08-20-2012 "Bleak"
Every city has multiple faces... San José is certainly no exception and while some areas are very nice to see, there are some that are not so pretty. The lack of high rises makes this difficult to appreciate, but from this vantage point, the look of these old blocks is clear. Not pretty at all, but still full of life!
08-15-2012 "Locked and Forgotten"
He walked down to the darkest corner of that place he called his mind. There, he placed those disquieting thoughts in the deepest drawer he could find and then locked it up. "That will do" he said. He turned and left.
However, the result was not as expected: now he thought of that dark corner -of that lock- all the time. By trying to hide those thoughts, he had in fact made them much stronger.
Solve your issues, do not try to hide them away.
08-11-2012 "DEMoCRA CÃa. Ltda."
Recently we walked around our city on a #FotoTour ... roaming around the less visited neighborhoods was very interesting and of all the pictures I took that day, this one was amongst my favorites.
"DEMoCRA CÃa. Ltda" loosely translates as "Democracy Inc." and its intent is to show how our beloved value of true democracy has turned into some kind of business for a few corrupt politicians. Although this particular one sports the color of the PLN party, this actually includes pretty much every political party in the country.
A sad situation, but at least allowed for an interesting picture...
08-09-2012 "Vigilant"
This searchlight no longer needs to help sailors find their port or to warn them about dangerous reefs now that every ship has a complex suite of technology to serve that purpose. Still, it sits vigilant near the coast and gets to illuminate the night every so often.
Like this, there are things we do not really need, but which we find reassuring and familiar... these can never be replaced.
08-07-2012 "Darkness and Light"
Whenever I drive or walk by this church in Coronado, Costa Rica, I have mixed feelings... At night, this place is ominous and dark, it does not look inviting at all and well, people usually go to church looking for comfort.
It is quite contradictory that in its gothic beauty this place of light can seem so dark. But rest assured that the comfort you may need lies inside, it just takes a morning visit to confirm that!
07-27-2012 "Power"
Do you ever stop to think how much time you spend in front of the TV? Have you realized how much power it actually has over us these days? Do you realize you hold your TV remote in your hand probably more time than the one you invest in holding the hand of your significant other?
I rarely do, but when I did, I was quite surprised... it is a lot of time and if a good measure of real power is the time we spend on something, the TV is really powerful.
I will never be able to look at the power buttons on the remote the same way again...
07-25-2012 "Bricks, Glass, Clouds and Sky"
It would seem that the "look up" policy is paying off recently. I walked out to the garden since it was fresh and was welcomed by the breeze and this awesome sky.
I felt quite compelled to catch in the most faithful way this moment and share it. To me it represents how small we are in comparison to what nature can do: sure, our buildings and creations are awesome, but nature is in completely different league!
The closest we got here was to reflect a little of this marvel on the glass...
07-20-2012 "Love for the Craft"
As I grow old, I get more appreciative of the work and craftsmanship instilled into everything I see. Things like the expertise of the baker and his excellent bread, the mason and his works of stone, the jeweler and his little works of precision and art, the photographer who leaves a little bit of himself on every composition.
I have also learned to see this as a mandate to search for excellence on everything we do, to make sure our work meets these demands for the best we can do under a given set of circumstances. We need to keep just one thing in mind: our creations reflect upon ourselves.
07-12-2012 "Change"
Even the most durable things change... things start as something and as time goes by, they will become something else thanks to several factors. We change just like that ourselves, and we like to think about ourselves as very consistent... but we rarely are.
Our enviroment, our relationships, our own interests... those things change us in ways we do not even understand some times.
It is good to be aware of these things, so we can work with them and allow some positive changes.
06-30-2012 "Mysterious Doors"
Maybe you, like me, are fascinated by doors that do not seem to serve any particular purpose... like this one, a door to the underground of an abandoned lot in the middle of downtown. How suspicious is that?
But the most mysterious doors are not physical. I believe the most mysterious doors are people, which we have a chance from time to time for finding open. Some present us with serious challenges, some just swing open and wide. But all of them are mysterious, regardless of how easy or difficult it is to open them up.
Treasure your chances to peek into those mysterious doors...
06-19-2012 "Faith"
Faith comes in many forms, from many places and with different "degrees". This self-imposed complication makes human beings a bit irrational at times, when some group starts to think differently from another.
Many wars, many assassinations, many injustices have been committed in the name of some faith or another and even now, with all of our technology and widespread knowledge, we are at about the same state as we were when we started.
We can make a little change now: let us not be blinded by faith, so we can understand it and share it with the people who may want to share it. Let us respect those who think differently and try to learn from them, so our view of the world is wider.
06-09-2012 "Another old church..."
Yes, this is another old church in the Santa Ana town. They started building it during 1870 and finished around 1884, I guess getting stuff like this done was a real challenge back then!
Today it endures as if time has not passed at all. When I see things like this, I remember that we are not meant to endure, but the things we build, say and do might.
07-02-2012 "These streets"
These rivers of light are not the streets I had when I was a kid... back then this highway was on a piece of paper inside some Government office, waiting to come to life.
Tonight I stopped at a bridge and snapped a few shots. Then I realized how different this is from the old, narrow and unkept streets of the old town, where we used to play.
These will be the streets the new generations will remember, so different from the ones we saw and lived. Times change and things, places and people certainly change with them, even if they do not realize it.
07-01-2012 "Parallels"
An intriguing concept, it is unavoidable that we come to relate this to life... just as the tracks go without ever touching one another, even when they seem do so in the distance, so many lives go together, very close but without ever touching. Just as the train tracks, this could be just design... some relationships just are not meant to be.
But if you believe otherwise, go ahead and jump off the tracks and make your own rules. A train on tracks might not have this option, but we sure do!
06-14-2012 "Unnatural Cycles"
Few things mark our lives more than the deep changes in our behavior, thanks to all the changes we make to our society in "the name of progress".
Basic things like our night/day cycle are no longer what they used to be. I went out there to a nearby industrial zone and this is what I saw there in the middle of the night: the sky criss-crossed by high tension lines, enough lights to light up the night into a grim parody of day and this paper mill pouring out slow and thick smoke.
We have definitely changed things and it is inevitable those things will change us in time.
06-04-2012: "Downtown Jewel"
No doubt, the modern jewel of downtown San José, our Estadio Nacional is a very polemic venue: even before the old stadium was demolished, this project was causing trouble and outbursts of public opinion. The reason? Its origin of course! This modern stadium was donated by the Chinese goverment... with no strings attached, or so they said. Only time will tell what strings were attached and how strong they actually are.
