Leyenda Eterna

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

Return to El Charco

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.

Ex-Hacienda San Gabriel de Barrera

On a sunny September day, I climbed onto a Primera Plus bus and traveled to the small city of Guanajuato. A four-hundred-year-old Spanish mining town, Guanajuato was the center of the Mexican war of independence. Built into a steep valley, colorful houses are terraced along tiny staircases that thread down to the valley floor. The city is generally known for two things, its tunnels and its mummies. The tunnels came about after the main river flooded in 1907, and almost wiped out the town. The locals decided to divert the river, leaving empty subterranean tunnels that had funneled water under the city. The tunnels were re-appropriated for transportation and expanded through out the area, minimizing traffic and leaving a lovely walking street that winds through downtown. The mummies are due to the hot dry climate and the practice of interring the dead in mausoleums. When the families of the dead could no longer afford to pay a yearly fee in order keep their dead loved ones in graves, the bodies were pulled out and kept in a museum adjacent to the graveyard. The museum is open today, but no longer practices disinterment.

Another remarkable historical site in Guanajuato is the Ex-Hacienda San Gabriel de Barrera. Built in the late 1600’s it was home to Captain Gabriel de Barrera who’s family were descendants of the Conde de Rul of the local Valenciana mine. This mine, though still active, was once one of the largest silver producing mines in the world. The old hacienda still stands, although it was heavily damaged in the war of independence. The hacienda grounds used to be a working refinery for silver oar extracted from the Valenciana mine, but now have been converted into seventeen incredible gardens. A week before, I came to Guanajuato on a scouting mission to see whether this place was appropriate for photography. What I found was a huge space that I would love to return to again and again, day or night, to create images.

I arrived midday at the bus station and was greeted by my old friend Nico. Nico and I met about three years back when he was working as a barista in a coffee shop and I used to ask him for help with my Spanish homework. Nico kindly volunteered to help me for the day as a photo assistant. Thank goodness he did, because I could not have done it with out him. We spent the day goofing around in the gardens taking all kinds of photographs. Having done the image on the Brooklyn Bridge as a Shiva, I though it would be fun to take some photos as Mary and the Virgin Guadalupe. I brought several yards of blue and red fabric with me and draped it over myself like a shroud. The imagery is probably too kitschy and obvious to actually work, but I had fun doing it.

This location screams for my sometimes photography collaborator Aloyse Blair, as it is full of beautiful fountains and I am not nearly as capable as she at imitating Greek goddess statues. I did my best, and looking at the images I would like to do some research on Greek goddess art and try again. At this point, I am finally starting to get the hang of my neutral density filter, and taking images with it is getting much more predictable. Ideally, I show up best in full sunlight with a dark shadowy background. Knowing this, I think making daylight images will start to become far more successful. Next time, I would really love to see if I can come back and shoot at night.

The House of One Hundred Years of Solitude

In mid August, I headed down to Cuernavaca, Mexico, to visit with my old friend Marela Zacarias. Marela grew up around Mexico City but currently resides in New York City; she was on a trip to visit family and I was invited to tag along. The house we stayed at has been in her family for generations. This beautiful compound is a bit like Marquez’s House of a Hundred Years of Solitude. It is built on a large sloping hillside that is terraced and ends in a deep barranca below. Each level accommodates different areas including gardens, swings, walkways, and swimming pools, all in various states of repair.

There is a special magic to a place like this, a place where there are echoes of parties long since past, children grown up, and a future yet to come. One can imagine golden era Hollywood starlets, flirting under the canopy of lush trees, limbs embracing each other like lovers. If you listen carefully you can hear the sounds of children squealing in delight as they dash down the waterslide, crashing into the grotto like swimming pool. Here and there are the shadows of gardens being taken back by the jungle, gardens that must have grown abundant tropical flowers. The past is present, but there is also a great deal of promise, as slowly the structures are being reinforced against a climate that loves to decay anything in its grasp. Who knows what mysteries will unfold or what tails of love will transpire.

On a trip to the local artisans market, I purchased a small handmade, papier-mâché tiger mask. As I have previously discussed, I am trying to incorporate some different costumes and props into my images. One of the things I have always liked about working with long exposures is the anonymity, as my face is usually blurred and unrecognizable. I think that this allows my viewers to place themselves into the images. Now that I am fequently working in full daylight, using my neutral density filter, I find that I am more recognizable and a masking is a great solution. In the past, I created a lot of images dealing with issues of masking, whether through makeup, costumes or just personal identity. I feel like this is an interesting integration between work that is old and new.

The Suspicious August Full Moon

So, I guess is deserve a spanking. I have had three photo shoots since the last time I posted, but no blogging. Sometimes life (Burning Man) gets in the way, but I am back and I will try to share some insights on each shoot.

The “Make Mistakes” crew held the August full moon party, up Left Hand Canyon, just above Boulder, CO. The party was about an hour and a half drive from my house in Denver and turned out to be quite the debacle of a night. I arrived to a dark disorienting scene of tents, people, bonfires, and loud house music scattered though a shadowy aspen grove. Winding through the whole area was a small, shallow stream. I had been really sick all week and was finally starting to feel better, so I thought going out for a few hours would be harmless.

I rolled my camera bag, the quarter mile from my car, down the pavement to the entrance and stashed it under a tree. My initial explorations led me down a well-worn footpath that followed the edge of the stream away from the party. Moonlight was filtering through the Aspens and pooling on the forest floor in a way that made my eyes jump and have a hard time adjusting to the darkness. I felt dizzy and light headed. Soon, I had wandered far enough to no longer hear the music, and was mostly alone except for the occasional explorative partier like myself. The area was strangely un-deserted and had some ax murderer hunting cabins and a 60’s geodesic dome house, complete with barking dog. I felt all the hairs on my neck stand on end as I passed.

Eventually, I heard the sound of a small waterfall, and knew I had found the place for which I was looking. Earlier that week, I had seen the proof sheet of new work my collaborator Aloyse Blair had just created in the Adirondacks. She was naked in a waterfall, and had done some long exposure stuff with her pinhole camera. I returned to the party, retrieved my equipment, and quickly found myself laying naked in a freezing mountain stream on a cool summer night. The spot was shaded from the moon so I had to use some alternative light sources. The flashlights I had kept flickering and slowly fading, so it was hard to get an accurate light reading. Some of the images were ruined because the light completely went out during the shot. After a few tries, I decided to put an orange filter on one of the lights just to add softness to the image.

Once I was thoroughly freezing, and could not take the cold any longer, I dressed in green and headed off to do some pure moon light shots. I found a small meadow further up and created the forest nymph series. These images were pretty much exactly what I know how to do, so they were easy to create once I decided how I wanted them to look.

After I finished shooting, I felt clear and fresh. All of the disorientation had vanished, and I was light and focused. I found some friends and went to dance. Soon I was hot enough to take off my jacket and boogie down. A few minutes later I looked over to see that my jacket had vanished. My car keys were in the pocket. I spent the rest of the night futilely searching in the dark for a black jacket. I was flashing everyone who walked by, hoping someone had accidentally borrowed my nice North Face. My night of a few hours ended with the sunrise. As it grew light, I sat down in a fancy camping chair at the entrance to scope out the patrons as they left, hoping for a glimpse of my coat. After a little while, I started to fidget with stuff in the built in cup holders. I looked down and there were my car keys and my glasses. Only in Boulder can you go to a full moon party and get your jacket stolen, but the thief is kind enough to leave you your keys and glasses behind. Needless to say, I got sick again.

Coney Island

Last night’s adventures took me down to the land of the Russians: Brighton Beach and Coney Island. We spent the evening strolling up and down the boardwalk as evening fell, stopping for giant beers, pickled cabbage, and Nathan’s hotdogs. It felt otherworldly down there, and a big part of me really could not believe that I was even still in Brooklyn. What a crazy wonderful place, and how have I never been there before?

Getting caught up in the ambiance, I let too much time pass and had to beg the gatekeepers in the park to let me in for one quick shot, before the park closed. Nothing like two ghostly creepy twins in blue dresses haunting a run down carnival. In fact, I think it would be really fun to do more of these types of shots in different carnivals, as two headed ladies, Siamese twins and such. Ghost carnies.

As we were shuffling out, we stopped to watch this ride where they slingshot a chair on bungees way in to the air. In the image it just comes out as a streak of sparkles like a firework. It was an odd scene with people giving me very strange looks as I waved my flashlight around like a crazy person. Good thing they moved fast enough not to register on the image. Without much time to work out a concept and shoot multiple images, I opted to let just the light stand in for myself: thus the ribbon of light.

Explored Exposure – Janelle Pietrzak

Mysterious Fine Art Photography

Tag Archives: twins