This is my Mexico

Or at least, this is my Mexico today. I took them in a few quietish streets this evening, on a ten or fifteen minute walk home that I did in an hour. There were a couple of things I'd planned to photograph, but in the end didn't really. Usually I'm too inhibited to stand in the street taking pictures, but today I didn't care. I felt exhilarated to be behind the camera, truly myself and not thinking about anything else. I shall do this more often.

So this is my Mexico, today, on a grey-blue evening after the rain; my attempts to capture some the shapes and colours and textures of my ugly-beautiful town.

They're not great pictures, but they feel like a beginning. I was actively thinking about them and learning from them, seeing how to improve.

There is just one picture I'm really proud of, and it's this one, a picture of a car-park attendant named Margarito:


It's not a work of brilliance (I seem to have some kind of congenital inability to get a horizon straight, though I'm pleased that I had the sense to nudge the exposure up a little). What I'm proud of is that I was brave enough to ask if I could take it.

I grinned at him sheepishly when I got beeped at by a car on its way out, standing stupidly in the way to take a different picture, and he grinned back. He seemed friendly, and he had an infectious smile. I went on my way and straight away started kicking myself for not having asked to take his picture, but I felt too stupid to turn round and go back.

But, my book idea involves me being brave enough to talk to strangers and ask to take their pictures. Every time I pass up an opportunity I think I will learn my lesson and be quick-witted and brave enough next time. That was what I was telling myself today as I walked away, but then I thought that I could console myself with next time forever, and that I had to just screw up my courage and do it. So I did.

And it was just fine. He didn't look at me like I was a freak and in fact was unfazed by my asking. He let me take a few shots and we had a little chat afterwards. The Earth didn't swallow me. My skin didn't all fall off. I didn't shrivel up and fall down dead. It's not the first picture I've taken of someone new to me, but the first one of a random stranger who I had no particular reason to talk to, and so I am eternally grateful to Margarito for being nice and giving me the confidence to try it again.

I wanted to photograph his fantastic smile, but like many Mexicans he went all Victorian-solemn in front of the camera, and even making stupid little jokes I couldn't get him to smile naturally. I was happy once I had what I thought was a good smiling shots, but actually it wasn't the best, and this is the one that has something of his expression.