San Miguel de Allende Photography

I recently had the good fortune of traveling to San Miguel de Allende for a week.  It was strictly to be a trip to get away with my wife and two close friends who had rented a home there for a month.  They were generous to share the house they rented with us.  I had not been to Mexico for some time, and in an egregious manner I had said that I had no interest to return to Mexico after my last trip there.  A trip I took when I was much younger and full of myself.  I’ve never had the misfortune of getting ill in Mexico.  What discomforted me on my past trips was the abject poverty I encountered during my travels there.  Suffice to say Mexico, like myself, has significantly changed.  Mexico still has poverty, as do we in the U.S., but you can see that it is a vibrant country with a warm and hospitable people.  The Mexicans I met were generous in spirit and with a kindness that we should embrace in this country.  The food was spectacular, and the visuals were nothing less then visually rich.  I had the good fortune to hook up with my friend Bob Krist, a professional photographer, who lives four months out of the year in San Miguel de Allende.  A very lucky fellow to be able to live there for some time of the year, and he is a phenomenal photographer, videographer, and all around entertaining storyteller. Glad we were able to reconnect.  I hadn’t planned on making this trip a focused photography one, but San Miguel de Allende is one of the richest environments I’ve come across for street photography.  I had downsized my kit to just the Olympus OMD EM1 Mark II, the 12-100mm, f/4 and 25mm f/1.2 lenses.  I didn’t bring the Pentax medium format or my Nikon full frame gear.  This was strictly an effort to travel light and act like a tourist.  San Miguel de Allende had other plans for me.  It was to say the least, a target rich environment.  I highly recommend it, and personally, I cannot wait to return there.  Maybe I’ll take a page out of Bob’s book and try to spend several months there.