Ah...I guess I am lucky. Like many of you, when I lived in the US I wanted to go to all "the" places, valley of the gods, Canyon de Chelley, antelope canyon, etc, etc. My work required a lot of travel and I was lucky to get to all those places, yet in all of them I took very few pictures. Why?........well, I felt that while it is hard to take a bad picture in these places, they have all been done before, and done very well. I could probably take as good a pic as Bruce Barbaum or any of those people, but certainly not better.
Then I moved to Mexico and I start looking at the local photo magazines, the articles etc, and it dawned on me that landscape photography in Mexico is practically non existent. Two reasons for this, one, LF photography is difficult in Mexico, it is hard to get 4x5 film and 8x10 is non existent, let alone things like 12x20. Chemistry and supplies, well if you like D76 or HC110 you are good to go, but dont even think of Xtol or Tmx RS, etc. You ask for these things and people look at you like deer caught in head lights.
Second, seems to me most photographers here want to emulate Manuel Alvarez Bravo. There is a lot of photojournalism and street photography here but I have yet to see a well made landscape photograph.
The strange thing is that Mexico, because of its topography is a beautiful country for landscape and for photographing "things". For example I have two current projects going, one is photographing road side shrines. These are little shrines built in memory of people who died in accidents on the road, some of them can be very beautiful and unusual. The other is photographing abandoned haciendas from the Mexican revolution. This "hacendados" as the owners were called would stand on their balcony and tell people, everything you see, as far as you can see is mine. Now in these haciendas generations lived and died working for the owners. The haciendas were in most part self sufficient and were for all practical purposes small communities. They grew their own produce, cattle and grains for personal consumption as well as for sale, etc. When the Mexican revolution came to pass, as is the case in many of these things, the perceived unfairness of the situation caused these haciendas to be ransacked. The revolutionaries would go into the "Casco" as the main building was known and either kill or force the owners to leave, proceeding to destroy all that was inside. The people who lived and worked in these haciendas, not knowing what to do would either join the revolution, leave for other states, or stay and continue working the fields without any direction.
Fast forward to the present and many small towns have grown around these abandoned haciendas, the old buildings are still present but they are either in disrepair and inhabitable, or they have been taken over as churches and convents. Either way, the buildings are wonderful opportunities for photography.
Of course if the rock and trees is your thing, then there are a myriad of waterfalls, rivers, caves etc, known only to the local people which they are perfectly wiling to show you and guide you and even carry your stuff for a few dollars.
So as I said, I fell lucky that within a couple of hours drive from my hometown I can find a surprise. I actually feel like a kid on a treasure hunt every time I go out.
