San Agustín: the Double Me

The “Double me”. San Agustín, Colombia. 1983. We’d left our two year-old daughter in the care of her grandparents in Bogotá and set off with our friends to the lost valley of San Agustín in the Colombian Andes. Around 3300 BC, this precolumbian culture, started to occupy the region of San Agustín (obviously a post…

Pot-pourri 21-1

Mr. Simon Simba, Esq. Vincennes zoo, Paris, early 80’s. Kenya-born Minette, Paris, c.1972. My parents brought the cat back from Africa. They did not bring her BFF the dog back. We had words. “Silently a flower blooms.” Zenkei Shibayama. Tlalpan, Mexico city. 2020. A small Gothic church. Taverny, north of Paris. This church was finished…

Carnival of carnivals

“Is this legal? Maybe I should fine them all?” Paris, 1977. I was just out of the Army, 3 weeks away from Grad school. I set out on the streets of Paris with my faithful Asahi Pentax and a few rolls of Ilford film. May have been 400 “ASA”, my ammo of choice then. Would…

21 “easy pieces” for the New Year

We changed lockdown location for Christmas. Rented a house South of Mexico city, outside a little town called Tepoztlán. 500 metres below Mexico city. Much warmer. We spent a week with a view on the sacred mountains and escaped once on the 25th for a Street Art safari. Duly masked, early morning to avoid crowds.…