The art of making mezcal

My favourite kind of shoots are the ones where my interests line up. Sometimes the stars align and you get blessed by the photo gods with a dream gig like documenting the art of making mezcal in Oaxaca… oh and the client asks you to shoot the whole thing on film.

I am new to mezcal, considering it’s been around for over a hundred years now. My first experiences drinking it were in Canada, and the mezcal that makes its way up here is not necessarily the best… I still was fond of the smokiness, especially in a cocktail and it soon became a favourite spirit to consume. Once I learned a little bit more about it, I started to dream up going to Oaxaca to see how it’s made and get to connect with the spirit. Luckily for me, a friend of mine in LA called me up to join in on a shoot, documenting the process.

Esfuerzo Mezcal is the artisanal product of Margarito Garcia Cruz, and his son Temo. It’s a family owned and operated palenque about an hour outside of Oaxaca Centro. A beautiful area, with rolling hills and mountains of agave. Here are some of my favourite shots from the shoot and the video that was created alongside.

Travel : The other side of Cancun

CANCUN

Mexico is one of the most popular vacation places for people like me who are looking to escape the shitty winters we have up North. People come here looking for an all-inclusive experience, pampered with all-you-can-eat-or-drink, 5 star resorts on white sandy beaches where you pay in US dollars and are surrounded by the company of mostly white people speaking English. Or at least that was how my first vacation to Mexico was, when I was 17 in Playa Del Carmen.
I’m not saying that I didn’t have a good time, it was a family vacation and there were some really fun things about it as a 17 year old, and we ventured off the resort multiple times for various activities. However over the years of my early 20’s, I began to be more interested in travelling in a different kind of way…

Let’s start off with Cancun… Where it all started.

I can’t blame the Mexican government for seeing potential here. This area was inhabited by the Mayans before the Spanish invasion. Before Cancun became a tourist town and before the Spanish occupation, the Yucatan Peninsula was inhabited and dominated by Mayan civilizations until most of the local sites were abandoned by the 15th century. For centuries, this region was mostly wetlands, mangroves, jungles, and virgin beaches. The Maya originally called the area “Kan Kun” meaning den of snakes, golden serpent, and abundant low-lying areas, which later evolved into “Can Cun” by the Spanish.

The area has been divided into 2 sections, a peninsula of white sand and blue water called the Hotel Zone and Cancun Centro, or downtown Cancun. Most tourists arrive by shuttle, bus or taxi right to their hotel in the Hotel Zone, skipping over the city of Cancun completely, I opted to stay just a few blocks from the main bus depot in downtown Cancun. I booked a flight from Vancouver only a few days before leaving, a cheap flight deal of $330 Canadian Dollars round-trip. It wasn’t hard to find an AirBnB or hostel in the area, so I quickly booked a AirBnB in a beautiful boutique hotel that had only been open a week, it was a private house that had been designed to host guests, a mini hostel if you will with modern features, architectural design and close to many amenities nearby in Cancun.

Arriving into Cancun, you have only a few options to get into the city. By taxi, by bus or car rental. The taxi’s have a monopoly, tend to rip you off if you don’t speak Spanish and have actually pushed UBER right out of the area. The ADO bus is the best option, costing only around $12, it is safe and affordable and will drop you off right downtown.

I was lucky to know someone who lived in Cancun, she is a Mexican illustrator and had invited me to a mural show that was taking place while I was there. It sadly got cancelled due to a tropical rain storm, however we were able to connect and she showed me around to a few spots. Her name is Minerva and she had moved from Mexico City to Cancun to be more involved in a smaller community. Her art is amazing!

After checking into the Air Bnb, we went out to a new restaurant in one of Cancun’s oldest buildings. Kotaro is a Japanese inspired restaurant with some Mexican influence. They serve a variety of ramens, udon, appetizers and cocktails in a small space. The dishes are really tasty and are reasonably priced in North American standards from around 90-160 pesos per dish. The restaurant was designed by a Cancun based design company called Estudio Wikka, whose offices are located just steps from the restaurant in a cool alley next to a barber shop. Behind the restaurant is a Speakeasy cocktail bar, again small but tasteful, a great place for a nice cocktail after your meal. We actually hid there to let a downpour of rain pass by…

I was solo on this trip, so after hanging out with Minerva, I decided to walk around at night with my 35mm point and shoot camera and check out some of the nightlife. I left my place, and not far around the corner there was a private party, it was in a house, but the outside of the house had big tents, a dj and a light show… a taco stand was setup outside on the street and the guests were coming in and out, so naturally I decided to wander in and see if I could join. I was quickly stopped by a woman who looked me up and down and said “This is a private party and you need to leave” in broken english. I left, but we’ll come back to this in a bit. I continued wandering the streets until I found a Taqueria called “El Socio.” It was a local spot with no tourists in sight, I hopped on a chair at the bar and ordered a beer and a taco. The beer was called Victoria, a cheap lager, but better than corona or tecaté and the tacos weren’t very traditional, but had some good flavours. I had a hard time getting to meet any locals there, so I chatted up the bartender. His name was Juan and he enjoyed practicing english while I tried to speak Spanish. We both had a hard time, but he offered me a really nice shot of Mezcal. 400 Conejos, a very smoky but smooth drink which I loved.

I left and continued up the road past a few local joints until I was back near Kotaro to check out the nightclub upstairs called Amarula. This place was great… I don’t normally go out to clubs anymore, but seeing as I had just consumed a large shot of Mezcal and it was my first night in Mexico, It didn’t take much convincing in my brain to stumble in to this spot. It was 50 pesos cover to get in, and the place was busy, but not packed. The music was great, nice deep house music, disco house with a few young mexican deejays behind the booth having a good time. I didn’t see people staring at their phones, just people enjoying some laughs at tables and a dance floor full of energetic dancing. I ordered a Negroni in broken Spanish and began to dance and meet locals… It was fun to let loose with strangers, which struck my idea of returning to the private party.

By this time it was around 2:00AM, I stumbled back to the party… This time it was bumping, it seemed like more people were there then when I first walked by at 10, I walked back up the stairs and the same woman greeted me, this time I had 2 beers in my hand and I said, ”Can I come now??” She looked at me, laughed, and said “of course!” which led to one of the best nights I had in Mexico. I was the hit of the party, laughing it up, telling stories, drinking shots of tequilla with the host who is an event planner which explained the elaborate setup. I had my face painted ate birthday cake and danced till 4 in the morning with my new friends before returning home.

The following day, I woke up late to find that the sun was out. I knew I needed to take advantage of this, so I grabbed my cameras, and headed out on a walk through the neighbourhoods, snapping some street photos of murals and things that caught my eye. There were a lot of cool art pieces to be seen, down alleys and on the sides of buildings, something that surprised me about Cancun. I enjoyed some tacos at a food cart on the side of the road… location unknown before looking up and realizing that it was about to rain. I started to walk back, but within a minute or so, it was a flash flood of rain, I was soaked within maybe a minute of walking, and I found shelter under some palm trees with some kids to wait it out. it didn’t stop… I had to run between shelter for nearly an hour before making it back. I was going to eat dinner at a nice restaurant called Mostaza Cocina, but instead opted for the closest option I could find rather than fight the rain. If anyone goes to Mostaza, please let me know how it is, it looked amazing.

"Ghost Nets" of the Salish Sea

When I first met Bourton, I was wandering around with my camera on the docks of the Maritime Museum in Vancouver. I saw a guy dressed in overalls sanding an old wooden tug boat. It had me curious, so I walked up and said hello and asked if I could take a few photos, and since that day we’ve become great friends. Not only does ‘Burt’ own a 1950’s wooden tug boat named the Ella Mackenzie, he is also a commercial diver with a passion for conservation, founding a non-profit called the Emerald Sea Protection Society who’s mission is simple, identify lost fishing gear and marine debris and clean it up… Although the solution for this problem proves itself to be more complicated than first imagined.

Flash-forward a year of many beers, joints and countless days on the water and our plan to create a documentary on the issue of lost fishing nets in the Salish Sea begins to take light… We filmed a small teaser over a week last summer in the gulf islands to drum up some support and a few weeks ago with some funding we were able to film a full-length documentary which will be aired on national television in the coming year.

So, what is a “ghost net”?

A fishing net that has been lost at sea, often times caught on a reef, or simply just bad fishing conditions leading to an accident. These nets have been lost from years of fishing along the coast, and with no accountability, they’ve been left at the bottom of the ocean to continually fish, and they don’t just fish target species down there, they fish everything from small fish, to large mammals, creating a never-ending cycle and causing huge habitat loss and economic downfalls.

Compared to the hot topic of ocean plastics, ghost nets are basically an invisible issue. They are mostly found beneath the water along with other marine debris and human waste. It really became apparent when we dove under a marina, in a cute harbour on Saltspring Island… below the marina in a short dive we found piles of debris including 2 marine batteries, a bicycle, tires, shopping carts, plastic crates and more… when we pulled up a few pieces and placed them on the dock, people were shocked that these things were lingering just below the surface of the water… for Bourton, it’s not a surprise, he sees these types of things constantly as a commercial diver… sparking him to take action.

During the filming, we managed to recover a full gill net in the Great Bear Rainforest as well as large chunks of a purse seine net off the coast of Pender Island. Both of these tasks proved to be very difficult… the gill net was only visible at low tide, and with huge tidal swings, we had a very limited time to hack it into pieces and bag it up. It took 2 days and a few people to tackle that net, leaving the crew with bloody hands from cuts and scrapes. The second net off Pender Island was technical, involving 2 vessels, a team of divers and support crew, a ROV and a limited window of time. After multiple dives to over 100 feet in a strong current, the team was only able to recover a portion of the net that spans over the length of a football field and weighs a few tonnes.

The Emerald Sea Protection Society is working hard to pull together more resources, funding and support to survey the Salish Sea for nets, and plan out the recovery, stay tuned as we cut together a full-length documentary on the project.

For more info, visit the Emerald Sea Protection Society and please consider making a donation!
www.emeraldseasociety.ca