My Old Mexico

Twenty years ago, in 2001, life decided to throw me one of the giant curve balls of my life. That year SanDiegoGrocer.com was forced to close, unable to continue as a going concern after three years of incredible creative effort by a fantastic group of friends and co-workers. Three months later, my wife filed for a divorce and was granted a court order removing me from my house, making me homeless. I decided to take a two-week photo workshop with two excellent photographers in Mexico as a way to get away and take a break from all the stress. I loved it so much I ended up staying and living full time in Mexico for nearly eight years. I shot photographs almost every day. I think of it as the biggest photography project of my career, working to document all of Old Mexico and its disappearing culture. My archive presently is more than a quarter of a million images—more than I will ever have the time to review in what remains of my lifetime. These are five of my favorite images I made in that period.