I have already written enough about the Ex-hacienda Jaral de Berrios here, so I won’t bore you with the details. These are some of the new images I finally got around to editing. I am trying some new techniques, using textures over the images to give them a little extra sum thin’ sum thin’. The textures are taken from Brooke Shaden’s texture collection. I like the effect and I am looking forward to creating a texture collection of my own. Thanks Brooke! #shadentextures
Over the past few months, I have been returning to the Ex-Hacienda Jaral de Berio (about which you can read more here), one of my absolute favorite places to photograph. Although, I have an ongoing series that generally fits together, this week I veered off from my usual work. I think in the past I have always, in so many ways, been portraying the spirit that haunts that place. After shooting all morning, suddenly in the afternoon, I had the urge to be the one that the ghosts were haunting. I found myself running around, pretending I was in some sort of horror film. I was hiding, running, trying to survive, and ultimately succumbing to a very Vertigo, moment, when it all gets to me and I commit suicide. So this week, I have decided not to just show one image for my photo of the week, but a whole little series. I would love to know which is your favorite, as only one can truly be my ‘photo of the week.’ Please leave me a message in the comments.
Every year, twelve million pilgrims visit the small Mexican town of San Juan de los Lagos. It is one of the most venerated sights in Mexico, second only to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City (where you can view Juan Diego’s cloak with the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe). The faithful and curious, come to San Juan de los Lagos to see a small thirty-eight centimeter statue made in the 1500’s of sugarcane paste. Known as the “Smiling” Virgin, “Cihuapilli” in Nahuatl, or just the “Great Lady,” her first miracle is said to have dated back to 1623:
“A family of acrobats had a show which included “flying” over a field of spear points. The seven-year-old daughter fell onto the spears during the act and immediately died. Local women brought the image to the body and prayed over it when the child revived. This miracle made the image famous.[6] Since then, many other miracles have since been attributed to her intercession, often related to recuperation from mortal danger or dangerous illnesses.[7]”
Today, many pilgrims still walk on foot to see the virgin, just as they have for hundreds of years. For this particular pilgrimage, the faithful leave from cites all over Mexico to arrive in San Juan de los Lagos on February second for Candlemas. Candlemas, is a celebration held forty days after the birth of Jesus, commemorating when Mary was recovered from childbirth and her motherhood was blessed in the church. This small town of 55,000 inhabitants is mobbed with over two million visitors this weekend alone. Many flock there to fulfill promises made to the virgin over the past year, lest they be turned to stone!
I was invited to walk with C.A.S.A., an organization for whom I have been volunteering over the past several months. They provide everything from women’s healthcare, childcare, violence and sexual education programs, GLBT awareness, exercise classes, radio shows, midwife training, and so much more. On this day, we were walking with the pilgrims as they left San Miguel de Allende to bring attention to the high rates of domestic violence suffered by women across Mexico. Leaving the central square at five am, we walked for about seven hours, as the sun came up over Guanajuato’s beautiful farm country and wild deserts.
Around noon, we headed back to town, and the pilgrims walked on to complete the first of nine days and an over one-hundred-and-twenty-five mile journey. I arrived home, spent, exhausted, and sore, yet also buoyed, floating, and high. After a hot bath, and much thanks for a warm bed instead of a night in a tent, I realized I needed more. Immediately, I made plans to find the pilgrims the following day and continue walking. Enlisting a good friend, we spent the morning in a taxi chasing down the procession. They had risen before dawn, to start walking in the cool morning air and had already covered a tremendous distance. Astounded, it took us almost thirty minutes by car to find them, we could not believe they had already walked more than twenty-five miles in less than two days. This feat seems fairly plausible, until you realize that at least a third of the pilgrims are over sixty-five and walk with canes, another third are carrying infants or pushing strollers barely suitable for a doll, and the rest are young and able bodied but carry banners, huge crosses, and litter-boxes with venerated saints. Even so, after the first day, many were limping, their sore feet and nasty blisters the result of walking in miserable cheap sneakers. Yet they carried on, lifted by the prayer, song, the spirit of the collective and the power of their faith.
A few years ago, I walked three weeks worth of the Camino Santiago in northern Spain, another ancient pilgrimage route dating back to the era of the Knights Templar. According to pilgrim mythology, along the way, the “angels” of the Camino will often greet you and pass on their blessings. These assorted souls, generally come out of nowhere and drift back into the ether, but bring you exactly what you need to carry on. On one very rainy, cold, day, in a section of the Camino where there are no villages for several kilometers, I was feeling discouraged and I had stopped to stretch and rest. Along came a tiny bowlegged old man, no taller than five feet, wearing a ratty, red, rain poncho and using a long wooden walking staff.
Like a medieval storybook character, his walking stick was adorned with a dangling scallop shell and gourd, both ancient symbols of the Camino. In his other hand, he had a plastic grocery bag that held a bottle of red wine and few oranges. Other than that, he carried nothing. He stopped, pealed an orange and offered me half. Having walked alone for days, I was in desperate need of companionship, and this was an extraordinary blessing. We walked together for several hours, and although my Spanish was poor, he told me that he had walked the whole Camino over forty times, and that it was his annual vacation. This is really something considering the Camino is over five hundred miles long. Although, I glimpsed him here and there, and he checked in on me every few days to see that I was well, he left me that afternoon with the taste of orange in my mouth and the inspiration to continue my journey.
The pilgrimage to San Juan de los Lagos is no different, and within a few hours of walking on the second day, we met a man in his mid seventies. This gentleman, had walked to see the virgin every year of his life. He laughed and told jokes, and then he noted that we had such fair skin compared to his deep walnut brown. Although, skin color is common topic of conversation in Mexico, and the basis of much classism, what followed was a beautiful discussion of how our hearts are what matter, not our skin color. This is a deep seated beliefs of mine, but at the moment, it came from a place of such pure love that it was utterly moving. Eventually, our younger legs out paced our companion. When we stopped to wait for him under a tree, even after a long break, he never came, and we were left wondering if he really existed at all. Repacking our snacks, we walked on, only to encounter even more sweet “angels” on the way.
Along the route, the local villagers come out to support the pilgrims and hand out water, atole, coffee, bread, and fruit. One of these was a lovely elderly woman, who stopped me as I walked by. She had pyramids of mandarins, oranges, sweet lemons, and peanuts laid out on a tarp. She wanted me to photograph the man with whom she sat and to tell me his story. I am still unsure of their relation, if they were father and daughter, or husband and wife, as their Spanish was colloquial, accented and tough to understand. What I did glean, was that he was ninety years old and spry, a gift he attributed to previous pilgrimages to see the virgin. Although a bit hunched over, he fell to his knees to show me that he was still strong enough to dig in his garden, and claimed he was pain free after all these years. When he laughed, his toothless smile was one of the worlds most radiant and joyous. We talked to them for a while, taking lots of photos, and when we set off, they handed us a huge plastic bag full of oranges picked from their own trees. Later in the day, as we climbed a long hot hill, that bag got heavier and heavier, but the fruit was incredibly delicious on our bus ride home and ultimately became the inspiration for this week’s photo.
In both of my pilgrimage experiences, the orange has become the symbol of my journey. An orange is such a humble offering, yet so full of abundance and the sweetness of life. Each time, I was overwhelmed with the kindness this gift represented and I hope to never forget the potency of this simple form of generosity. Thus, for my image, I chose to show a pilgrim approaching the virgin, at the end of her travels, offering an orange. She has nothing more to give, yet could not give anything more. The orange in this image, is one my “angels” gave me that afternoon.
The Pilgrimage:
The doorway to the Paroquia, overflowing with pilgrims as they listen to a 4am mass before leaving for San Juan de los lagos.
After mass, preparing to leave.
Locals handing out a sweet hot punch, in front of the church, to warm a chilly morning.
Traditional dances in the main square kick off the procession.
Walking along the train tracks as the sun begins to rise.
The lights of San Miguel de Allende, still lit in the early morning light.
Watching the procession.
The young carrying crosses, banners and saints.
Sunrise over the Laja River.
Local tough guys and their massive cross.
Stopping for a free breakfast of tortillas, chicken mole, and rice.
The procession along the road, each church had their own bullhorns and were singing and saying prayers at the same time. Quite a racket.
The back of the procession is followed up by men who carry stretchers, so they can ferry any fallen pilgrims along the way.
A family rests. These are not massive SUV strollers they push for a hundred miles.
Much of the way is walked on hard pavement that exhausts your feet. A crew on four wheelers stops traffic to keep the pilgrims safe.
So many faces.
The path veering off the road into the harsh but beautiful Guanajuato desert.
Pilgrims in the landscape.
Resting under a tree.
Local farmers taking an afternoon siesta.
The best smile in the world.
Beer break.
Naughty kids take advantage of a very tired father.
Entrepreneurs
Mobile pilgrims hospital set up in the encampment.
4/52 – The Offering:
The hacienda Jaral de Berrio, founded 1774, in the current state of Guanajuato, Mexico, was appointed to Miguel de Berrio y Zaldívar, Marquis of Jaral by Charles III, and was Mexico’s largest hacienda. Home to generations of the Berrio lineage, it’s wealthiest owner, Juan Nepomuceno de Moncada y Berrio was considered the richest man in Mexico during the 1830s, and was said to have left a hacienda to each of his 99 sons. During its heyday in the late 19th century, it housed up to 6500 people and had its own railway station, post office, two primary schools, and a parish church. As was the style in this Francophile obsessed society, the main building was lavishly furnished and the walls hand frescoed or plied with imported French wallpaper.
Today, the ex-hacienda is a beautiful decaying ruin that houses the Jaral de Berrio mezcal factory. Visitors have free range to explore every part of this building (at ones own risk of course). Walls are collapsing, the floors of second story rooms have fallen in places, leaving dangerous holes, ceilings expose open sky, and the whole place is overrun with vermin and birds. Completely ransacked over the years, there are no windows or doors, the wooden frames are stripped, fixtures are gone, and all of the copper wire has been pulled directly out of the plaster walls, leaving violent grooves. The ex-hacienda truly is the embodiment of the old cliché “faded glory.” That being said, it is possibly one of the most magical places I have ever been, and I am so lucky to have had the chance to visit several times.
These images were taken on two separate occasions and represent the dualities between light and dark, as well as a departure into a bit more lavish costuming. I have refrained from posting these images, as I am planning on regularly returning to this hacienda to continue to delve into this body of work. Regardless, it felt like unfinished business not to have posted something, and by something I mean a lot of photos.
A few weeks after I moved to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico I was feeling a bit overwhelmed. I was in desperate need of some time away from the city to breathe fresh air, get away from people, and feel that I was in nature. Thankfully, I had just made a new friend, Carrie Haugh. Carrie was in the final stages of acting in a short film that would go on to be an official entry in the Guanajuato Film Festival. The last scene they needed to shoot was a dream sequence that takes place in a flowering lavender field. Although, there is a lot of agriculture in this area of Mexico, it is mostly known to be a hot and dry climate. One is much more likely to think of towering prickly-pear cactus trees than French lavender fields. Alas, this place is always full of surprises.
After forty-five minuets of barreling down a Mexican freeway in an old van with questionable steering and brakes, we pulled onto a dirt road and followed the signs to an enormous lavender farm. For various reasons, Guanajuato is a state from which men emigrate heavily to find work in the USA. The sad side effect being that whole towns are left with only women, children, and the elderly to continue to support their community. Rather than allowing these pueblos to sink even further into poverty and ultimately disappear, an NGO out of Albuquerque, New Mexico is bringing in The Lavender Project. A wonderful program, these co-op lavender farms have created a fantastic renewable source of employment and income (Please visit their web page to find out more: http://thelavenderproject.com/). The products they make are divine and they have a chocolate-lavender soap that smells so good I could live in it.
It was such a relief to step out of the car and inhale the fresh lavender plants drying out after a light rain. The film crew went to work and I was left with several hours and a field of my own in which to play. I even crawled over the fence and into some of the aforementioned prickly pear cactuses to take photos. It really is stunning to spend an afternoon in a place as surreal as a lavender field and I can assure you my need to “get away from it all” was quenched.
I met Foxie Flambé last summer camping in Jackson Hole, Montana. We had both been invited to a spiritual gathering that celebrated the opening of the Sacred Door Trail, a 165-mile long, nondenominational, circular, pilgrimage route. For four days and nights, we kept a sacred fire burning, listened and participated, while spiritual leaders from faiths around the globe blessed the space. For many of us, it was an intense and changing experience, full of great joy and great release. On the last night, Foxie sidled up to me and asked if I would be interested in wearing a feather Mohawk. Obviously, I said yes.
Fast-forward seven months, I get an email from Foxie asking me to purchase a ticket for the festival event Leyend Eterna. At first, I balked, and totally missed the chance. I had reservations, the event was being held across the Mexicali border in a desert canyon in Baja, Mexico, an area known for border violence. Knowing I had missed the opportunity, I stopped thinking about it until a month later when I received another email, they had released more tickets. At the time I was traveling through Mexico and had nothing but a suitcase full of clothes, no camping gear whatsoever. Foxie promised me that she was fully equipped to host me. If I just showed up at her house in Orange County a day or so before the event to purchase food and pack, she had all the camping gear and costumes I would ever need. I bought the ticket.
One month, and a pickup truck brimming with gear later; I was watching the sunrise as we drove south. What followed was one of the most unique festival events I have ever attended. Leyenda is much like Burningman, but set in an arid desert canyon with an oasis of palm trees and fresh running hot and cold springs. The six hundred or so participants are assigned small campsites, each with their own natural hot tub. During the day, hot weather is offset by hiking up to icy waterfalls, where one can brave high rock jumps into the deep pools below. On Saturday, there is an annual pool party where all attendees come dressed in their finest festival regalia to dance, swim, and enjoy their vice of choice. Thankfully, the main stage does not bump twenty-four hours a day, which allows you to really enjoy the tranquil, natural beauty, of the place. At night though, the party is on and everyone gets down on the dance floor until the sun comes up.
I was encamped right next to the main stage with Hullabaloo. The core of camp Hullabaloo is a group of circus performers known as Lucent Dossier. Needless to say, over the top pranks, performances, and general shenanigans were the norm and there was never a moment when someone wasn’t in hysterics laughing. I felt super welcome in this group, and I am so thankful that knowing no one but Foxie, I was surrounded by such fun-loving, caring souls.
Each night, as the moment struck me, I snuck off and did photo shoots in the beautiful, moonless, desert, darkness. Although, on very dark nights the challenge is to figure out how to light myself, the stars that appear in these images really bring out a special beauty. For a few of these shoots, I was able to borrow Isis wings from Foxie, a special treat that I hope to revisit someday. I am really happy with the work that I accomplished over these four nights, the last being a photo shoot with Miss Foxie Flambé herself. Enjoy the images, and if anyone ever sends you an invite to Leyenda Eterna, don’t hesitate!
As always, double click to enlarge and please feel free to share, repost and subscribe. Xoxo –janelle
After years of returning to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, I have had several opportunities to shoot images in El Charco del Ingenio Botanical Garden. This is truly one of my favorite places on the planet. A constantly changing environment, this place shifts and transforms dramatically with the seasons. This was the first time I have been there during the height of the dry season, when the presa reveals itself to be an exquisite cracked mud plane. It was such a strange sensation taking photos in places that, only a few months ago, were under several feet of water.
I arrived at sunset on a hot sunny day expecting to work into a warm and productive night. Unfortunately, weather in the desert is always unpredictable, and where I had been wearing summery sundresses all week, a bitter cold wind decided to blow in and really ruin our fun. My companion was truly impressed with my ability to strip down to a dress and get at least a few hours worth of work done. By the time we returned home we both needed long hot showers to thaw out and get our core temperatures back to normal.
Though the almost full moon and the beautiful location were truly perfect, the freezing temperatures really hindered my creativity. We left vowing to return the following night but I ended up getting really sick and just could not muster enough late night energy. Thankfully, the Charco is always there, ever changing but ready for future projects.
As always, click on the images for a larger view, and feel free to share or subscribe.
For some reason, I have really been slacking on writing this post. It has been almost a month since I took these images and still I have not put them up. Maybe it is because I am not really sure if I like any of these images, or maybe I have just been having too much fun and writing my blog feels like homework. Regardless, I have since done new work, so I have to get this out of the way.
These images were taken at three different Mayan temple/city complexes on the Yucatan peninsula, Chichen Itza, Ek Balam, and Tulum. At this point I have taken images at six different temple locations and although some of the images have come out well, it is really difficult to dodge the tourists, get images with out ropes and signs, be barricaded from getting close to or climbing on the ruins (yeah, yeah, I know) and thus, I never feel very satisfied when I leave. One thing I have learned is that my best images happen when I am completely alone, no assistants, and no audience. When I am in these locations, my mind just reels with “what ifs,” aka: what if I had this all to myself, what if tripods were allowed and I didn’t have to hide mine from the guards, what if I could be here at night, etc. I know that on special occasions such as equinoxes, they allow adventurous tourists into the ruins at night, but excepting this, I think I am over shooting in super touristy ruins.
That being said, I did get up early enough to avoid the hoards of tour busses and get a few nice images. Lately, I have been trying to explore some different ideas with my work, so you will see some of the same and some new looking stuff. I was too lazy to give this a hard edit, and after all there were three different shoots involved so there are lots of images to look at. Special thanks to my assistant who knows who he is. As always, click on an image for a larger view, and please share! Much love — Janelle
I have always been a great lover of natural hot springs, I seek them out and relish in their healing waters. Now, I am also a great lover of cenotes. Prior to this trip, I had never experienced these amazing formations created by underground rivers. The Yucatan peninsula, ancestral home of the Mayan people, is entirely limestone with no running surface water. Due to the extreme porosity of this rock, all of the fresh water is underground. Scientists believe that there are around six-thousand cenotes in this area and less than half have been documented. There are several types and they range from lakes and open sinkholes, to caves connected by underwater channels and passageways. In many areas, one can scuba dive and explore these magical, interconnected, and very dark places.
Believed by the Mayan people to be entrances to the underworld, cenotes served as both a source of water and a site for sacred rituals. They were the foundation for such great civilizations as Chichen Itza, Coba and Ek Balam. Many Mayan people still believe that spirits dwell in cenotes and thus they never learn to swim. Within many of the caves, stalactites and stalagmites are common formations, as are the fossils of shells and marine life dating back as far as 50 million years. Complex and interesting ecosystems, the crystal clear water is home to a variety of fish including a species of blind catfish. In many, tree roots extend hundreds of feet from above to reach the deep, water sources below. It is impossible not to be impressed by these natural wonders, and the opportunity to swim in them and take photographs is truly unworldly.
The cenotes pictured here are just outside the small town of Valladolid, deep in the jungle at the center of the peninsula. The local Mayan name for this group of cenotes is Dzitnup, and they are respectively referred to as X’kekén and Samulá. Only a two-hour drive from Cancun, these cenotes are often on the itinerary for huge tour groups. Knowing this, and to the surprise of the locals, I arrived just before opening at eight am, and was rewarded with two full hours completely by myself. The first cave was lit with colored LED lights that illuminate the stalactites and provide an added layer of surrealism to the images. Although, I started shooting while dressed and rarely work without clothes, I felt comfortable being nude and I really like the results. In the second cave I had to swim to the island with my dress in a bucket to keep it dry. Like an optical illusion, the water is perfectly clear, and it is almost impossible to tell the depth until you jump in. Thus, that which appears shallow in the foreground of this image is actually several meters deep. Though I visited a few other cenotes on this trip, I was never able to make more images but I am certain I will return in the future.
Be sure to click on the image to see a larger view as these cenotes are really amazing and in the last one I am a tiny figure on the island. As always, feel free to repost and sign up for e-mail blasts below if you don’t want to miss anything.
It has been about four months since I last made any new images. This winter, I have been living in the snowy Colorado Mountains and I find that when the weather is cold I have no interest in creating new work. Fortunately, this post finds me traveling through the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico. I arrived on the full moon, landing in Cancun and immediately taking a ferry out to Isla Mujeres. During the day I partook of the usual beach stuff, highlighted by a snorkeling trip to the Under Water Museum. This place is absolutely amazing and a lot bigger than I expected, there were sculptures all over the place, and a lot of surprising ones I had not seen in any photos of the project. My biggest regret is not being a diver, as the sculptures sit about thirty feet under the ocean surface and snorkeling just does not do the artwork justice. For more info on this incredible place, check out: http://www.musacancun.com/.
By night, I have been out under the full moon on the rocky seaside cliffs, evoking La Serena. Fitting, as I am on the Island of Women. The motivation for these images came while dancing to Cuban salsa, at La Terraza, a great local bar. I met three German sailors there who were living and working on The Stahlratte: www.stahlratte.org. This is huge steel sailboat run by a non-profit foundation, and by far the largest sailing vessel docked on the island. Anyone can sail with them as they circle the Caribbean, but it is a work/live situation not a cruse ship. From my tour of the boat and meeting the staff, I imagine this might be as close to feeling like a real pirate as one could find these days. With sailing on my mind, and hearing stories of vessels breaking up on the rocks surrounding the island, I was inspired to play the roll of the temptress on the cliffs.
In the first images, La Serena beams a light into the night, mimicking a lighthouse and falsely directing ships. Later, she sings out to the sailors, enchanting them and luring them to their demise. It felt so good to be shooting again, and to also have a little narrative in mind while I was working. I do feel a bit rusty, and I am test-driving my brand new Nikon D7000. So far so good but I kind of wish I had not left the manual at home. The images I am getting look gorgeous with this improved sensor, but I have to be careful these days, as my images files are three times larger and my computer’s hard drive is going fast. I have about ten more days in the Yucatan to shoot new work, cenotes and Mayan ruins here I come. As always click on the image to see a larger version.
