Mexico City. Two Days to Shoot. Ten Days to Remember.
I was sent to Mexico City for work. Ten days, full schedule. I knew going in that I'd have maybe two afternoons to go out and shoot. That's the deal with this kind of trip. The city is right there, you can feel it from the hotel window, and most of the time you're in a conference room or in a old van moving from location to location. You learn to take what you get.
What I got was more than I expected.
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The timing turned out to be extraordinary. Mexico City during Day of the Dead is not something I was prepared for. The city transforms completely. Altars everywhere, marigolds lining entire streets, parades moving through the historic center with a joyful intensity that's hard to describe if you haven't seen it. People are genuinely happy. Not performing happiness for tourists. Actually celebrating, in the way that only happens when a tradition truly belongs to the people observing it.
I had a few nights out because of the festivities and the energy reminded me a lot of Carnaval in Brazil. The streets felt safe, well policed, alive. I never once felt anxious about having the Leica hanging from my neck while walking through a crowd. I wasn't alone, which helps, but I think Mexico City is like any large city in the world. Stay aware of your surroundings and you'll be fine.
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The single best decision we made on the trip was booking a guided walking tour of the historic downtown for one of my two free afternoons. Our guide was exceptional. The kind of person who knows the difference between telling you facts and actually making you understand a place.
I had no idea Mexico City was built on top of a lake bed. The Aztecs built Tenochtitlan on an island in Lake Texcoco, the Spanish built their colonial city directly on top of it, and the whole thing has been slowly sinking ever since. You can see it in the buildings, in the way some old structures tilt at angles that shouldn't be structurally possible. The ground beneath the city is still settling. There's something about that image I haven't been able to shake.
She also took us to see the Diego Rivera mural originally commissioned for the lobby of 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York. Rivera included a portrait of Lenin in it, which Rockefeller asked him to remove. Rivera refused. The mural was destroyed. Rivera later recreated it in Mexico City, in full, exactly as he had intended it. Standing in front of it knowing that history makes it feel like looking at an act of defiance that outlasted the people who tried to erase it.
The historic center itself is very photogenic. Colorful, layered, crowded in the best way. Just be ready to work within a moving crowd for most of it. There are no quiet corners at noon. That's not a complaint. The movement is part of the picture.
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I also ended up in a quarry on the outskirts of the city for work. I won't pretend I fully understand how that happened. But I had the camera with me, and the light out there was unlike anything I'd planned for. I'd been looking at a lot of James Popsys work before the trip, and I think that was somewhere in the back of my head when I started shooting.
That's the thing about Street Hours on a work trip. Sometimes they're not even on the street. Sometimes they're in a quarry at the edge of a city you barely had time to explore, and the work itself opens a door you wouldn't have found otherwise.
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About the food. Yes, a few people on the team had some stomach adjustment to deal with. Nothing that kept anyone down for long. The tacos are as good as you've heard. The seafood is better than you'd expect from a landlocked capital. We had less tequila than we should since work was calling the next day. We behaved.
Mexico City is going back on the list. Not as a work trip next time. As a destination with a full week and no conference rooms. Two afternoons gave me a good set of images and a city I want to understand better. That's usually the sign of a place worth returning to.