Antigua

For breakfast, we headed out from San Cristobal to Antigua, the old capital of Guatemala dating back to the 1500’s. The restaurant we ate at was called Cafe Condesa, which is known for their breakfast. Jim and Phillip had the huevos rancheros, while I had an omelette santiago. With a little fresh lemonade and some wonderful coffee to match, it was a great late breakfast.

After we ate, we walked around the city a bit to take it all in. The variety of wares in the shops and street stands in Antigua show that it is definitely a tourist destination, and we saw several european backpackers and some tourists from the states. I’d heard stories about how americans tend to have cow-eyed naivete when abroad, and it was funny to watch some of it firsthand.

Ana Maria & Jose Antonio’s Wedding

A wedding in Guatemala is similar to what we have in the states, though almost all the services are traditional catholic. There wasn’t a bridal party with bridesmaids and groomsmen, but there were godparents who participated in some of the ceremonial activities. The service was held as a mass, so there were people off the street in the pews as well in all varieties of dress. The amount of freedom I had to move around during the service was amazing; I could practically walk up to the bride and groom and go anywhere but the altar where the priest was speaking. Several other people in the congregation were up and about at different points taking pictures with their cell phones or point-and-shoots.

Technical nerd stuff

I was able to shoot the wedding without flash- ISO 1600 on the D300 is fairly clean for the way I do post-processing. The distances at which I was shooting let me use f/2.8 on the 50mm prime lens comfortably without depth-of-field issues and gave a considerably bright image. After the ceremony, I mounted an SB800 on the monopod with an umbrella at TTL +1, an SB800 on the D300 at TTL -0.7, went down to ISO 800 and bumped the aperture up to f/4 (the sharpest on the 50mm), which balanced with the light in the sanctuary just right and gave me some solid portraits. There was a gentleman who looked like he shot weddings there regularly; he was wearing a blue Polaroid vest and shooting with an old Minolta with a 50mm lens and a small hot-shoe flash that ran off two AA’s. The gear I brought made me feel like a spaceman in comparison and enabled me to do some amazing things, though I somewhat envied the simplicity of his setup.

Reception

The family booked the reception at a garden venue that had some interesting props and locations to use for portraits, as well as a great layout for the tables and dance-floor. The food was the most american I’d had since I’ve been here – chicken and beef, potatoes, bread rolls, salad and vegetables.

The traditions of the cake, family dances, garter and bouquet tosses are the same as in the states. For the toast, the bride, groom and both’s parents go to each table and a picture is taken of everyone. It was one of the more challenging things to shoot because of the density of people, so I had to stand up on flimsy plastic chairs to get high enough and back enough to fit everyone in the frame.

Culture

I wore my vibram five fingers shoes so I would be able to maneuver around easier than with slippery dress shoes, and it proved to be a very good decision both during the ceremony and reception. One gentleman stopped me between shooting tables to take a picture of them, and several of the family’s friends and the DJs asked me about them and where they came from.

It seems that many of the younger people know a bit of english, and I seemed to be able to level with most of the people around my age at the reception. The DJ’s were fun and let me put in a request by playing a track off my ipod, and once I put the camera away later in the night, I had a blast dancing with everyone.

I’ve found that I’m starting to think about some things in spanish when I know the appropriate word for the concept. I’m speaking what I can, and I’m definitely going to pick up learning spanish when I get back, probably with rosetta stone.