Mendoza Week 10

Like most of the week, Monday is the shopping day, I try to buy most of heavy stuff, juice, oil, milk, yoghurt, and all the pharmacy and grocery stuff, I start by the Mercado Central, for some fruit and veggie, my week dose of ham and cheese, I always bring my cold pack, in case I need to buy meat or ice cream.

Mercado Central

The next stop is Carrefour our Super Grocery Store, when I do my shopping on Mondays, I always bring my little bolsa de compras, it’s a grocery bag on wheels and I filled it to the top.

Back home I clean all the leafy veggies and bag them.

Tuesday was my day off, I went for a walk and a coffee with my friend Alejandra, we went to San Martin Park, I love that park, I will come back to take some flower shots, with my new meet up group “Mendoza Digital Photography Meet Up”.  

San Martin Park, a great place to relax

Wednesday I decided to take a walk to visit my friend Haisley Hair Salon, 10 min walk from my house, the weather was extremely hot, it’s getting very warm in Mendoza, I think spring is over for good, Wednesday we got 35C and by Saturday we should get up to 37! When I got to his salon I asked him if he could do my hair, I didn’t expect to have it done that day, but he had space and told me to come back in an hour.

Haisley Hair Salon is Paso de Los Andes only few min. walk from my house

What a great experience, Haisley is from England, he moved here a bit more than 8 years ago, he is a great guy and a fabulous stylist, a real artist, the kind of hair stylist that everybody wants, such a relieve to have him living so close by, it is always very difficult to fine the perfect hair stylist, it can take forever, and even worst you may never find a good match, I felt so lucky, he did an amazing job with my hair. He did my color, my highlight, my cut, for $510 pesos, it’s not cheap, but for a pro like him it’s an amazing value, he is by far the best hair stylist I ever meet, this is it for me, no need to look somewhere else!

 Haisley doing my hair

I was very happy with the result

 Love the hair cut and the color, thank you Haisley

I have been looking for someone to print Marc and I work, we got an answer from one of the best one in Mendoza that does work similar to  Adorama in the US or Vistek in Canada, the only drawback was that they only had two kinds of paper available. I also got the name of one of the top photographer in Mendoza, he is an art teacher at the University, and a printing pro, he is using all kinds of paper, like my old time my favorite Epson Summerset Velvet, he also print on canvas, he is using a Epson Stylus Pro 9900, 44” wide, he also have a studio that he rents. I sent him an email, and we will meet with him Friday pm, cannot wait, he only speak Spanish but I don’t care, it will be a real treat to have a pro to take care of our printing needs.

Thursday I waked up early, I had to do an image for my conceptual photo class, this one was on fear, cry for help, lock up, captive, lonely, depression, nightmare, so many thing come to mind, I have a real fear of being a hostage, this time again I used myself as the subject, and a flash to light one side, to get definition! I had the cyan tone to add drama.

Friday we got our meeting with our printing pro, so much knowledge, feel very good to know that we were in good hands, he is a real pro, and got all kinds of paper from Europe and the US, everything that I was looking for and more. He is quite expensive and we will revise our pick, and try to reduce cost, we have our next meeting on Tuesday, we are looking forward to have many prints done by him.

Saturday morning I went to Leon to meet with my new Meetup members, we were 4 on 12, this first meeting was only a welcome meeting, next one "Saturday Nov.8" will be hands on, street photography in downtown Mendoza!

To finish the week we went to church on Saturday night, it's a new church close to where we live, only Spanish, we will eventually get fluent!!!

Our Parish Church,

This is the inside of our church, I used Topaz Impression "Da Vince Sketch 1 modified

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Mendoza Week 8, and Conceptual Photography

Marc taking a walk in San Martin Park, Mendoza

Another week in Mendoza, what a fantastic place to be!

I learned a lot during this week, we got our friend David and Jessica for diner all in Spanish, a bit difficult but the best way to learn, we had few problem with our door lock, David ran into his place picked up is tools and repaired it, we told him about our stove hood problem it was repaired in 2 minutes, we had to stop speaking about house repairs to make sure David sat and relax. Jessica showed me some tricks too, first how to stop ants to come in your kitchens, the best natural way is lemon rings on the counter and inside the cupboard, it worked perfectly, also to slow cook on a gas stove she used a toaster plate. “Got one.”

During the week we didn’t do too much we are still battling a big cold, Marc and I decided no more going out partying till we are completely free of this bug, instead we stay in and worked on our interior decor project, we will have our images, somethings like 18 small to large prints done, that should cover all the walls, not sure how that will look, but it will represent who we are.

We picked some of our favorite one, like these ones,

Vancouver BC

l'apéro

Floral

Buenos Aires

Mirror

 

We finally got our insurance done, dealing with an new agent, got his name from our expat group, https://www.facebook.com/groups/123258451611/ this group is a life saver, a great helping group, when I need info, this is the first place I asked, there is always someone that respond, that is how we found our Doctor, Doctor Gisel Gauna, not only she is a great physician, she is also a compassionate and talented young woman. 

She came to our home to look at our medical files, she took the time to give us some advice, that we will follow, and she also gave us some recipes for natural healing, we are very lucky to have found her.

We also rented our parking space to our neighbor boyfriend, he own a tourist excursion business, and will give us 40% discount if we need his services, a big plus for my photography workshops.

We also had the visit of Chef Angelo he came for coffee, what a great guy, so helpful, so resourceful, a great friend to have, he is working hard to get his new place open soon, I cannot wait to taste his new menu, and see his new place. When he is installed I will do an interview with him, this is by far the best place to eat in Mendoza the food is amazing a real culinary experience, a friendly warm with food Caribbean! I love Al Pasillo!!!

 I also started a photography meet up, I want this new meet up tailored to the needs of the members, a place to share, relax, experiment new techniques, and have fun. I am going to post new techniques and tricks on the meet up page every week, I will also help novice photographers to improve their shooting result by critiquing their work in a positive way. I was lucky enough to get one of the top UK photographer Brian Swinyard, as a mentor he pushed me to the limit, and he did it in a positive and encouraging way, that’s the way to go.

I also started a new class at PPSOP to take a class you can use that discount coupon ppsop67360, this new class "Conveying Concepts, Feelings and Stories in Photography" is about concept photography for book cover, this week we had to use simple objects to describe certain concepts, as we just move in Mendoza I don’t possess a lot of interesting objects but I managed to take some interesting shots. As you will see, their is no rule in this kind of photography, it's all about the concept, the story.

This one is about Will, we call it Captain Dust,

This on is about hope or Sadness, "Gone"

This one is about clarity, truth, purity...

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