Dignity Never Been Photographed 002

Teotihuacan, 2023

Welcome back to Dignity Never Been Photographed, a series in which I discuss a meaningful photograph I’ve taken

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I took this picture in Teotihuacan, Mexico sometime in June 2023.

My wife Grace and I were married on April 1st, 2023. Two months later, we honeymooned in Mexico City. Neither of us had ever been to Mexico City, and we’d never traveled together internationally either. This was a perfect opportunity to check both things off the list.

We had a wonderful time in Mexico City, though we both came down sick. It was disappointing at the time not to be able to enjoy the trip to its fullest, but we were still remarkably active; at this point, it’s a laughing matter, something we look back on with a sense of humor, if not outright fondness. On our last full day, we took the trip out from CDMX (I acknowledge that it’s ~basic~ but I always feel cool when I write it that way — “CDMX”) to Teotihuacan to see the dead city. I took pictures as we walked around. Many of them were unremarkable — it’s deceptively hard to capture a place as large and solemn and silent as Teotihuacan on a measly little strip of 35mm film — but a few came out quite nicely. This one is my favorite.

I like this image because of the historical irony it presents. It’s funny to me to see my wife’s Adidas sneakers and Dagne Dover neoprene backpack set against millennia-old stones. Their juxtaposition seems to me to say something about the human race’s capacity for survival, even in the face of existential challenges. I like the yellow tint of the blue sky, which reminds me of the intense heat of the environment that day, and the way the stairs melt into a soft brown puddle with the low depth-of-field (I probably shot this image at ƒ1.8).

I also like the woman in the top left with her arms raised. She was posing for a picture of her own, celebrating the fact that she had made it all the way to the top of the pyramid. It really was an achievement. Each step is quite tall—roughly double the height of a standard stair—but shallow at the same time. I had to angle my feet in awkwardly in order to fit them fully on each step. I worried about slipping and falling and cutting up a knee (something I’ve done before on stone steps), but fortunately I got up and down without issue.

I also like the way my wife’s ass looks.