Every time we are in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico and we are craving for a genuine tortilla soup and a delicious guacamole with great chips, we go to one of our favorite local restaurants, El Correo, a small gem with authentic Mexican food, and a really cool atmosphere, just steps from the Jardín. 

Let me keep going, this is not a food review, I promise. 

So that night, while we are having dinner, Don José Luis Ramirez, a musician from San Miguel, started to approach to each table asking if they wanted to hear a song. When it was our turn, we asked for, “Piel Canela” a classic Latin American bolero from 1947.

There is something special that stays in your memory when you hear that song, from that voice, with that face and in that place. In truth,  I would have loved to photograph what was happening, but sometimes it's better to put the camera down and enjoy the moment in different way, I mean, without worrying about the light or the composition or the background, right? 

After the song, applauses, thank you, shake hands and a “I hope to see you soon” to say good bye.

Of course, as soon as he left, I was regretting that I only got an iPhone video (below) and not a photo of him. 

But life has surprises, serendipity is big in small towns. A couple of nights later, I went for a walk to get some night photos and when I was turning a corner I ran into Don Jose Luis again. I said, “Hi, how are you” and this time, I was not going to miss the opportunity to make a portrait of him. Luckily, he had a few minutes. 

So here is the context, we were in the street, 9:12PM, dark, the only available light was a yellow street lamp illuminating him and another one illuminating the background wall. If ISO wasn’t create for this situation, what else is it for?. So I cranked up the ISO to 1600. I had on my camera my fixed 35mm lens, so I went to aperture f1.8 and shutter speed 1/80.

Since the light source was coming from the left of the camera, I asked Don Jose Luis, to look to his right, so I could create a little bit of volume and texture. I located him on the frame in between the door and the sign of the background wall, asked him to play some notes on the guitar, and suddenly while he was playing, he looked up and boom, some catch lights in his eyes, enough to bring life to his face. Photo # 1

A couple more shots, a car adding some light on to his face helping to separate him from the background and then Don Jose Luis was on his way home.

My favorites from this small informal session are, Photo #1, the one where we can see the catch lights in his eyes while looking up, not super sharp but sharp enough.  

Photo #2, where I had the help of a passing car which added a little different color temperature light to the skin tone and helped to separate him from the background.

Photo #3, the way he's holding the guitar, his sight almost looking down, like he was thinking or remembering something from the past. I think in general what I enjoyed about these pictures, is the atmosphere of the encounter, sort of moody and gritty with some music notes.

I probably shot around 60 photos and the meeting lasted 5 minutes.

Techs:

f: 1.8

s: 1/80

iso: 1600

Lens: 35mm