Calle de Los Muertos // Day Of the Dead – Oaxaca, Mexico
People always ask us what we prefer: Wedding or Street Photography and it is an easy decision for us. Wedding photography is what we truly love, street photography (though something we certainly enjoy) is merely a rehearsal, a chance to try out new ideas and explore different opportunities and techniques to then implement into our wedding photography.
Our trip to Oaxaca, Mexico however definitely tested that theory to the limit! Photographing Día de Los Muertos (Day of The Dead) was an extraordinary experience and something that we will never forget. In a sea of extraordinary scenes it would be easy to fall into the trap of just photographing anything and everything that moved but personally we were drawn less to parades and more to the quiet, personal elements of Day of The Dead. Dia de Los Muertos has become a huge tourist attraction but at its heart is a very real, very personal and rather beautiful story of loss and of connection. Those were the moments that truly excited us and that really make the event so very special (although it would be a crime to not showcase some of our favourite big moments of the trip as well)!
Once Day of The Dead had passed we spent many happy hours wandering throughout the city absorbing the culture and photographing the vibe and feel of the place. Towards the end of the trip we also hosted our very first Mexican workshop and it was a humbling experience to have this opportunity, we absolutely love teaching and to get the chance to educate people halfway across the world in such a beautiful, vibrant city was a treat for us for sure.
So here’s a collection of our favourite shots from Oaxaca and make sure you scroll right to the bottom for some of our thoughts on the camera that helped us create them…
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Fujifilm X-Pro3 – A Few Initial Thoughts
Another highlight of our Mexico Street Photography trip was the camera we got to shoot it on! We were very fortunate to have been loaned two Fujifilm X-Pro3 cameras for our trip to Mexico and we are so grateful to our wonderful friends at Fujifilm for supplying them, it really helped make an already memorable trip extra special. We have long loved the X-Pro2 and have been using it as our main camera body almost since its release so we were excited to see how the X-Pro3 performed!
The Fujifilm X-Pro3 has that inexplicable magic power to somehow just make you want to go out and shoot. Whilst clearly within the family of our beloved X-Pro2’s it feels somehow more than just an evolution. What really struck us about it the moment we picked it up is the familiar vintage street film camera feel that it immediately evokes despite the high-tech components inside. From the original Fujifilm film stock appearing in the rear window to the fantastic build quality and rangefinder handling it really feels like Fujifilm have learnt the lessons of what made certain film cameras absolute classics and enshrouded them in the best of what digital technology can give us.
In terms of the camera itself, it really did take us back to our film roots even more than the X-Pro2. The simple styling, controls, balance and ergonomics of the camera made it an overall joy to shoot with and the lack of unnecessary buttons, fiddly menus to navigate or other distractions really returned us to a shooting experience where it felt that the camera was there to serve the images that we wanted to create as simply as it possibly could without overcomplicating anything.
Our absolute favourite feature of the new camera was completely unexpected though and that is the new Classic Negative Film Simulation. Reviewing the images on the rear screen the colour rendition and resolution looked beautiful and was even better when we got the images onto a bigger screen. We’re so impressed with it that we are considering whether to purely use this profile and shoot JPEGS without any processing for our future work.
All of the images in this post are straight out of camera, shot in the new Classic Negative Colour Profile.
If you would like to purchase any of our Mexico street prints you can do so here: GALLERY
