Many photographers will tell you some of the most fulfilling kinds of photography they do is street photography, defined loosely as candid photographs of people going about their daily lives unaware of the fact that they are being photographed.
Street photography catches people in the moment, in their most natural state defined by the most ordinary sorts of every-day activities when they are at their most authentic, natural, and revealing selves.
Here are a few of those moments.
Street-side florerías are in every neighborhood in San Miguel. They are everywhere because Mexican people use flowers to accompany both commonplace occasions and more somber occasions like El Día de los Muertos (indigenous people believed the fragrance of flowers guided the dead back home). Typically, these floreías sell an exquisite variety of flowers. The roses here sell for three dollars a dozen.
For me, this street-side elote vendor is a rare sight. I just don’t see these elote vendors as much as I have in the past. In the foreground is a washtub full of water heated by a propane stove below. The elote is stacked on a rack on top of the tub, and the señora will occasionally spoon the heated water over the corn to make sure they’re always hot. A customer, waiting for his elote to be prepared, gives me a curious look—Who is this Gringo with a camera on his hip?. Elote is typically served on a stick, spread thick with mayonnaise, then covered with with a crumbly cotija cheese, and sprinkled with chili powder. This corn is not the typical kind of hybrid sweet corn we find in the states. I have no doubt that elote sold here is not that much different from the corn that was cultivated by the Aztecs.
To take candid shots I have to hold my Nikon close to my hip, pointed and ready to shoot at any moment. Sometimes, because of the way I hold my camera, the angle is awkward, but even so the camera often catches something interesting. Here two young women are engaged in conversation as they pass under the Quebrada Heroes’ Bridge (see below) while a motorcyclist with a plastic crate mounted on the back speeds down Calle Canal. What’s interesting to me about the moment is that while one woman does the talking, the other has a far-away look on her face.
Locals tend to hang out in the puertas of their favorite tiendas, chatting with people as they pass by, or sometimes just waiting for a bus. The sidewalks as a rule are very narrow, with barely enough room for one person to walk. The doorways become natural space to step away from the hectic pedestrian traffic.
In the foreground, mounted on the wall is a painted tile of the Virgen de Guadalupe. Her image is ubiquitous in Mexico. Rarely is there a street I walk that doesn’t have her image somewhere. The street in the above photograph, Calle Insurgentes, like many of streets in San Miguel, rises steeply, stretching towards el centro. The perspective these steep streets and alleyways create is always exciting, but often difficult for me to photograph. Locals, whether young or old, easily climb these steep streets seemingly without effort. With camera in hand, I have to use extreme caution climbing up these hills to avoid stumbling. San Miguel has often be described as the “city of fallen women”; this is so for men as well.
My NIKON camera shutter settings are too slow here, hence the photograph is out of focus. But sometimes the mistakes, in this case the blur or haze of the image, give the subject an aesthetic quality. Photographers call this bokeh, a deliberate attempt to make blurs aesthetically pleasing. Though the image is blurred, it still tells a story. Whatever that story may be, because of the candid nature of the shot, it’s up to the “viewer” to decide what that story is based on the elements in the photograph. I like the contrast between the man with the stetson hat, head lowered, hands out of focus, and the graffiti on the wall.
I managed to catch the gentleman in the background in an interesting pose. It helps the story to have him in shadow with the “paper” flags stretched over the street in celebration of the upcoming holiday season. These flags are everywhere in Mexico, especially during fiesta times. Suffice it to say that these flags are very colorful.
This shot was taken from the Calle Quebrada overpass, looking west down Canal. In the extreme foreground a young man sits in the back of a small pickup, a mode of transportation that is very common here. Note the 110 volt power lines stretching from one side of the street to the other. Some of these lines are also phone lines. You see this everywhere in San Miguel. The wires are harmless—for the most part—when they stretch over the street. However, sometimes I find wires hanging ominously over the sidewalks.
Here are a few shots of San Miguel architecture capturing the mysterious and magical quality of SMA:
The archway over Calle Canal is part of the Heroes’ Bridge erected in 1960 most likely to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Mexican Independence that same year. On the right side of the bridge on wall is a marker that pays tribute to the heroes who fought for the liberty of Mexico:
Puente de los Heroes.
Homenaje de la
ciudad de San
Miguel de Allende
a sus hijos que
lucharon por la
libertad de Mexico.
The Heroes’ Bridge
Tribute from the
city of San Miguel de Allende
to her sons that
fought for the
liberty of Mexico.
One of the unique architectural features of the Heroes’ Bridge is this pedestrian passageway leading from Calle Quebrada, the street above, down these stairs to Calle Canal below.
Another view from the top of the bridge on Calle Quebrada, looking west.
San Miguel is full of restaurants with magnificent courtyard seating. This is the courtyard of La Sacrista, which because of the patio seating, is dog friendly. Usually, any restaurant with courtyards and patios welcome dogs if they are well-behaved.
Fruit is sold everywhere in San Miguel. Above is typical of what you can buy: fresh fruit cups.
Bar Casanova is a cantina that caters to solo hombres, though I can’t vouch for that as a fact since I have yet had the nerve to go inside of one. I have heard they do serve mezcal.
Windows illustrating colonial-style architectural features of residential apartments.
Pollo rosticerías like this one are extremely popular. The chicken is exceptionally delicious and sell out fast. Note the patas de pollo (chicken feet) roasting away on the bottom spit. When I first saw them, I thought chicken wings.