My father, mother, sister, brother and I make it a point to all get together as many times as we can. This past New Year’s, it was a little bit more challenging since my sister is taking over a year-long excursion down to South America in VW van. (www.vanenvan.com) But since we all love to travel, we decided to all meet near Cancun.
Sensor: Canon 6D
Location: Tulum, Mexico
I already had a lengthy stay in Cancun a year before, and initially was not interested in going back. However I was reminded by someone that we had all vacationed down there 30 years before. I believe it was our first real vacation for the sole purpose of going to the beach and doing nothing but swimming, eating and sleeping.
Cancun back then was nothing like it is currently. Hotel’s were only starting to be built on the beach, and people would actually have to go into the town to get something to eat. Today it’s like the Las Vegas Strip, with almost every inch of beach front taken up by humongous hotels and resorts. Unfortunately, the first thing I think about when I hear Cancun is MTV College Spring Break.
Sensor: Canon 6D
Location: Tulum, Mexico
I’m not old yet…
But enough time has passed by to reflect upon child hood memories and remember it with fond bewilderment as a father might do looking at another family in the park.
My mom told me that when I was seven, I laid out on the beach with a plate of fruit and pancakes and sighed, “This is the life!” Whenever I’m told that I’m acting high maintenance by my parents, I just point them back to that moment and say that was the turning point. One of things I do remember well is visiting the ruins of Chichen Itza and Tulum. My father had just given me an old Pentax rangefinder camera. So I carried that thing everywhere and took a lot of photos. I don’t know where any of them are now unfortunately. Being a seven-year old, I didn’t have much means to buy and develop film anyways.
Before we left, we did find an old picture of the family and decided to recreate the shot.
Sensor: Canon 1D mk IV – Taken by Juan Buehler
Location: Tulum, Mexico
30 Years later. Same age as my dad, and my sister is the same age as my mom in this photo. Same spot, but some small rocks and trees are different. My little brother, once the smallest is now the tallest. In the old photo I’m holding my first camera. It was a lot harder to shoot the latest one as Tulum has gotten to be very crowded and hard to get the spot to ourselves momentarily.
