Guanajuato, Mexico

During the summer of July 2024, I traveled to Guanajuato, Mexico to study Spanish for four weeks, and lived with a local family. On the weekends, I spent a lot of time roaming and exploring the beautiful city, as it is historically and culturally very important for Mexico. I sometimes took my camera and made some images of what I was seeing. What I find is that for the most part, people are open and inviting for their photo to be taken, so that makes street photography relatively easier than other places where people might be alarmed or not as inviting. So much to see and I feel that the city is well captured using black and white film and a medium-format film camera. I walked for hours on some days, it was a lot of fun – streets, markets, architecture, graffiti walls. 

Volkswagen Show & Shine in Mazatlán, Mexico 

Every year in mid-May, VW vehicle owners from all over Mexico and the USA drive to Mazatlán to take part in the annual VW Show and Shine exhibition. It is really interesting to see the wide range of models on display, and how they have been maintained and in many cases fixed up! Some have been remodeled, and others are looking like they drove off the vehicle assembly line last week. Mexico was a major manufacturer and assembler of VWs from the 1970s to 1990s, and so there are many on the streets. People are proud of their VWs and so it was a perfect opportunity to catch some of this pride during May of 2024. 

San Sebastian Bakery in Guanajuato, Mexico 

During one of my walks around the city, I came across the Panaderia San Sebastian in downtown Guanajuato, on Sangre de Cristo in the Zona Centro, not so far from where I was living with my host family during the summer of 2024. I could smell the deliciousness prior to even passing the main doorway, and so I just had to enter. Inside it is a very basic yet comforting space, solely geared towards the making of baked treats, specifically empanadas - apple, ham and cheese, and other flavors! I watched Paty make the dough from scratch and after a while, I asked if she would be ok with me photographing her, and she said yes. I had a lot of fun taking photos of the process, the staff, and the final products.