{"id":937,"date":"2014-05-15T10:47:09","date_gmt":"2014-05-15T17:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.timporter.com\/seconddraft\/?p=937"},"modified":"2014-05-15T10:48:10","modified_gmt":"2014-05-15T17:48:10","slug":"mary-ellen-mark-me-mexico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.timporter.com\/seconddraft\/?p=937","title":{"rendered":"Mary Ellen Mark, Me & Mexico"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Oaxaca,<\/a><\/p>\n

I returned to Oaxaca this year to take a second photography workshop with Mary Ellen Mark. Here is an account of that trip — and its impact on me — that I wrote for a local magazine<\/a>. It is an updated version of the story<\/a> of my first workshop a year ago.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

No Bull!<\/strong>
\nDiscovering charros and more in Mexico with Mary Ellen Mark<\/em><\/p>\n

By Tim Porter<\/p>\n

The bull had been chased at survival-of-the-fittest speed by a charro on horseback, grabbed by the tail, and then flipped nose first upside down into the dirt<\/strong>, where its rolling bulk created a sideways tornado of dust and grit that hid all but its whirling hooves and horns.<\/p>\n

Now, it was coming my way \u2014 one ton of off-the-hoof, out-of-control hamburger<\/strong> on a collision course with me and my Nikon. My options were few. A brick wall behind me. A cluster of horses, ridden by wranglers waiting for the bull to come out of the spin cycle, in front. A flimsy metal gate to my left.<\/p>\n

I defied the complaints of aging knees, muttered a silent namaste of thanks to my yoga teacher and leapt for the gate.<\/p>\n

A second later the bull gained its footing, arose from the ground like a drunken frat boy<\/strong> who had been ejected from a hipster bar, and looked for something two-legged on whom it could exact revenge. Its eyes, angry and aflame, found mine, doe-like and frozen, in my perch three feet above him on the gate. The bull swung his heavy, bony head into the gate, rattling my nerves and my bones. Then the charros, emitting whoops and wielding lassos, chased off the beast.<\/p>\n

I checked the camera, noticed bull spittle on my jeans, moved back down along the wall and waited for the next animal.<\/p>\n

Just another vacation day in Mexico.<\/p>\n