407 - La Bufadora
We did it, folks. We're officially in Mexico. And oh did we do it up for our first official shoot. Today's adventure was at La Bufadora.
Get ready for lots and lots of Spanish names from now on. I'll be keeping track of my Mexico/Central America locations in their native name, no translation. This will make it easier to find on Google Maps, and help assure accuracy when recalling locations.
I won't bore you with the details of crossing the border into Mexico, there's hordes of information about it online. Our experience was fairly smooth, minus one hiccup that could have been avoided had we spoke a bit more Spanish.
But not biggie, we're in now and that's all that matters.
I wanted to adjust to the culture first, so I purposely didn't take any photos for a few days. I'm not gonna to lie, it was a bit overwhelming.
Everything about our normal van life routine is disrupted. Getting gas is different, ordering food is new, shopping is a different world, camping rules/laws are strange, and the traffic is a bit crazier. It almost feels like starting van life all over again for the first time. Which was reassuring because I know how comfortable I feel NOW doing it in the states, but also scary because I know the difficulties of the adjustment phase.
But, you know, that's what we signed up for. When something gets too comfortable, got to throw yourself into something new.
Needless to say, it's awesome out here. I'm currently writing this at a free dispersed campground where we have the entire beach to ourselves. It's unbelievable. Property that would costs millions in Cali, just completely empty out here.
Let's get back to this specific adventure though- La Bufadora. Which roughly translates to La Bufadora in English. After a drive through the dynamic town of Enseneda, we show up to La Bufadora, pay for parking, and are on our way.
In order to GET to the actual scene (which I'll describe in a second,) you have a walk through a massive open market. And the people here can read you like a book... Very obviously tourists, we were getting catcalled left and right to buy food, drinks, and other delicacies of the Spanish variety.
Some stands even went as far as to offer us free tequila shots, which we politely declined because a friend warned us the tequila was made out of dirty bathwater.
Finally we made it to the draw of the place, which I can best describe as a massive geyser that shoots water from waves out of ocean cliffs.
That's a mouthful, eh?
It took me a few minutes to figure out was actually happening. A (big) wave would smash into the cliff, then water would propel into the air like a steam engine on a train. We came a few hours before high tide, when it was a lot of water but not enough that we'd get soaked. (Which apparently happens if you come at high tide.)
Now I had to figure out how to shoot this spitting beast- I'd never shot something like this before, save the geysers at Yellowstone. So I switched to a high shutter speed and figured I'd try to get the water frozen in the air in strange shapes.
This is what I got first:
“Water Dance”
Sony a7rIII + Tamron 17-28mm f/2.8
[ISO 1000 ~ 17mm ~ f/5.6 ~ 1/1250s]
(Want a Print? Get one here.)
Starting off small, but this is an absolutely crazy intimate shot the shape of water in mid air. I realized how weird this shot is. How else can you get a shot of water like that, unless you're at a geyser with a black rock backdrop like this? It felt so unique to this place, yet so simple at the same time.
But I wanted to go a little bigger. I wanted the FULL scene in a shot, which was a bit more difficult to get. There weren't too many angles you could get of the scene, mainly because you're limited to the ledge they let you look over on a cliff.
I moved around a bit, and discovered the best spot was right in front of it, where you could see deep down into the hole the water came out of.
Now I just had to wait for the water to make an interesting shape again... I realized the sweet spot to shooting spraying water is right when the water was reaching it's apex of height. It hovers in the air for a split second before it goes back down, forms a crazy shape, and is silky smooth in it's edges.
If you shoot it too early you'll get the force of the spray, which is cool, but looks more like a normal wave "splash" than anything. If you shoot too late you'll get just an unrecognizable rain of mist. You got to find that middle ground.
Since it was Mexico, and I was in the land of spirits, I saw a ghost. Check this out:
“Spirit of the Baha”
Sony a7rIII + Tamron 17-28mm f/2.8
[ISO 1000 ~ 17mm ~ f/5.6 ~ 1/2500s]
(Want a Print? Get one here.)
Almost looks like a ghoul rising right out of a dark crack in the ocean. I emphasized the eyes, head, and arms a bit in post-production, just ever so slightly. I basically just added contrast in those areas.
What a strange scene.
Whenever I do this kind of shots, I always wonder if other people can pick out what I'm going for as well as I can. I grew up with the poster of a snowy cliff on my wall, and by the end of my childhood, I had 10+ faces and shapes I could pick apart in that sole image.
Either way, this place was epic. I highly recommend it if you're in the area.
That's about it for this shoot.
I’m on a mission to explore as much as humanely possible.
Want to see my progress? Check out the Adventure Map.
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