I recently took a little vacation to Toronto for the New Year. It was great to get out of Chicago and be a tourist for awhile. Spent most of my time downtown wandering but did get a chance to make it to Niagra Falls and see the insanely great Honest Ed’s, a local discount shop that has everything you could want and more. Here are some of my favorites from the trip!
On my last day in Mexico, my roommate, comrade and partner in mischief Ana Manzano and I headed to the pre-Hispanic city of Teotihuacan to see the pyramids. We had a fantastic bus ride due to our drivers insatiable love of 80′s/90′s pop ballads and we sung our way in and out of the city.
The ruins are a stunning sight, even at a distance, and we walked along the Street of the Dead towards the massive Sun pyramid. [Apparently I was having a "minimalist day", so I apologize in advance if the negative space gets overwhelming.]
After an extraordinarily long and hot trek, we made it to the base of the Sun pyramid. As we looked at it looming above us, Ana joked, “I’m not trying to do the second one [pyramid].” Glancing over at the moon pyramid which looked about another mile away, and then looking at the massive structure next to me, I just laughed in agreement.
As we neared the top, massive rain drops started to fall and Ana looked back at me wildly grinning. Tourists pulled out their umbrellas and ponchos, but having neither, I just let myself get drenched and took in the view.
After the pyramids, we did a bit of wandering and found a little side street lined with shops, restaurants and endless picture possibilities.
We decided on a little cantina and instantly fell in love. While sipping Manzana Lift [an apple flavored soda], I suddenly heard, “Béseme, Béseme mucho”, in my ear and I turned to find two charming men with guitars singing their hearts out.
After finishing our enchiladas, Ana ran over to talk to the women who ran the place and found out that three generations of women were all cooking together. They taught her how to make tortillas and shared some stories.
Back in Chicago, I’m still processing the trip and everything that has happened. My only coherent thought at the moment is that I need to figure out a way to get back to D.F. as soon as possible.
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After Juan Luiz had disappeared, I had a day to kill at the workshop to photograph whatever I wanted. I had been in contact with numerous NGO’s and decided to photograph the Monólogos de la Maquila performance at Teatro Coyoacán in Mexico City’s Colonia Coyoacán. Los Monólogos de la Maquila is a play and collaboration with the theatre group Costureras de Sueños and the Mexican Society for the Rights of Women. The performance is meant to bring awareness to the injustices experienced by women maquila workers [assembly line workers] by acting out the lives of the women who work in an area of large denim factories also known around town as El Rey de la Mezclilla [which directly translates to "The King of Blue Jeans"]. The women who work in the factories suffer physical abuse and rape and are exposed to harmful working conditions and have little to no rights. Clothing made in these maquiladoras are usually tagged as “made in the US” or “made in Italy”.
Hopefully these photos give you some idea of how intense the performance was. Even though my Spanish is mas o menos, I nearly burst into tears at the end of it.
I followed them backstage and found out that one of the women actors is from one of the maquila towns and offered me some contacts there to do some work with them. Needless to say, I plan to head back to Mexico City, spend some time working with these women and try to illuminate the issue and do their story justice [photographically speaking].
They also have a blog which you should check out. And if you don’t speak Spanish, I highly recommend using my favorite online free translator because it is definitely worth the read.
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Mexico City is one of the most visually rich places I have ever been to. While I was riding the bus, I seriously had to stop myself from motor driving [holding the shutter on my camera down continuously] as I watched the most amazing images pass by the bus windows. Here are some of my favorites:
The past several days have been nothing short of complete chaos. After all of my story ideas fell through, I woke up at 6 a.m. on Tuesday and headed downtown to the Zocalo [central plaza] in search of a story. After two hours of wandering around and finding nothing, I headed toward the Metro feeling a bit defeated. As I was walking, I came across this vision and knew that I had stumbled upon something great.
He introduced himself as Juan Luiz, a homeless street vendor and began to tell me the stories of his life.
Juan Luiz is 29 years old and has been living on the streets for 14 years. He is an aries and enjoys reading his daily horoscope outside the Juarez Metro stop. “My hobby is to read. I like to take the things I have read and practice them in my life.”
Juan makes flowers out of cloth, tape and straws and sells them in certain parts of the street. He used to sell them in one of the main plazas but the police thought it made a bad impression for tourists, so they have been kicking the vendors out.
On the third day, I hopped on the Metro to meet him at a video arcade and he was nowhere to be found. I searched all of his local haunts: the mall where he sleeps, the shops where he buys cloth for the flowers he makes, the stand where he gets his daily newspaper to read his horoscope and see what his lucky number is for the day. No one had seen him. I cannot tell you how many scenarios of what happened to him have run through my head. Every time I see a glimpse of red, I pause, in hopes of finding Juan Luiz and knowing whether or not he is alright. I can’t help but wonder if he made it to the library to read Carlos Castaneda’s Teachings of Don Juan or the beauty school where he gets free hair cuts. If he is laughing like he was when the evangelical, crazed street woman yelled, “Do you have Jesus Christ in your heart?!” or if he is listening to one of his favorite musicians, Rod Stewart, in a music shop.
At two of the panel discussions, many of the photographers discussed the toll this life takes on your emotions. Flashes of all that you have seen through your lens. I just keep imagining the image of him sitting on the street corner when he read me a father’s day passage with tears in his eyes. All I can hope is that my time spent with Juan Luiz made some positive impact on his life.
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I’m sitting on the porch outside of my room at the hostel eating the most amazing sandwich from a street vendor and drinking orange soda out of a glass bottle. Any vegetarianism that was still in me has quickly faded away and I’m trying to process everything that has happened since my last post.
Spent much of yesterday wandering around the Mercado [market]. Every turn I made brought more visions of sunglasses, fruit, animals, spoons. Any and everything. The market stretched for what seemed like miles and every turn I made brought an entirely new section into view, each one unique and interesting. I wish I could show all of the photos but I’m short on time right now.
After all that, we had our opening party at AAVI, the school that is hosting us. It was a pretty intense experience to walk into a room and see Stanley Greene, Stephanie Sinclair and Andrea Bruce all in the first few minutes. In typical photographer fashion, there was loads of beer and I proceeded to introduce myself to a roomful of over 100 strangers. It felt almost like a speed dating night that went a little something like this:
Hey, I’m Allison.
Where are you from?
Why are you here?
What class are you in?
What do you love besides pictures?
And on to the next student…
I didn’t really realize how humorous this was until someone that I had already met came up to me and instead of saying his name I just said “Hey, Boston!”. Instead of a list of names, all I had was a world map with marked locations: Australia, San Fran, Malaysia, Brooklyn, Brazil, Hawaii. I then became ‘Chicago’.
I was really frustrated with some problems with my fixer and working on stories, so when the workshop was over I headed home for some much needed sleep.
This morning we listened to our keynote speaker Ron Haviv. Sitting on the floor sipping my 7-11 coffee, he just kept saying everything I had been thinking before I went on this trip and I felt completely revived.
“This is a life, not a job…One day you wake up and realize that this has become your world…In the end, this is not about us. It is about the other…It is a serious responsibility…The essence of what we do should be our motivating factor…We have the ability to give a voice to the voiceless…”
I really needed to hear those words, to be surrounded by others who believe in them, validate this bizarre existence.
After that we broke up into our first class. I was really nervous about showing my work but I had a really good critique and some positive feedback on my images. Phew! We discussed our story ideas and after talking to Renee and Scott, I feel as motivated as ever to run out and capture the moments I believe in. And that is exactly what I’m off to do.
a.
Spent much of the past 24 hours in transit, but I’ve finally made it to Mexico City! During a layover in Charlotte, I met a charming Scottish man and we spent a few hours wandering around the airport swapping stories.
As I waited for my driver to pick me up, I sat on the pavement soaking in the beginnings of the trip and falling in love with the sights and sounds of Distrito Federal or simply D.F.
My roommate Ana and I spent the rest of the day wandering around our neighborhood and Zona Rosa which was very touristy but a decent introduction to this amazing city.
I also met Kujo, the friendly Mexican dog, near his owners who were playing cards in a plaza.
Later last night we wandered up and down Insurgentes, a long street that runs through much of the city. There were rows and rows of mannequins, some creepy, others hilarious.
The hostel owner informed us that Saturday night was ‘Tequila Night’ on our rooftop, so we went and spent several hours with other travelers. I have begun to feel that incredible lightness of being that accompanies you when you’ve decided to do exactly what you want. There is an air of connectedness, excitement, purpose.
