Border Blogs: Expressing our Border Culture

Last Friday was the last day of work at the El Paso Times for education reporter Michael D. Hernandez. He had been an employee of the Times for nine years and wrote for the living and neighborhoods sections before being...

Just a quick note on something we stumbled across while looking for a business license: People looking for business licenses and permits at Texas Online, the state's website, are instead being linked to the governor's official website. The page shows...

Press release from State Rep. Norma Chavez's campaign: Naomi Gonzalez Misfires on Facts Gonzalez Misrepresents Chavez attendance record El Paso,TX- In a mail piece that hit homes this weekend, Republican-funded candidate Naomi Gonzalez accused State Representative Norma Chavez of wasting...

U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison dismissed the latest Rasmussen numbers that show her losing traction in the Republican primary for governor. The poll, which surveyed 538 likely Republican primary voters, showed Gov. Rick Perry in the lead with about 44...

It looks like former Wharton County GOP chairwoman and Tea Party activist Debra Medina may have gained the most from the past two gubernatorial debates. The latest Rasmussen poll has her gaining momentum in the election, which seems to have...

Campaign finance reports continue trickling in for January. Former County Attorney Jose Rodriguez raised the most in the race to become the city's next senator and has more money in the bank than his opponents -- retired UTEP professor Louis...

Gov. Rick Perry raised more than U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison this month and has slightly more money in the bank, according to new finance reports. Perry received $734,365 in January. He spent $1.9 million and has $10.4 million cash-on-hand....

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill White today released his first television commercial. The ad, which is in English and Spanish, focuses on education. "We must move Texas forward," White says as he talks about the state's dropout rate and the need...

There are of course a lot of blogs, websites and articles online about how to light a subject properly for stunning portraits. This small article talks about a very simple technique you can use to achieve rich portrait lighting that makes the facial features of your model come to life beautifully.  The technique uses only natural light, of the type that comes through your window.

First of all, in most portraits you will want to achieve different levels of light on the face of your photographic subject.  This creates some shadows which make the picture look tri-dimensional.  If you make your light very even on the face you will make the face of your subject look flat.  There is some movement towards even lighting nowadays, especially in fashion and editorial portraits, but you will see that in that case, the volume on the facial features might be achieved with make up or any other means. 

If you are shooting with studio lighting, the way you achieve different levels of light is by placing one lamp at a higher power or closer to the subject (this is called the main light) and a second light at lower power or far from the subject (this is called fill light).

If you are new to photography a simpler way to achive this for practicing is to place your subject close to a large window that lets natural light in.  Position your subject in a way that the light coming from the window lights part of the face (it can be most of the face actually) and part of the face and body have shadows.  Experiment with different angles on your model (relative to the window) and different camera positions.  You should expose to the light on the brighter side of your model (that is, expose to the main light).  Be careful that the light differential between the illuminated side and the dark side is not too big, because that can create problems.  A light differential of 1.5 points is very good between the main light and the fill light, because that creates a 3:1 contrast ratio that looks very good in the resulting image.

Here is an example of this.  The Model on the shot is Finnish Top Model Olivia Kortelainen.  We shot this entirely with natural light coming out of the window.

Any photography questions please leave a comment or contact me in twitter at ricardocarreon.

Juárez mayor plans monument to women slain in border city

Posted: 01/30/2010 12:00:00 AM MST

Diana Washington Valdez/El Paso Times

Juárez Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz said the city is calling on artists nationwide to submit proposals for a monument to memorialize the city's murdered women.
Such a monument could focus on the eight victims whose bodies were found in 2001 in a cotton field on Ejercito Nacional across from the Association of Maquiladoras.
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights ordered the Mexican government earlier this year to erect a monument to dignify the memory of the victims.
Families of victims had complained that Mexican authorities treated them with contempt and disrespected the victims during the failed investigation to solve the murders.
Early in the investigation, Chihuahua state authorities misidentified several of the eight bodies and accused two innocent men of the killings.
Reyes said that the city would donate land for the monument and that the victims' families would be asked to review and approve the final rendition. The proposed site for the monument is at Ejercito Nacional and Francisco Villareal streets.
"It must be something that represents what we feel about the deaths and that acknowledges our past errors, which were real and caused us pain. It must also demonstrate our commitment to never let this happen again in Juárez," Reyes said.
He said it could take up to nine months to complete the monument.
The mayor also said the city is participating in the Alba alert system (similar to the U.S. Amber alert) to publicize high-risk disappearances.The Killing Fields: Harvest of Women, the first investigative book about the Juarez murders by a U.S. journalist.

All three candidates struggled at Friday's gubernatorial debate during a round of questions that tested their knowledge of certain state topics. Here is a rundown of the questions, the answers provided by the candidates and the answers that were expected...

U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison reiterated her intention to resign from the senate during Friday's gubernatorial debate. The issue returned to the spotlight this month after Republican Scott Brown of Massachusetts was elected to the senate. Brown's election stripped Democrats...

Gov. Rick Perry was asked during Friday's debate if he would promise to serve his entire four-year term if re-elected. Some have speculated that he could be considering a bid on the Republican Presidential ticket in 2012. Texas monthly's Paul...

The second Republican gubernatorial debate starts at 6 p.m. tonight in Dallas. Here is a picture of the studio where Gov. Rick Perry, U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and businesswoman Debra Medina will square-off.

The two leading Democratic candidates for governor will square-off for the first time in a debate next month. Former Houston mayor Bill White and haircare magnate Farouk Shami will debate at 7 p.m. Feb. 8 in Fort Worth. The candidates...

Conservatives who feel a strong need to reach out to conservatives in El Paso who have a Mexican or Hispanic heritage have formed a new group styled, The Abraham Lincoln Forum. The group has aligned itself with the Latino National Republican Committee.

Interim President is Bobby Ortiz, former Congressional candidate who earned 46 percent of the vote in his bid.

The group will meet again on Wednesday February, 24 at 6:30 pm at Gerardo's restaurant to organize for the March primaries.

The first meeting was impressive as measured by the caliber of the those attending.

State Senate candidate Dan Chavez was in attendance as were various party activists.

According to The Heritage Foundations Index of Economic Freedom, Mexico is currently ranked in number 41 within the 183 countries analysed for the different aspects that constitute economic freedom. On a scale of 0 to 100 Mexico scored 63.2 with an improvement last year of 2.5 points, which ranks Mexico on world´s top 22%.

The Index of Economic Freedom has ten component scores and Mexico is this year among those who have improved the most. It ranks above the BRICs, just five places behind Spain, and instead 23 places above France, and 33 above Italy.

In the revision of last year, economies are ranked on their economic freedom based on ten different topics: business freedom, trade freedom, fiscal freedom, government spending, monetary freedom, investment freedom, financial freedom, property rights, freedom from corruption and labor freedom.

For instance, if we look at business freedom starting a business in Mexico takes an average of 13 days, whilst the world average is 35 days. The overall freedom to start, operate, and close a business is protected under Mexico’s regulatory environment. Business freedom scores 83.

From the 183 economies analyzed, Mexico ranks 41, which means that it is one of the top Latin American countries on the list and a much better place to experience an economically free society, where individuals are free to work, produce, consume, and invest in any way they please. With that freedom both protected by the state and unconstrained by the state.

In fact, all four BRIC countries are far behind Mexico and in evident need of reforms to make it easier for their citizens to foster their economy. These are the rankings for Index of Economic Freedom in comparison to BRIC:

Mexico – 41
Brazil – 113
India – 124
China – 140
Russia – 143

Finally, though navigating through difficult times for the whole economic world, Mexico managed to be among the few gainers in economic freedom this year. None BRIC or OCDE country was among that list.

Link to the Miriam Makeba "Pata Pata" song on the Honda auto commercial

Great song by the late great activist Miriam Makeba
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-VrfadKbco&feature=relatedThe Killing Fields: Harvest of Women, the first investigative book about the Juarez murders by a U.S. journalist.

Stephanie Guadian will return to her morning anchor desk at the KFOX Morning News on Monday, the station announced via Twitter today. Officials at the station had said Guadian had been out for "several" weeks due to an emergency surgery....