..says Salvador Dali, a surreal painter.
"By no means will I return to Mexico, I cannot stand being in a country more surrealistic than my paintings." - Salvador Dali likes surreal art. She currently is working on drawing a portrait of Salvador Dali.
Diana likes surreal art. She currently is working on drawing a portrait of Salvador Dali.
We were talking about why we like surrealism.
Because it is not ordinary! It's stimulating for the brain.
Also surreal artist don't make art with the thought in mind "how can I sell it to the masses"?
They don't care. They love what they do and do not follow rules!
Mexico is the place to be if you like surrealism. I love Mexico, a country full of creativity, surrealism, crazy and people with big hearts.​

Today a friend and I did a fashion shoot for "Vertigo Boutique".
The model is Pamela, the Queen of the Feria San Marcos 2018.
Sergio did the classic fashion shots and I assisted him.
In between I did my surreal portraits.
The shooting had to be in the middle of the day, a time I would never shoot.
I prefer the time around sunset and even more: night!
It was a challenge to take portraits at a time with strongest sun light coming right from above.
But you have to adapt and i am looking forward to the next challenge!​

Karla showed me her town Jalostotitlan, Mexico.

My taste! Very surreal.

- People don't say hola (hello) on the streets to greet someone - they say adios (bye). It feels weird at first but if you spend all day there, you get used to it. It's a tiny place and everybody knows everybody. We said "adios" at least 100 times.
But if you leave the place, remember to switch to the regular form of greeting!

- Mannequins are bottomless - both male and female.
- The local food specialty is to eat a kind of Mexican hamburger in a plastic bag. The burger is inside the bag and you bite one corner off and then you eat it through that hole.
- It looks like a war zone. A lot of police walking around with automatic rifles.
- During the day it is very quiet and empty. In the night full of people and music on every corner.
- Very close is an ancient site, where they used to play games. The winner of the game got decapitated.

Surreal.

Alondra and I met for a session of surreal portraits.

We started to take portraits at sunset. The favorite time for photographers.
I love the sunset time, too! But even more I love taking portraits at night.
Once the sun went to sleep, the city calmed down. Everything was slower, almost no people and a cool breeze after the hot day.
At night you have more contrasts, softer light and many light source instead of one (sun). It's cinematic. It's surreal.

Not many photographers take portraits at night. I don't understand! But one of the reasons I like doing it at night, is because it's different.

Guess, who appeared in our surreal photo session! The Mexican Santa Claus. He recognized me and slipped into the photo (again).
I see him a lot in downtown. One day I will make a session just with him and ask about his life and post it here.

"Anything that is kept secret or remains unexplained or unknown"

Of course, if someone wants a portrait, they want to be seen!
But why not have some "mystery" shots as well?
I can't explain why I am so attracted to this type of photos.
Maybe because it lets you more room for imagination? To build a story in your head?

Anyway, it's stimulation for the brain (at least for mine).

Sergio and I met for a surreal portrait session.

While walking around downtown in search of great locations, I came across the bar with the red lights.
Perfect! But..... there was a man sitting on the only seat available.
I asked him if we could have the space one minute to take some pictures.
He agreed, took his stuff AND instead of standing up he moved over.
"OK, whatever" I thought and Sergio sat down.
Once I started taking pictures, the Mexican Santa Claus put his arm around Sergio.

What a surreal moment!

Eduardo and I had an appointment to take surreal portraits with the full moon.
There were some challenges!
On the way to him a thunderstorm started.
I realized that I left my memory card for the camera in my computer.
There was no moon. All the time, no moon! It was covered by clouds.
Then it started raining.
Many times I had thoughts of just stopping.
But NO! I said YES to the challenges.
I bought a memory card, used a sun sheet to cover my camera from the rain.
We went to different locations.

We struggle with thoughts of giving up or make comprosmises like "tomorrow".
I had this thoughts many times during the shooting. But I said to myself: YES!

Surrealism. What is that? And why do people call something surreal?

Liz and I were talking about it at an surreal art exhibition.
"That's strange" people say about things which are not ordinary.

But in fact they are not strange. Imagine if there would be more of those strange things, then the ordinary objects would become strange.
All over the world, we have more or less the same style of things.
But imagine a country which almost has nothing from "our world".
People from that country visiting our "ordinary" country, would be totally perplexed about the amount of surrealism.

I'm attraced to surrealism. It is refreshing & stimulating for the mind.

A new project is born: SURREAL PORTRAITS.