Latino with local roots showcases south-of-the-border scenes in photography

By Jacob Wheeler
Sun editor
Ever so slowly the burro trudges along, down the Callejon de Los Muertos, named for the graveyard at the end of the street with the neon-lit crosses. The donkey is carrying big bags of sugar, and his owner raps on every single door with his walking stick to advertise the goods. “¡Se vende azucar aqui!” he yells in a hoarse voice.
The scene unfolds as slowly as the cactus in the Mexican desert grows, and the photography student Maximilian Monroy Miguel Miller has plenty of time to shoot the picture. Miller, whom the locals perceive as a gringo because he grew up in the United States, or El Norte, even though his father is a California-Mexican who taught the boy how to role his ‘rrr’s’, has adjusted well to the laid-back pace of life in this art university town called San Miguel de Allende, an hour west of Mexico City.

Max, who grew up in Burdickville near Big Glen Lake, likes to call himself “El Momento” for his spontaneity and seize-the-day mentality. But today, like most days, he takes his time with everything. “El Momento” awoke, did a little yoga, then walked down to the open-air corner market to buy a mango and a pear for breakfast. Upon returning to his apartment on the Callejon de Los Muertos he painted on a canvas, ripped open a piece of aloe from a plant on his terrace and applied it to some scrapes from a recent bout of futbol with the local boys. He washed his laundry by hand on the roof before walking around town to shoot photographs that are on display and for sale this summer at The Cotton Seed in Glen Arbor.
“I love the moment so much that I want to capture it in my lens,” Max explains. “There are so many beautiful things all around us, but we overlook them because we are moving so fast. Photography slows down those moments and emphasizes the cultural differences in time between Mexico and the U.S. Here time is spent and exploited, used to create pressure and anxiety. But south of the border time just exists.
“The white man has a watch, but the Mexican has time.”
A woman carrying a huge bag of cheese puffs walks by a stand selling oranges and fresh fruits. Ironically, the balls of junk food look just like nectarines in the context of the picture. One wonders how she could carry that huge sack of fruit with her arm outstretched at a 90-degree angle from her body.
In another photo, taken in the jardin in the park, two clowns sitting on a bench look utterly bored, while the joyous women to their right slap each other on the knees and giggle like little girls.
Nearby, in the sprawling market, a child sells balloons, toys, and Chiclets for prices that would send child labor activists in the United States into a frenzy. But Max doesn’t dwell on the socio-political aspects of these scenes. During his time down here — his fifth trip to Mexico — he is an artist. Now that he knows his father’s home country well and speaks fluent Spanish, he doesn’t focus on his own relationship with the land of the Aztecs or struggle to fit in. He pays attention to the people and their everyday habits.
The photographer spies a native woman in huarache flip-flops, sweeping stairs. She displays a strong work ethic and seems obsessed with removing every speck of dust. In the ancient city of Tenochtitlan, Max remembers from his studies, the Aztecs employed 1,000 workers every day whose sole job was to keep the streets clean.
Out by the bus stop is an elderly indigenous couple — he under a sombrero, she with noble grey hair and wearing a shawl. Their skin almost blends into the brownish red wall that makes up the background of the photo. It is the color of clay and earth.
Max sees a woman with a little girl on her back walking on the other side of a red pickup truck, and he thinks of the vibrant and unified family structure in this culture. A woman once asked him at a bus station, ‘How come families in El Norte are all separated?’ He was at a loss for words but mentioned something about us being individualistic. ‘Doesn’t that hurt your family?’ she replied, handing him his bus ticket.
Back in the market he takes a picture from behind of a man looking at a wall covered with gold jewelry and Virgin Marys, painfully tempted to buy something, though who knows how few Pesos are burning a hole in his pocket? This scene must have been the infamous conquistador Cortes’ dream.
Max shoots a cactus against a red wall, mesmerized by the color and textures, green against red. The green plant growing out of the dry ground symbolizes strength and endurance in a developing country.
The camera then points up at a haphazard jumble of telephone wires connected to a pole. “In Mexico stuff gets done, though they’re not as worried about everything being symmetrical,” Max thinks. “For instance, traffic there is ‘organized chaos’. Half of the time there isn’t even a stop sign, but people just slow down and they make it.”
At that, the bi-cultural photographer attaches the lens cap, and returns to his apartment for a lunch of fresh mangoes. Slow food. Slow living.