I Went To North America

Three months in the US, Canada and Mexico (also a stop-off in Venezuala, which isn't in North America) in the second half of 2005. It was a pretty incredible time.

I wrote about it in a series of emails from the road. Across three months I sent a reasonable number of them. They're all archived online. This one is first.

My Ten Favourite Photos

I took a bunch of photos, unsurprisingly. Here are my ten favourites. (This series first appeared in my blog in early 2006, and I reproduce the text from there.)

#10 Pinatas in the market, Oaxaca

Oaxaca was a big town in southern Mexico with a sizable foreigner population and a fair amount of tourist throughput. Still, it wasn't hard to get away from the foreign beat - I walked a few blocks out from the main centre to hit the huge local market, and there wasn't another one of me to be seen.

It's hard to emphasise just how big this market was - three or four huge warehouse spaces, crammed full of stalls divided by narrow crowded alleys. Everything you could think of was in there somewhere. I wandered through it for a while, bought some Mexican hip hop from the bootleg CD area, smelled the incredible scents in the spices area, peered at the footwear in the shoes area, then came upon the party-gear area. There were about six stalls jammed full of beautiful, colourful pinatas, all clearly hand-made.

It's hard not to take a fun picture of these things. They're fish-in-a-barrel for the travel photographer looking for a good photo, but dammit, I liked them, and I like this picture.

#9 Flora in a Garden, Aguascalientes

Aguascalientes was a lovely, mid-sized town in the middle-north of Mexico. I went there to visit a group of very friendly locals who I'd met previously on the streets of Zacatecas. Cain and Diana gave me a tour on my first afternoon/evening, and we walked through a lovely city garden, a square of cultivated greenery in the heart of the town grid. We had coffee in a great cafe right next to the garden. It was a wonderful evening.

I really liked the garden, and whenever I was wandering down that end of town on my own explorations I always went through it. I decided I'd try and snap some photos that captured the feel of the plant-life there, and this is my favourite - it has the lush feel of the Mexican flora, the bright colours and the heavy light.

On the route I walked between my hotel and the garden was a small bar where all the mariachis hung out. They were always impeccably dressed, with the smart embroidered suits and shining-clean boots, and they stood around on the street outside the bar, with their instruments at their sides, smoking and drinking.

#8 The Alligator and the Guru

This is Aaron 'Alligator' Andrews, our man in Seattle. We met in Portugal in '02 and instantly hit it off. When I visited him on his home turf in September last year, we dropped in on one of his regular bars, where I met a great bunch of people and played some amusing pool.

A highlight of the evening was finding a stack of very dubious vinyl in a corner, and coming across the outstandingly cheesy cover image for the Guru Josh album "Infinity (1990s... Time for the Guru)". Here, Aaron gives his best rendering of the Guru's cover pose.

Yeah, this image is in here simply because it makes me laugh out loud every time I see it. Share the love, baby.

#7 Me and Lady L

If you're ever going to have a 'grinning foolishly in front of famous monument' type photo, it might as well be as cool as this. [Obviously I didn't take this one - Brooke was the culprit.]

#6 Vancouver Skyline

Vancouver is a beautiful city, set on rising hills amongst harbours and mountains and with clean, attractive architecture. This is one of the great views available about a minute's walk from downtown.

I reckon this photo would make a great 10,000 piece jigsaw puzzle.

#5 Chicago Cityscape

This is the view from the main entrance of the Field Museum in Chicago. It was an absolutely incredible day. We went inside the museum, which was mostly uninspiring (the two exceptions were an enormous and very complete T-Rex skeleton, and a Maori meeting house). The view outside the building totally stole the show.

Chicago has a great cityscape. It has a large city park along the waterfront, and the high-rise buildings form a wall along the north and west borders. Chicago was always on my list of places to visit just to see its famous architecture, and it didn't disappoint.

#4 Zacatecas Puppet Show

I arrived in the beautiful town of Zacatecas in central Mexico's mountainous highlands during a street festival. There were a lot of wonderful things to see, but this was a particular favourite of mine - a puppet show rendition of Don Quixote de La Mancha. There were a bunch of Guy Smiley style puppets rocketing back and forth delivering rapid-fire dialogue to the delighted laughter of the audience, and during scene changes a woman in a bright flowing dress stepped forward to provide linking narration and kept the kiddies enthralled. It was great.

I like this photo because it captures the feel of the streets in Zacatecas during the festival, and because it rewards attention to detail. You can just barely see the woman, half-obscured by the puppet theatre. The people sitting in the sunlight are using umbrellas for shade - that sun was coming down harsh and hot. Because it likes the detail, I've uploaded a bigger version of the pic as well.

#3 A cloudy day in Toronto, with car

Toronto's a great city, friendly and easy to get around, although its extensive underground warrens are kind of odd. I like this shot just because it's also kind of odd. Yay for Toronto.
I took this photo right after I saw one of the Barenaked Ladies in a comic shop. Apparently. I heard employee one excitedly whisper to employee two 'check it out, that's so and so from the barenaked ladies!' and who am I to doubt employee one at a time like that?

#2 Prairie Sunflower Field

Ella always told me the prairies would blow my mind, which they surely did when I finally made it up to Winnipeg. I tool a bunch of amazing photos of the Prairies but this one was my favourite. Even in the narrow frame you get a sense of the sheer enormity of the sky. It's an awesomely cool sight.

#1 Late Afternoon Sun In A Toronto Park

One of our afternoons in Toronto we made it out to the cool neighbourhood where Andrew H and Janice live. We went for a wander through a big park that was right nearby, and as the sun got lower in the sky the whole place became really pretty.

I just really like this photo. I like the way the lines fall, the treetrunk and the path making a cross shape, Janice and Andrew and the tree all backlit, the more sculpted garden away down the hill... Janice has her hands up because she's just noticed that the light is great to take a photo of someone standing against the tree, a photo that was taken a minute later on someone else's camera.

Mostly I like this photo because it brings back the feeling of that day so vividly. It's one of the few photos I have that combines the pretty scenery with a candid photo of people, and those are two things I like, so, yeah.

Andrew H, by the way, I met on the same trip to Portugal that led to me meeting Aaron (who was in photo 8 with the Guru Josh record) and Ella (who took me to the prairies for last week's sunflower photo). That was a good trip.