Over the past two months, I have refreshed my mind by drawing on a new perspective of a country in Central America known as Costa Rica. I visited a rural town known as Cuidad Quesada where the center square comes alive every weekend. It's a great contrast to exploring the sleepy town on weekdays when everyone is at work and stay-at-home moms are caring for their families. It's nice to wake up in the morning to a sunny day but you can never leave your house without an umbrella because as soon as 11 am rolls around the rain showers pour down on the mountainous rain forest until later in the afternoon making it hard to travel by foot anywhere. Even so, Costa Rica has its beautiful sunny days that even impress the locals that inspire great opportunities to take advantage of the fresh air and tropical climate.
Enjoy some of the street photography I have taken on my trip to Costa Rica.
Here is a corner of town that welcomes tourists into the center square of CQ. I love the contrast and pop of color in the red roof of the cathedral and as the lines of the buildings layer over each other to create movement as the pedestrians walk along the street. “Belleza” is a Spanish word for beauty and I think there is a lot of beauty to be found in the streets of Central America. Every corner of the town has great boutiques to explore, restaurants offering typical food, and friendly people to talk to in the center square.
Here we have the tail of a truck in the rural town of CQ. This town is known for its dairy products and Dos Pinos company that is distributed throughout the country. I wanted to take this picture to reflect the rural background of Cuidad Quesada in the countryside through this photo.
Here is a picture of an old man getting water out of a water spicket on the street of a nearby family neighborhood. You can see him carrying his umbrella as a necessary tool as June and July are the rainy seasons for Costa Ricans so it is always necessary to be prepared. When I took this I imagined the poverty behind the story of the old man and his necessity to drink water and clean his hands in a water spicket off the street. It’s not really a custom you see much back home in the States.
I took this photo one day I went out to explore the streets with my camera on a 35 mm lens to take street photography. There are many homeless people on the streets of CQ and I saw this guy on the corner of one street with all his bags secured to his person as he slept in a slump. I could only imagine the story behind this man’s distraught nature but I wouldn’t dare get too close as a female alone on the streets. However, after I took the picture I realized a message of hope. Even though he hit rock bottom by sleeping on the streets he still has hope to get back on his feet through the simple reminder that lies on his head. A red hat with the iconic symbol of the yellow arches is internationally recognized by many for its Big Mac and Happy Meal. I’ve read on the news before of many success stories of people who started over by finding a job at a beloved American franchise like McDonald’s. I added this photo to my portfolio on Ello and it has received 1.4k views so far. I’m excited to share this message of hope with many. You can see it on Ello, here.
I’m so glad to have found the time to build a portfolio of my recent travels to Costa Rica. There are a lot of other photos I would have loved to capture but I realize that destiny doesn’t always permit me to capture the stories I would love to take since photogenic moments can pass by in the blink of an eye. On this recent trip, I’ve learned that I am not always in control of how photos turn out. Subjects tend to move and leave the scene. The sun’s lighting can change with an overcast or the shutter speed is on the wrong setting and all of a sudden you miss a great shot that you can never get back. However, I have learned to appreciate the moments that life presents because they are always changing with or without me.