Traveling through Mexico - Camille Lachal

This project named: "Traveling through Mexico" is written by Camille Lachal, all credits go to her.

Hi, my name is Camille and I’m a french architect. As a world traveler, and having grown up between Morocco, France, and New Caledonia, I have seen a share of cultures, both old and new. This combined with my love of the ocean and attraction to the tropical environment, brought me first to Costa Rica where I found a remote job. After 4 months I decided to discover Mexico as well where I lived for 5 months. This blog is about my stay in Mexico.

I always travel with my Minolta XG-1, I have two different lenses: a Minolta MD 50mm f/1.2 and a Minolta MD 35-70mm f/3.5. The images you see were shot with Kodak Gold 200, Fujicolor 200 and, expired Fujicolor Superia 200.

I use to shoot nature, landscape, ocean. Places where humans have no control, or at least not yet. For this trip, I decided to try to step outside of my comfort zone and put my interest in some other things too like architecture, which is a consequence of humanity, or people. It was my first try and a real challenge for me. In some weird way, I think people are way scarier than nature. Nature has no expectations so it’s between you and yourself, when people get involved everything changes.

I started film photography by discovering some old dia-positives from my grandfather, and I fell in love with it. He used to travel the world so I found some amazing shots from Yémen, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Djibouti, Tahiti, and many other countries. It inspired me to try to reach the essence of countries very far from my hometown, where the social codes are different, and probably more authentic. I’m not saying I reached my goal but it’s a process and I know I’m in the good direction. Even if I’m still shy around people I made a step. Even if I’m trying to get closer to people, nature is still a huge part of my work.

On this 5 months trip to Mexico I started in Quintana Roo and Yucatan (Playa del Carmen, Tulum, Valladolid, Merida, Bacalar), came back to France for Christmas and jumped back on a flight in April to Mexico City. I stayed around 3 weeks and moved to Puerto Escondido on the Pacific coast for a month. A hurricane was coming so I decided to move and went to Oaxaca City for 10 days and then 2 months in Sayulita. Traveling alone is not something easy, you have to be sure that you’re comfortable with yourself. You learn so much about others, about you. You grow. It’s always a wonderful experience but you have to accept that sometimes you might not feel good, you may be completely alone but it’s never too long because you always meet awesome people on your way.

To sum up I think I’m addicted to losing my familiar landmarks, discovering the most I can, and bringing my camera anywhere so when I’m back home I can be sure it was not a dream, that I really saw those amazing places hahaha.