Advice on Mexico please.

[David Henderson]

I've photographed in Yucatan and In Oaxaca before; and enjoyed it enormously. Late in 2005 I'd like to travel to central Mexico and photograph in the "silver cities". Guanajuato, San Miguel de Allende and Queretaro look good candidates from the limited information I can get from my guidebooks.

I like photographing colourful old streets, preferably with an element of patina or even decay. I don't much want to photograph people or tourist icons but I do want to make sure that I end up in places where I can spend a couple of days or so walking the streets (I'll have a car, but don't tend to use it much in cities) photographing characterful, colourful buildings or fragments of them.

I guess I have a couple of questions. First, am I picking the right places? I don't really want to visit more than three cities but I could swap Moralia or San Luis Potosi for one or two of the others. Secondly. Is the opportunity reasonably evenly spread between these cities or should I perhaps be concentrating on one and topping up on the others. I'll have a week to 9 days for the trip, flying into and out of Mexico City.

Thanks for your help.

 

[Jorge]

I've photographed in Yucatan and In Oaxaca before; and enjoyed it enormously. Late in 2005 I'd like to travel to central Mexico and photograph in the "silver cities". Guanajuato, San Miguel de Allende and Queretaro look good candidates from the limited information I can get from my guidebooks.

I like photographing colourful old streets, preferably with an element of patina or even decay. I don't much want to photograph people or tourist icons but I do want to make sure that I end up in places where I can spend a couple of days or so walking the streets (I'll have a car, but don't tend to use it much in cities) photographing characterful, colourful buildings or fragments of them.

I guess I have a couple of questions. First, am I picking the right places? I don't really want to visit more than three cities but I could swap Moralia or San Luis Potosi for one or two of the others. Secondly. Is the opportunity reasonably evenly spread between these cities or should I perhaps be concentrating on one and topping up on the others. I'll have a week to 9 days for the trip, flying into and out of Mexico City.

Thanks for your help.

Queretaro, San Miguel and Guanajuato are all pretty close together, you will be able to make day trips and go back to wherever you have chosen to stay. Queretaro does not have as many "colorful" buildings compared to San MIguel or Guanajuato, but can still be a very good subject at night, specially downtown.

Michoacan and San Luis Potosi are further apart and you wont be able to make any day trips, you would have to stay overnight. Your best bet is to stay in San Miguel and go out from there. You can also take a trip to Mineral de pozos, about 45 min from San Miguel, it is a very interesting little town that you might like.

Morelia is a beautiful state and has many photo opportunities, if you were more interested in landscape I would recommend Morelia over any other, but since you want more architecture, San Miguel and surrounding areas are your best bet.

Have fun and give me a shout when you come down to Queretaro, I live very close to Queretaro and can show you around.

 

[mikewhi]

I have a few night photos of San Miguel in my personal gallery if you want to look.
Personally I loved photographing in San Miguel and the surrounding towns that you mention. I especially liked photographing at night. When I was ther, they usually just hung bare bulbs from wires on the streets giving very harsh and sharp shadow lines. The light raking across the walls also brought out a lot of texture. I had no fears personally about walking around at 2am alone, but that was a while ago. Maybe Jorge can give some advice about how safe it is now.

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

-Mike

 

[Mongo]

Guanajuato is a beautiful town to photograph. I've been fortunate enough to have been sent there for business a number of times. There are too many beautiful streets and buildings to even begin listing; just wonder around and find what interests you. You won't be disappointed.

 

[David Henderson]

Many thanks to you all for your help.

David