Photo ABCs

Day of the Dead

This is the first year since 2014 that I have not traveled to Mexico for Day of the Dead.

The tradition of remembering loved ones in a joyful way is something I truly appreciate about Mexican culture. I hope my photos from past years (scroll down to get to the older posts) in Oaxaca, Michoacán (Pátzcuaro and Janitzio), San Luis Potosí (the village of Xilitla), and Tijuana, honor that beautiful tradition.

I was in Guadalajara in the second week of November last year, well after Day of the Dead had passed, but there were still Muertos-themed decorations in one of the central plazas.

These life-sized Catrinas were all constructed by various schools in the region.

I photographed these with my new-at-the-time iPhone 11 Pro, all hand-held.

I was simply amazed at the results. I used Portrait Mode and Natural Light mode (apparently not quite the same as Night Mode) in very dim illumination, and these were the result. The iPhone uses its computer and artificial intelligence to assess what's meant to be foreground and what's meant to be background, and gives the pictures a fairly naturally appearing blur. It's not perfect (at least not in the 11 Pro). Some foreground edges are not perfectly recognized and end up blurred, but overall it's amazing.

The lighting was much dimmer that it appears in the photos. The only way I could have obtained these results with my expensive digital SLR would have been with a tall tripod, a fast lens, and extensive processing in Photoshop, and likely the results might have been inferior.

I expect that the new iPhone 12 Pro, with its more robust computing power and Lidar distance detection should obtain even better results than these...

Below is a life-sized Catrina of Remedios Varo, a Spanish-Mexican surrealist from the 20th Century.

A visit to Guadalajara is not complete without a visit to Birria 9 Esquinas!

A view through the take-out window:

Birria, mmm mmm mmm!

The picture above was taken in Portrait Mode on the iPhone 11 Pro.

The picture below was taken three years earlier, with my previous phone, the iPhone 7. Aside from not being in Portrait Mode, the difference is like night and day. The highlights are completely blown, and everything looks simply muddy. My attempts to improve the color in Photoshop were unsuccessful...

Day of the Dead: Oaxaca

Candles burn in the cemetery of Xoxocotlán, during Day of the Dead, 2019.

Day of the Dead, Oaxaca

Inside the tombs at the Panteón General in Oaxaca, during Day of the Dead, 2019.

Day of the Dead: Oaxaca

In the cemetery of Xoxocotlán, during Day of the Dead, 2019.

Día de los Muertos: Oaxaca

Day of the Dead is not all partying in large cities in Mexico.

In the village of Las Guacamayas, in the mountains north of Oaxaca City, Andrés Ramirez Matías brings marigolds to the cemetery. If I remember correctly this was the grave of his grandmother. (tap or click to enlarge)

Day of the Dead: Oaxaca

Another scene from the tombs in Oaxaca City's Panteón General.

Day of the Dead: Oaxaca

Inside the corridor of tombs in Oaxaca City's Panteón General.

Volunteers placed a candle and a marigold by each tomb in the corridor, since many of the tombs are over 100 years old and have no living descendants to care for them.

I took this photo, and others to follow, with my new iPhone 11 Pro. I bought the camera (upgrading from the iPhone 7), specifically to have its low light (night-mode) and portrait-mode capabilities for this trip, both of which I used in this picture.

I'll have more to say about the phone's camera in a future post. While these modes are not perfect, I am very happy overall with the results. In fact, the photos I took of these candles and flowers turned out much better with my iPhone the my much more expensive camera... The white balance straight out of the phone was better than I could achieve with my other camera after a long effort in Photoshop!

 

 

 

Day of the Dead: Oaxaca

Faces in the crowd.

This is a rather unusual picture, but I think it captures the atmosphere of the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd in the street next to the cemetery in Xoxocotlán, on October 31 of this year.

Day of the Dead: Oaxaca

This is Evelyn, photographed outside the cemetery in Xoxocotlán.

I encountered her next to a vendor of cell-phone cases, so I used the cases as a colorful, if atypical, background.

Day of the Dead: Oaxaca

A lovely girl poses in the tombs in Panteón General in Oaxaca City.