Mexico: Light Travel

This series of images was inspired by the exploration of light, whether passing serenely through windows or reflecting riots of color. In Broken Glass shattered glass blocks mimic the way ice concentrates light along its cracks and edges. In Window with Leaves warm light transforms a decorative window into a golden sea whose surface ripples with undulating waves. In Play of Light a window pours sunlight into the dark corner of a room where it pools and shimmers, creating beautiful, abstract patterns.

Whether these photos capture street scenes or architectural details, they reflect the surprising and miraculous ways that form and color often intersect in Mexico. Beauty can be found everywhere: vibrant life springs up in the image Yellow Flowers in front a of chipped and fading wall; in Closed Umbrellas a troupe of beach umbrellas stands at the ready, in colorful costumes on black sand, as if beginning a grand performance; a group of brooms as colorful as jungle parrots (Colorful Brooms) gather together on a street in Cuyutlan, leaning in to catch up on the latest gossip.

Of the more serene images, Open Window and Window Ajar, show how two scenes can be the inverse of each other, as a louvered window, open or more closed, casts either light or shadow.

The photos in this portfolio were taken in Ajijic, south of Guadalajara (images #1 – #4, #11), in Cuyutlan, a black-sand beach town near Colima (#5 – #9, #12), and in San Miguel de Allende (#10). [Every set of locations and photos has at least one photo whose location, as listed on the site, doesn’t match.] (PETER-LETS LOOK AT THIS) While visiting Ajijic in 2008, I stayed with my father’s sister, Sally, and visited her daughter, Betsy, both of whose verdant, walled gardens created shadowed backdrops that dramatically offset the plants basking therein (Sally’s Garden & Betsy’s Garden).