Code|Beta Photography [http://www.codebeta.net]

Near my parent’s house there is a small home that has a metal workshop and he’s there every day even if there’s nothing to do. Honestly I don’t know what his real name is though his nickname is Paquico and everyone knows him by that name.

As a personal project I decided to take a couple of photos of his workshop because I find it quite interesting and the workshop has all of these dark spots that really come out well with the industrial and gritty side that it comes with the working on metal side.

I decided to go with B&W for this project as it would pull that same feeling I get when I go in there and because of this I went with Ilford HP5+ on my Kiev 88CM medium format camera and because this film isn’t found locally I had to order it online.

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Code|Beta Photography [http://www.codebeta.net]

I was the leader for Costa Rica in the Scott Kelby’s World Wide Photowalk that happened on July 24th and I planned for this instance to visit the “Plaza de la Cultura” in San Jose. This boulevard is pretty much the heart of San Jose as it’s the one that sees the most people walking by any given day.

During the weekends and holidays there are street performers and clowns entertaining people as they walk by and daily you see a lot of people selling from cheap toys to pirated DVDs to leather belts and wallets to original audio CDs to paintings, most of which are done right there on the boulevard, and these are people that usually come from other countries to make a living out of selling these things because they can’t find other jobs.

The photo above was taken around the Melico Salazar theater and it’s the area where the most street performers gather.

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Code|Beta Photography [http://www.codebeta.net]

Markets are quite common in come areas of the world whereas others are just something you hear once in a while. In Costa Rica, for example, it’s quite common to have a market in every major city and they don’t just sell fruits and vegetables they also sell pots and pans, toys, meat, spices and a lot of other things.

Back in the old days people would visit these places a lot more often than nowadays because a lot of the things found in the markets can be easily found in the supermarkets and people would rather go there than to a dark and dirty market. Recently I paid a visit to the market that’s located in Heredia and even though I don’t really like eating there, I’ve done this once, I like to visit it and walk around because there are a lot of different smells and sounds coming out of every corner.

A barber shop can be found in one of the many entrances that this market has and right next to a fruits and vegetables stand.

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Code|Beta Photography [http://www.codebeta.net]

I’ve been terrible at blogging lately and have yet to blog 2 sessions I did during the month of June; but just as a preview of those sessions I’ll post these photos which were taken on film. These photos are black and white because they were shot with Ilford Delta and HP5 film.

The photo above is from the Bet-Shalom concert that took place in San Jose and you can read more about it here. I took the chance to shoot a couple of frames from their concert on my trusty Nikon FM10 using the excellent Ilford HP5 film, which I must say that it’s my favorite film to shoot with and I’ll be definitely using it a lot more.

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Code|Beta Photography [http://www.codebeta.net]

Recently I had the opportunity to meet up with Bet-Shalom, which is a Costa Rican reggae roots band, and attend one of their concerts that took place in San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica, as part of the “Fiesta de la Musica” that was organized and included several concerts throughout the big cities in Costa Rica.

Earlier that day we had a portrait session for the whole group and I also took the chance to take photos of them during the concert they had that day. Despite the great amount of rain that fell that afternoon there was quite a crowd that came to the concert.

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