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I wonder what’s the fascination with faroles, lamps, that we have here in AntiguaDailyPhoto, I mean, come on there are 24 pages on lamps already. If you don’t believe me, follow the white rabbit through the Lamps category hole; if you do, come back and tell us which is your favorite lamp style.

We finish our little mini night photography tour with this simple image of a red wall and sign illuminated by a lamp. Depending on the quality of your monitor and its calibration, you may or may not be able to read what’s on the sign.

Since we are talking about monitors, calibrations and color profiles, let me share with you a little pro secret: if you surf the web with Safari browser, everything will look better than if you use any other browser because Safari reads the color profiles embedded in the images as well as it uses a better rendering engine to display, “print” really, the web pages. Please, keep it hush hush, we don’t other people to know.

Do you know where in La Antigua Guatemala is this wall and lamp located?

I am with MO with regards to how electric wires become visual pollution, especially in colonial Antigua Guatemala. However, I have tried to capture electric wires in creative ways in the past. How sucessfull I was with Electric Wire Grid plus Volcanoes, Wonderful Sunset plus Power Lines and The Webs We Weave is hard to say; you better judge for yourself.

Nevertheless, I can’t argue with the fact that underground wiring and antique style street lamps remove the visual clutter and are much more appealing and coherent for a colonial town.

If you don’t believe me, compare today’s photo of Calle del Arco with the photo in Antigua Style Street Lighting and then come back here and share your thoughts with us.

Guess, just a simple guess… Do you recall the place on the images? If so, what were you doing there?

text and photo by Arturo Godoy.

Not much to say about this simple image, except I really like the light peeking through. Also, I like the play between light and shadows. Anyway, not much to say, really, about a simple and easy image.

I wish you all a simple start of a new week. Remember, easy does it!

I promise to stop whining about the rainy season and its washed and gray skies if I am allowed to capture a decent rainy season themed or caused image every once in a while like in these previous posts:

• Almost Perfect
• Daredevil in Antigua Guatemala
• Contemplating the heavy rain
• One Way to the Decisive Moment
• First Official Rain

Boy, I am a sucker for repetition and I can not help myself whenever repetition shows in my viewfinder. I hope you like it when repeat a subject!

How many people are required to change a light bulb? a whole crew and a truck with basket if the light bulb is part of the street lighting system.

Not too long ago, in Guatemala, the electric company was responsible for the maintenance of the public lighting, but now the municipalities took over that tax income. Honestly, I can not say we are in a better situation, but at least the tax money is not going into the coffers of the electric company, which to me, has to be the worst and most expensive service in the entire country.

The things one must do to earn a living.

So what’s the guy doing all the way up there? Good question my dear friends. Well, there’s something fishy going on there and in many other street light poles. Let me explain. As I drove by the two trucks shown in the bottom pictures I noticed they had replaced the stylish trash bins with metal containers that look exactly like the trash bins, except there was no place to put the trash and inside the metal containers had what appear to be expensive electronics.

Of course, it could simply be a new energy-saver lamps or new cellular towers disguised as public street lamps. Or, it could be something even more sinister. Stay tune as your exclusive reporter from La Antigua Guatemala uncovers the truth behind the Daredevil’s work and leaks his findings to the entire world, Wikileaks style!

What do you think is going on?

I just love the dry season that goes from late October to late April in Guatemala, also known in Guatemala as Summer even though it actually spans part of Fall, the entire Winter and half of the Spring season. Go Figure!

The weather is wonderfully cool, literally and figuratively. There is no rain. The sky turns orange at every sunset.

The best holidays are observed during the dry season: Dí­a de muertos, Thanksgiving, Dí­a de Guadalupe, Posadas, Christmas, New Year, Dí­a de Reyes, Carnival, Festival de Cultura Paiz, Festival Internacional de Jazz en Antigua Guatemala, Lent and the Holy Week.

What else can ask for during the dry season, really?

Greed and ambition do not know of any limits. That’s how we got ourselves into the present economic crisis… sure the free market will police itself and the chief executive officers will regulate their corporations to not be as profitable as they could in favor of a more stable and fair marketplace. Yeah right Alan Greenspan.

Well, the same greediness and ambition is getting to me. I began framing a human shadow, then I’ve got lucky at framing an entire street from Antigua Guatemala. Well, why not frame the moon, really, why not. See, I am getting greedy. Who knows what I am going to frame next. I am telling you, my avarice knows no limits!

Details, details, details.

There are so many different street lamps or faroles, as they are known in Spanish, in La Antigua Guatemala that if I run a different one each day, it would take so many months to show all the different kinds.

Now, can you tell me what’s inside the lamp or in its reflection?

Details, details, details.

I also believe that, some times, details are like opportunities: you blink and they are gone. So you always have to be on the look out for those ephemeral details as well as for those fleeting photo opportunities.

I said it before, but I repeat it now: I could go on forever photographing the never-ending supply of signs around Antigua. It looks like every time I blink a new business opens its doors.

The other day, I read an apocalyptic article entitled Antigua 2020 in which the author describes the business association delightful reaction as the very last citizen of La Antigua Guatemala is forced to move out into a neighboring village and his home becomes yet another business enterprise, thus turning Antigua into a giant 63-block mall.

Oh how jealous mister Disney would be of our colonial-themed humongous mall, don’t you think?

I wonder if the blue cap you see on top of the lamp’s pole is actually a sensor to turn on and off the lamp or if it is indeed a sun-powered cell to provide the electricity for the colonial-style lamp; what do you guys think?

As you can see, just because you are living in a quincentennial Spanish colonial town embedded between coffee plantations, flower farms and volcanoes, it doesn’t mean you can not have some hi-tech comforts like WIFI, solar sensors/sun powered cells and Apple iPhones 3G.

I know I have a problem… what can I say, I like to photograph shadows. Shadow Casting Lamp and Before Sunset in La Antigua Guatemala are just two more samples of my addiction.

Should I look for help?

By the way, from this point forward, you can buy prints from any photo available at La Antigua Guatemala Daily Photo and in the process help support my efforts to keep and maintain this site. Thanks!