A Mexican tour.

[Julio1fer]

Our annual vacation took the whole family to Mexico, to meet there with friends for about 10 days. A tour had been arranged, visiting Mexico City, Queretaro, Guayabitos, Puerto Vallarta and several small towns in the way. We all had a wonderful time.

It took a lot of meditation to choose equipment. My only "good" digital, a Canon G12, was of course in the bag along with charger and a spare battery. On the film side, after a lot of agonizing I went for as little weight as possible: a Perkeo with HP5+ and a VUSW with Pan F+. I discovered that there is a lot of sun in Mexico, even in winter; and I spent a lot of time waiting in markets, while the family ladies were selecting their wares (Mexico is now very convenient, price-wise).

Some results follow, film first.

A view of Paseo de la Reforma, in Mexico City (Perkeo), from our hotel.



Teotihuacan, near Mexico City (VUSW)



Tequisquiapan (Perkeo)



Guanajuato marlet - these people were voicing their breakfast specials.



Street seller in San Miguel de Allende



A view of Guanajuato from the Pipila monument. This is dedicated to Les Gediman, who took a similar picture in the same day that I did, back in 1968, in a remarkable coincidence.



Just two from the G12 (in all I took more than a thousand pictures). This one is in Puerto Vallarta.



Two seasoned men discussing life in Tequila, Jalisco.



This link should be a slideshow, for those that want more.

It is getting harder for me to use a set of cameras. Next trip it is going to be just one film and one digital.

Thanks for looking!

[scott]

A wonderful slideshow! Fantastic slice of life images.

[PFMcFarland]

You did very well with all three cameras, Julio. Great slide show.

PF

[GrahamS]

Bravo, Julio and thank you for posting these photos. Wonderful stuff.

[minoly]

Thanks for this tour. It seems to me that the subjects are chosen in a thoughtful way and the photographs are done very effectively-- I notice that I can recall quite a number of them even after a brief viewing. Excellent work!

[jamesmck]

Very, very nicely done, Julio, Makes one want to be there.
James

[Julio1fer]

Many thanks for the kind comments!

In this trip I learned a hard lesson. One should never take an unfamiliar camera on a trip. The Perkeo had been in a storage box for a long time, and I was overconfident in my operation. Once on the trip, time gets short, and attention to operation suffers as one becomes tired (we would walk an average of 4 miles a day, often under a Mexican sun). I lost more than a few good photo opportunities because of operator mistakes: I would forget to change focus, or to check that the bellows were fully clicked open (there is a small mechanical issue in my Perkeo). Lesson learned: be 100% familiar with your travel cameras!

BTW, in a group of maybe 30 people there were only two of us taking a camera of any type (the other guy had a digital Nikon SLR). Everybody else was using a smartphone for pictures and video. Goodbye, digital P&S!

[Philip]

Beautiful pictures, Julio.

[Brazile]

Thoroughly enjoyed the tour; thanks for sharing them with us!

Robert