Camera Talk

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!

A wonderful slideshow! Fantastic slice of life images.

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

PF

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

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!

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

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!

Beautiful pictures, Julio.

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

Robert