dirt road and a slide under a barbed-wire fence.

It was all worth it because suddenly we were in a forest of stately tall pines and old oaks covered in lichen and ferns. We even saw some bromeliads as well. The path flowed around great rocks. As we walked along we could hear the rushing river to our right and sometimes we even caught a glimpse of it downhill between the trees. We kept stopping to identify the delicate wildflowers that were scattered along the path and to look at the mushrooms.

Finally we came to a rock ledge and sat down to look out over this beautiful view. The clouds were low but still the mountains seemed to go on and on and on. What a wonderful day. Definitely one that I will not forget.