It’s the last leg of my journey back to Barcelona. I pull up my phone and start typing these words to anchor some thoughts and keep my eyes open. In the background, I’m listening to Matt Stuart talking with Pauline B about his photography practice.

At one point, he says, “it’s kinda nice to have a reason, like, go and shoot, go and shoot,” talking about an assignment he was doing in Australia. My mind drifts to the last days in Mexico City.

Going out during the days leading up to El Día de la Candelaria had a different taste than the days before: I had a focus, not just roaming the streets to document life happening in front of my eyes, but also documenting how people live this tradition, from the day before all the way to the main day.

I’ll keep this thought as a seed to carry with me, to see what will grow from it.

With these last considerations comes the last missive from Mexico, even if technically it’s from Spain (or at least Spanish airspace).

I want to share a few reflections on this second edition of “Missive from”.

For the new joiners, in this edition I moved from a daily missive to a more relaxed two or three day dispatch. While the first one was a challenge for myself to see if I could send something meaningful daily, this time I decided to change pace to give more breathing room to my experience in Mexico. I wrote some reflections on the first missive in this article if you wanna know more about.

I can say now that I really enjoyed this extra buffer, less pressure to “deliver” and more time to live the places. This decision shaped the format as well. This Mexican edition had much longer stories than the Vietnam ones. While writing them. I was wondering if that would be too long for you to read. But, at the end of the day, it’s about sharing the experience, and it was the best way to do that.

I’m curious to know if you ever felt that.

On the other hand, it was a great exercise in editing and sequencing. Having to select photos from one day is easier than doing it with a few days of wanderings stored on the SD card. If you know me, you already know I have a heavy finger on the shutter. My mantra is, “I can always delete a photo, but I cannot recreate a moment”. The more, the better chances I have to get it.

On the writing side, it was interesting to find ways to keep the first-person present structure when covering several days in each missive. Honestly, I’m pretty satisfied with the result and what I learned on the way.

Lastly, I'm really glad I brought the small printer with me. I was questioning this decision at the beginning of the trip, but I’m happy I did. I love the idea that there are people around Mexico with a photo I made of them hanging somewhere. It could be their food stall, home, or wherever they put it. Just a memory of this random dude who showed up with a print and a smile.

Before saying goodbye, I would like to share some things you could do before we part ways:

Subscribe to Limen. It’s my ongoing monthly newsletter.

Subscribe to the general “Missive from” list. In this way, you will automatically receive future editions without the need to subscribe each time.

Spread the word. Share the link of the missive or any of the above links with people you think will enjoy what I do as much as you did.

That said, thanks for tagging along during this month. It’s thanks to you that I get the energy to carry forward this and other projects. I hope you enjoyed this Mexican edition, and if you have anything you want to share with me, just hit reply.

It was a pleasure having you 🙏

— M