Local Faces
 


San Felipe, Baja, Mexico

A person's face is often a diary of his or her past. The joys and crises, disciplines and vices, fears and pleasures, even philosophies or faiths are the brushstrokes that paint the portrait of a man or woman's countenance. The way the sun converses with the eyes, or the shadows hide inside the creases reveals some biographical information.

Many of the resident and regularly visiting faces of Baja are more rugged and telling than their office-bound counterparts to the north. Baja faces are studies in survival, just as almost everything else in La Frontera seems to be. The rancheros and pescadores, ranchers and fishermen, wear their facial arroyos and sun-squints as a matter of course. The cult of youthfulness never has a chance to take root in the working class of the world. Such concerns are a byproduct of leisure time and in an environment that strips Nature's assessories to a minimum and leaves what remains in a state of heightened ferocity, the gift of leisuretime is rarely, if ever, encountered.

Street VendorBelow is a slowly growing gallery of San Felipe, Baja, Mexico faces. Each link takes you to a photo and a dash of biographical information. These are the people who live at the widest part of the pyramid, upon whom all the weight of the system rests. A few, through perserverence and Baja grit, have managed to remove some of the weight by climbing a little distance up the pyramid. As you can see by the faces of others, through the salve of contentment or the catalyst of discontent, many remain at the bottom. And truly, they don't seem to mind at all.