Archival prints

During my stay there, I took a series of colour photographs of what I found compelling in San Miguel de Allende, a beautifully preserved colonial town nearly 500 years old in the hills of Central Mexico.  Next to stone buildings of grandeur, I saw abandoned lots surrounded by chicken wire.  Next to rich people, both Mexican and Gringo who had benefitted of a good life and plastic surgery, I saw impoverished women on one meal a day, looking old at 40, begging on the sidewalks.  In Indian markets, I photographed exquisite artisan object displays next to stalls filled with inexpensive consumer items.  The narrow, cobblestoned streets with houses painted in vivid colours seemed like pictures out of a fairy tale. The socio-economic conditions of the majority of the population that I witnessed, however, demonstrate that the fairy tale is just a façade.  Most of all, I observed the fervent practice of Catholic rituals mixed with those of an earlier indigenous religion.  I hope that these photographs will reflect some of the above-mentioned character traits of that beautiful country full of contradictions that is Mexico.