A boutique shop window that greets pedestrian traffic (reflected) as they exit the border crossing.

A vendor looks for more customers as people wait in line on active train tracks to cross legally into the USA. I wish I would have slowed my shutter speed to show the train moving.

A pregnant woman waits in the hot sun to enter the USA.

After spotting the border patrol, a man climbs the fence back into Mexico.

The border fence

Waiting for a family member, the man at right is a US citizen, but his daughter isn’t.

Bringing a lot of milk to Mexico.

A border patrol agent watches the fence in hills over Nogales as the sun goes down.

One note I want to make, something I say all the time, but I feel compelled to tell people again and again. Mexico is so much more than what you see around the borders. The problems around the border are a direct result of US policy, specifically our failed war on drugs. Prohibition creates this situation, look at Chicago from 1920 to 1933. Just my two cents. Feliz cinco de mayo.

Running of the Toritos in Taxco Mexico. My technique for not getting gored by the Toros? Take a knee as they ran passed and pray they didn’t choose to run me over and set me of fire. I love witnessing things like this in Mexico and Central America, events that would be outlawed before they ever stated in the United States. It reminds me of the Bolas de Furgo in Guatemala.

I would love to have a couple of weeks to explore this massive city and it’s people, but I only had a few hours. Future, much longer trip to Mexico city is on my radar for future travel. KEIN BLITZ!

The Marigold Parade is without question one of my favorite things to photograph on the Albuquerque calendar each year. The fun challenge is trying to find a picture you haven’t made already in previous years.

Last year I was in Guatemala for Día de los Muertos or Day of the Dead. November 1 and 2 marks a very important ritual throughout Guatemala, especially in the predominantly indigenous town of Santago Sacatepequez, where a unique kite-flying festival of the Katchiquel people integrate the Catholic feast of All Saints day with pre-Columbian Mayan practices of remembering the dead.

It also marks the end of the rainy season. I’d been in the area since the beginning of July, and as if someone flipped a switch, the daily pouring vanished and for the first time in months if felt the wind. Bamboo kites are made  as a way to communicate with the dead, symbolically attracting the spirits to earth to reunite the living and the dead.

I’ve always loved the traditions associated with Día de los Muertos because it’s about remembering and celebrating life, not fearing death.