Guatemala Street View

In March, I got to go back to Guatemala with Edify, an organization that promotes education around the world. This time, I was accompanying a group of men and women who'd come to visit some schools, meet some teachers and see the work Edify is doing first-hand. While I was mainly there to photograph some of the kids in the schools we visited, I of course shot a lot more than that during the trip.

The day before we left, I was able to pick up a new Fujifilm X100F camera, which had just been released. I was really excited to get it in time for this trip, and a lot of the shots in this blog are from that camera. Fun bonus: one of the guys on the trip noticed it around my neck and gave me the nickname "Fooge," which stuck for the remainder of the trip. I'm good with it. And I'm really happy with the image quality and size of the camera, etc. Whatever, this isn't a review.

Driving around the last time I was in Guatemala, it stressed me out that I was missing so many great shots outside my window. This time, I tried an experiment. I set a really fast shutter speed, then just pointed and shot as we whizzed by in the bus. I didn't know if I was getting anything usable at the time, but I was pleasantly surprised with the results.

The purpose of these shots was really just to be able to go back and look at some of the scenes I was missing as we drove past. It's been really fun getting to study some of them: the street vendors, women making tortillas, raw meat hanging in windows, an entire family on a motorcycle. I especially love the ones where they caught me looking. Our big white bus stood out in some of these neighborhoods anyway, so I'm sure some dumb tourist snapping photos wasn't any big surprise to them.

Anyway, enjoy this bus tour of Guatemala – at least the areas near Guatemala City, Antigua and Villa Nueva. I know there are a ton of photos here, but these are only a quarter of what I shot. And you can click on any of these to make them larger. Cheers.

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