Lake Ilopango: Diving Another Central American Volcanic Lake

EL SALVADOR–Pacific Paradise dive boat on the shores of Lake Ilopango. Fuji X100f.

By Andrew J. Tonn

SAN SALVADOR – Sometimes it is hard to get a sense of terrain and space while driving.  You know you are on a road, in the desert, or mountains, or a forest.  You know you are going somewhere, but the overall picture is indistinct, at least until later when you look at the map, your photos, your memories, and piece the whole thing together.

This is not the case for the road between San Salvador and Guatemala City.  I had never driven the route in my own car but had taken it several times in a bus, from one city to the other and back again.  Leaving Guatemala City you travel up and over the mountains through a misty zone of pines and hardwood, crossing the rim of mountains separating the two Central American countries.  When you crest the mountains, you drop down to a hot plain that calls to mind parts of Texas and Mexico, distinct from the cool Mayan highlands.  The highway is not straight but somehow feels that way.  Up and over the mountains, across the plains and valleys, a stop at the border, across a river, and into El Salvador.  The road continues on, close to the coast but never so close as to see the ocean, until you join the sprawl of San Salvador or turn off somewhere along the way.

We turned off along the way, west towards the ocean, until finally the deep blue Pacific appeared like a lake hovering between a gap in the mountains.  There were signs for La Libertad and Surf City and I rolled down the windows, turned off the AC, and the heat and smell of the sea and the land flowed through the car.  I was traveling with two friends who both worked at La Iguana Perdida on the shores of Lake Atitlan: Danny from Switzerland and Giada from Italy.  Danny was one of the Dive Instructors who I had been training with.  In a few weeks he was pulling up stakes and moving on to Indonesia.  Giada was the hotel manager, not a diver, and just wanted to see El Salvador.  Over the last months I had been researching different places to dive in the region.  My own dive experience is somewhat unusual.  I had been certified at Lake Atitlan some 15 years ago and had recently completed my Advanced and Rescue Diver courses on the way to beginning my Dive Master.  While I have been underwater in the Caribbean and elsewhere, a huge part of my diving has been at that curious, cold, beautiful, and murky Mayan lake.  Danny was about to finish up the better part of a year leading nearly daily dives in Atitlan and had been underwater there several hundred times.

Not that freshwater diving is that unusual an activity, but many, if not most recreational divers get their certificates somewhere tropical and salty.  They might, if traveling through, do a dive or two in Atitlan out of curiosity and, according to the instructors, even experienced divers sometimes struggle with the cold fresh water where it’s hard to see, the air is thinner, and buoyancy more difficult.

EL SALVADOR — On dive site Cerro Quemado in Lake Ilopango. GoPro Hero 8 Black.

Danny and I were both fascinated by the prospect of diving in another Central American volcanic lake and we were signed up to do two dives in Lake Ilopango.  Ilopango, like Attitlan, is a caldera, the result of a massive volcanic explosion.  Both lakes are quite deep, with Atitlan at about 1,120 feet and Ilopango at around 755 feet.  Atitlan’s massive eruption occurred some 80,000 years ago but Ilopango only between 410 and 535 AD which would have a great effect on life in the region and perhaps affecting the climate around the world.  Atitlan is in a rural part of Guatemala, is surrounded by three massive volcanic cones, and stands at 5,125 feet at lake level.  Ilopango, at only 1,480 feet, feels peaceful and remote at lakeside, but is basically within San Salvador.  Both are beautiful places though nothing I have ever seen can compare to Atitlan and its phantasmagoric clouds, mountains, and colors.  Another difference is that Ilopango has both islands and rock formations piercing the surface of the lake.  Atitlan had at least one island in the distant past, submerged a millennia or more ago.  But that’s all on the surface.  We were interested in what lay below.

EL SALVADOR — Down in Lake Ilopango. GoPro Hero 8 Black.

We were staying on the coast at the Pelicano Surf Camp, a two-story shack, open to the heat, breeze, and mosquitoes and full of backpackers, surfers, and the sound of waves.  Longboards lined the rafters, and the sand floor of the downstairs bar and common area was a menagerie of dogs, cats, and chickens.  There were tents pitched on the floors and people lounged in hammocks.  Giada had a bed in a dorm room.  Danny and I shared a private room, made private by the addition of a bedsheet strung on cord.  I was reminded of the line from many an action movie about being too old for this, but I took off my sandals, put on my bathing suit and found an empty hammock.  I opened a book.  A chicken was staring at me.  Life could be worse.

Danny had arranged the dives with San Salvador-based Pacific Paradise Divers and I was up before dawn the next morning.  The mosquitoes of El Salvador seemed to treat repellant as a delicious DEET-based sauce.  It was tropical hot even in the early hours of the morning, the bed was somehow both too hard and too soft, and there was a cat sleeping by my head.  We had to arrive at the dive shop by 0730 anyway after close to an hour drive into the city.  There was no point in sleeping in.  Sunrises on Salvadoran beaches are worth getting up for and I cleared my head jogging in the surf line.

The unfamiliar drive went better than I had hoped for, albeit with some flexible interpretation of local traffic laws.  We pulled into the lot, knocked on the door, and were greeted like old friends by Henry and Nuria.  I paid for my dives, helped load tanks into Henry’s old pickup, bought the T-shirt, chatted with some of the other divers, and we headed out following Henry to Lake Ilopango.  It took about an hour to cross the city and some more creative driving along the way, but soon enough we were on the shores of the lake.  It was a fine, sunny day with a strong breeze bringing the waves up.

The waves meant we wouldn’t be able to dive certain sites where it was difficult to get the anchor to hold.  It wasn’t a huge boat but big enough to hold our second tanks.  At Atitlan the diving is from a small, open lancha.  You enter the boat fully geared up except for fins, roll out and pull yourself back in over the low gunwale.  Being used to that rather austere experience made the day with Pacific Paradise Divers seem positively luxurious.  A ladder to get back in the boat you say?  A banana to eat after the dive?  I feel like Thurston Howell III in a wetsuit! (I mean no offence to AtiDivers at Atitlan, by the way, their style of boat diving there is exactly appropriate to the conditions!)

We loaded the tanks and gear and headed out to a jagged formation of rocks breaking through the blue water.  The site was called Cerro Quemado and there were several other dive boats nearby.  We rolled into the water and we swam a hundred feet or so to where Henry had told us we would dive.  There is always that moment of thrill and apprehension descending into a new and unknown site and I think it was particularly special for Danny and myself who had spent so much time diving in another, very special, Central American lake.  Ilopango was different and I think for divers less familiar with Atitlan, the differences might have been small but for us they were significant.  The water was clearer and there were schools of fish everywhere.  The water had a different smell and taste and was warmer.  The plants and algae growing on the rocks were different and though it was no Caribbean reef there were some subtle reds and other colors as opposed to Atitlan’s palette of greens and greys.

We descended to around 90 feet and there were a series of religious sculptures.  It was the first time I had seen manmade statues intentionally placed in the deep.  I had always thought the idea a little silly but there in the cool, dark depths of the Central American lake I found looking upon the cross, and Mary, various Saints, and the outstretched arms of the Savior curiously affecting.  There was something indescribably about kneeling on the rocky bottom, almost 100 feet below the surface, and saying a brief prayer to nothing but the sound of my own breath, that I find impossible to fully describe.  We explored the rock formations, searched for freshwater crabs, and swam through clouds of small fish until it was time to come up. 

EL SALVADOR — On the boat after the first dive, heading to our second where we circumnavigate Isla de Amor underwater.  GoPro Hero 8 Black.

The boat took us over to a small island near the shore.  The islet was perhaps 200 feet across and 100 or so feet high, a lump of tree covered stone called, “La Isla de Amor,” the island of love, accompanied by the local expression, “Two go up, and three come down.”  This turned out to be one of my favorite dives ever because of its form.

We rolled in just 15 0r 20 feet offshore in shallow water, descended to perhaps 30 feet, then swam around the Island of Love, going clockwise keeping the slope off the right shoulder.  In general, I love the idea of going around geographic features, sailing around the globe, circumnavigating bodies of water, circumambulating lakes and mountains.  It was an elegantly simple dive and great fun trying to mentally gauge how far one had come around an island one had only just seen on the surface and never before from below.  We passed the boat’s anchor line with plenty of air remaining, swam a bit farther, retracing part of the circle, then turned back and came up.

After removing our gear, several of us climbed the hill in our wetsuits, dripping lake water on the stone steps.  It didn’t seem that romantic a spot to me, but the view was nice, the sun was hot, and there was a good wind.  I thought I very much wanted to come back, to dive Ilopango again, see some of the other sites and maybe swim around the Island of Love another time. 

Central America Once Again

DEPARTAMENTO DE COPAN–While out in the backcountry of Copan Department, Honduras documenting medical brigades for a public health NGO in 2001, I found myself surrounded by a group of curious children. More and more kids gathered, wondering what the kinds inside the crowd were looking at. It was only me but I felt, just a little bit, like a camera-toting Elvis. Nikon F3, Nikkor 20mm f/2.8, Ilford HP5.

By Andrew J. Tonn

GUATEMALA CITY — There may be no place in the world more familiar to me than where I am now, here, back in Central America.  At this point I have lived abroad longer than in my hometown (at least in recent years) and anyway, my hometown isn’t my hometown.

A long time ago I wrote a story, which I will reprint here soon, called, “The Long Central American Goodbye.”  The title recalled a specific memory but in a broader sense how I was unable to say goodbye, how each trip to the region led to the next trip, each of them both expanding my explorations and revisiting places I had been before, getting to know them in a deeper, more complete way.  My experiences in Central America, centered around my work as a reporter and documentary photographer, led me directly to Sweden and Ukraine and in ways I consider those side journeys along the greater arc of my time in Central America.  As I write this I will clarify that by Central America I mean the three countries, so much in the news lately, referred to as “The Northern Triangle,”Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador.  I hope to visit the other countries that make up the region: Belize, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Panama but for the moment I am living in Guatemala and, with both Covid and work, more extensive travel is somewhere out in the future.

So it feels both strange and completely normal that I am here in Guatemala and writing about Central America.  It feels inevitable, to tell the truth, and only strange because this time I am here with my family, kids, dog, car, stuff, and a job that pays slightly better than itinerant documentary photographer.  So it is more than just me and a backpack, camera bag, and whatever organization I was working for but that feels pretty natural as well.  That was my life then and this is my life now, a life that has taken me to India and Nepal and Mexico and other places, unconnected to those previous adventures.  Those were not side trips from Central America as were Sweden and Ukraine because I had the rare grace in life to satisfactorily finish a thing.  I long had the idea that I wanted to do a photo exhibit of large format prints, a retrospective showing the best images from all my trips to Central America, not focusing on one country or one relief organization.  After I got married and was living in Columbus, Ohio I met Gina, an art agent who became a great friend and made that show happen.  I exhibited more than 40 images, blown up to 20 by 30 inches (or more) interspersed with textiles and carvings and other artifacts I acquired along the way.  I even made a last trip down, not long before the opening, to make a few images that had never been seen before.  It neatly tied the whole thing up, ended more than ten years of work and wandering.  As I said black then, that didn’t mean I will never come back here, but it meant that cycle of trips, that time in my life, was over and I could go forward to new things.  Which I did.  Not too many months later we were in India.  Two and a half years after that we were in Mexico, complete with a full Spanish language course.  Two and a half years after that and I am sitting here in Guatemala City writing these words.  Hello again and goodbye to all that.

A Single Photo: The Dangers of Electrical Work

ZACATECAS–I was walking down the street in Zacatecas, Mexico and heard barking above me. This lineman was working on a tangle of wires and two dogs were on the roof next to him, letting him know he wasn’t welcome. It is a dangerous job, working high above the ground, with high-voltage lines and the complex problems of phone, and electric, and who-knows-what kind of wires all tangled together. Maybe there is even danger from angry birds… But usually, up there, a lineman doesn’t have to worry about dogs, leaving that to his brothers delivering the mail. Leica M9 Monochrome, 50mm f/2 Summicron.

SPECIAL GUEST POST: Dive Computers or Dive Tables? That is the Question

The author after receiving her Open Water Scuba Instructor certification in southern Mexico near Tulum.  Author’s bio, Social Media links, and business contact at the end of the article.  Photo courtesy of the author.

 
PUERTO RICO — Dive Computers or Dive Tables?  That is the question… No need to think too much about the most popular and probably best answer: Dive Computer.  Yes, a Dive Computers will make your diver-life much easier; it eliminates much of the time you need to plan a dive, its algorithm allows you to get more out of your dives, more bottom time and less surface time between immersions (Surface Intervals).  They come with all sorts of different, convenient features, and depending on the model and price range there are an incredible array of options to choose from: you have the very basic computers, and others with different settings like Enriched Air or “EANx,”some that automatically adjust for altitude, type of water, etc.  Some are more conservative than others, and some you can adjust the algorithm to be more or less conservative.  All new computers will measure your depth and time underwater and quite a few other variables with greater precision than old fashioned tables and analog gauges.  However, no matter what you choose as your dive computer remember: Always read the manual before use!
 
Now, that I sound completely on the side of Dive Computers let me tell you why you should understand and use Dive Tables.  Why have the tables become so unpopular?  Well, because of computers, obviously!  But do you know that tech divers use dive tables along with carrying more than one computer? Why would they do that?

The author, Christina Lorenzo, underwater near her home in Puerto Rico.  Photo courtesy of the author.

Because even the best of computers can fail.  The most simple recreational dive can go wrong and the types of deep and complex dives inherent to the tech diving world have added risks of their own, they’re deep!  They’re complicated!  More pressure, more risk!  Dive equipment is made to last, but nothing is perfect and the more complicated the dive the more that can go wrong.  But this is why I would argue that even recreational divers who never plan to go very deep or penetrate caves or wrecks should still pay what amounts to professional attention to their knowledge and equipment.  I don’t mean that every recreational diver should sport two (or three) computers, four cutting devices, and carry a canister light with two backups–rather to approach one’s own training and gear with a serious eye.  Scuba diving is great fun but it does carry some inherent risks: risks that can largely be mitigated by good training and proper knowledge.
 
As a professional diving instructor I’ve learned not to continue a dive with only the Table if the computer fails.  If your computer fails you should end that dive.  However, you can definitely use Dive Tables for the rest of the days you’ll be diving.  Also Dive Tables or RDP/eRDPml are great to understand and make use of, if your computer is not built with EANx and, or Altitude settings.   No matter what you choose, you have to learn to read (and understand) both: your Computer(s) and the Table(s).  
 
Recently I took the Altitude Diver Specialty in Lake Atitlán in Guatemala with ATi Divers (big shout out to the only dive shop around the lake and my Instructor Daniel who is an RDP genius)!  Being a “sea-level” Caribbean, shallow-water  instructor myself, I had pretty much put the Tables in a trash can until the day I had to learn to read the RDP Table in a theoretical manner for the Altitude Specialty.  It fascinated me and finally I can say I understand them and their importance.  In conclusion, exercising  your mind and keeping it at work should never be a thing of the past!

Christina Lorenzo Agront.  Photo courtesy of the author.

 
ABOUT THE AUTHOR — I recently met Christina Lorenzo at La Iguana Perdida in Santa Cruz la Laguna, Guatemala where she was working on her Altitude Specialty.   Christina, who is currently back in Mexico working on her Master Scuba Diver Trainer rating, wrote the following article as something of a companion piece to my last article on dive watches following discussions we had on diving and, ideally, how one should train.  Christina is one of those restless, polymath adventurers you seem to meet at places like Lake Atitlan.  Based out of Rincon and Aguadilla Puerto Rico, she ran track and field in college, was part of the national Roller Derby team, traveled to Dallas for the Roller Derby World Cup, established herself as a hairdresser with a specialty in colorimetry, and discovered scuba diving through her clients.  She decided to go for dive certification in Mexico close to the cenotes she’d been wanting to see for years.  The pandemic lock-downs were starting and she booked the very last flight from the closest airport before travel was shut down for over a year.  “That was the best decision of my entire existence,” she told me, adding, “I met Xibalba through the cenotes, did my Rescue Diver course with a local crocodile, dived the second largest coral reef in the planet, and wrecks, and caverns… I became a Divemaster and finally an Open Water Scuba Instructor.  On a recent trip to Guatemala’s Atitlán Lake, I found a place where you can feel inspired again, it made me realize I could take my diving farther than just Open Water Scuba Instructor.  Life is too brief to just dream about what one could have achieved.”  
 
Follow Christina on Instagram at scuba_closet and her website www.scubacloset.com.  Contact her via e-mail about diving and dive training in Puerto Rico at scubacloset@gmail.com or by phone at 01-787-452-8415

A Single Photo: The Baba of the Cave in the Last Village in India

MANA, INDIA–The Baba of the Cave greets pilgrims and gives blessings to those who ask from an ancient cave in Mana.  Mana is a village in Uttarakhand, a few kilometers from the major pilgrimage center of Badrinath.  The small village, roughly 40 kilometers from the Tibetan Plateau, and often referred to as, “The Last Village in India,” has an outsized presence in Hindu mythology.  It is not far from the headwaters of the Alakananda River, which along with the Bhagirithi, is one of the two major tributaries that join to form the mighty Ganges.  Leica M-P 240, 50mm F/2 Zeiss Planar ZM.

The Dive Watch: a real tool for the scuba diver or relegated to desk duty?

By Andrew J. Tonn

Guatemala City — Whether you ever take them underwater or not, these are three purpose built dive watches more than capable of use as a scuba diving tool. While dive computers have rightfully superseded using a waterproof watch with a timing bezel (the Doxa also includes the U.S. Navy no-decompression table on the outer bezel ring) and dive tables to track your dives, a good dive watch is a great backup timing device. In many cases it is also quicker and easier to get your elapsed time with a glance at your watch, and every diver should learn how to use dive tables in order to understand what their computer is doing. From left to right: The Seiko Prospex SRP777 “Turtle”, The Deep Star 1000 from Deep Blue Watches, and the Doxa Sub 750T Professional. Shown with a vintage Wenoka diver’s knife, a Poseidon BlackLine mask, and Pelican 1150 case. Photo taken with a Fuji XT-4 and Fujinon 35mm f/2 lens.

GUATEMALA CITY — Is the dive watch still valid as a tool for scuba divers?  The short answer is yes.  It absolutely is.  Before I begin to tell you why it is and why if you are a scuba diver you should probably wear one, first let me explain what a dive watch is.  There are many “dive style” watches that look the part but are not.  To really be considered a dive watch there is a series of standards (ISO 6425) a timepiece must meet including 100 meters of water resistance, a timing device (such as a unidirectional bezel) protected against inadvertent rotation, a certain quality of illuminated markers in dark conditions, etc. Before the advent of dive computers, a watch that could survive the water pressure, track the elapsed time of a dive and/or a decompression stop, and be read in low light, was an absolutely essential survival tool.  It, combined with decompression tables, some good old-fashioned math skills, a submersible pressure gauge and an analog depth gauge (which tracks both current and maximum depth) served the same purpose as a modern dive computer.  I find it somewhat ironic that most diving kits include an analog console with submersible pressure gauge and depth gauge but exclude an analog timing device.  Now before anyone gets in a techno-huff, I absolutely believe in using a dive computer and I own two of them, the professional Shearwater Perdix with wireless Air Integration and the more recreationally oriented and smaller Atmos Mission One (so no scuba luddite am I).  However, I also wear a dive watch while diving (and usually out of the water) and I think new students should be trained to use dive tables and analog gauges as well as computers.

In general, I think the Open Water course is too short and has grown ever lighter on some all-important theory and technical aspects (the boring stuff) (also the stuff that keeps you safe, alive, and uninjured).  I think it is very difficult to really understand what a computer is actually doing and telling you without learning the process the older way.  This is true for many things, such as the exposure triangle in photography and starting a fire in the wild.  The U.S. military has had problems when land navigation (map and compass skills) are no longer taught because everyone has high-tech GPS abilities.  GPS is incredible until batteries die, a system is hacked or goes down, electronics fail in austere environments or, well, it’s just wrong.  Then it is a very good thing to know how to use a paper map and a good old-fashioned battery-free compass (and also a watch unattached to any system other than your wrist).

I freely admit that while not being a luddite, I am a traditionalist.  I love watches, in particular dive watches, and I think they have a Romance about them that echoes the early days of scuba diving, the adventures of Jacques Cousteau, frogman commandoes, and Mr. Bond himself.  I think this is why they are perhaps the single most popular style of watch, even though relatively very few are owned by actual divers and even fewer are ever taken underwater.  You may never become a certified diver, you may never wear your dive watch under the waves, but just the presence of it on your wrist gives you hope through long days at the office where there are never any undersea knife fights or octopus attacks, and you never seem to catch a glimpse of Ursula Andress emerging from the Caribbean in a white bikini.  So, I will also freely admit that one reason I wear a dive watch is that seeing it underwater, strapped over a wetsuit opposite my fully modern computer, gives me a lot of joy.  It makes me happy knowing that my watch, of all its brothers and sisters out there, got lucky enough to be used as designed.  But I digress…

First and foremost, the dive watch is useful as a backup.  If you set the timing bezel before entering the water it provides a reliable, ever-present count, of how long you have been submerged.  You look at the watch, a device that both shows you the time and reminds you of its passage, and you can tell at an instant how many minutes you have been underwater.  A dive computer gives you all sorts of valuable information, most certainly including elapsed time, but a watch basically just does that one, all-important thing.  And to me anyway, its very presence reminds me to be aware of time (and then depth, and then air-pressure)… to remember my status as a visitor in the underwater realm and the fragility of my existence there.

I also found it very useful during my recent Rescue Diver course where I had to run a search pattern based on time and depth.  We were looking for a “lost diver” or in this case we were actually looking for a real lost object (a weight pouch someone had dropped a few weeks earlier).  One of the Instructors knew roughly where it had been dropped: somewhere on a fairly steep, muddy slope rising from the depths up to the rocky shore.  So, I began the search at a certain depth, and we followed that depth (using the computer reading) for three minutes.  Then we would ascend about 10 feet and swim the opposite direction for three minutes.  I found, in this case, that tracking time using my watch’s second hand was easier than using the computer.  So, I concentrated on the depth readout number on one wrist and the time passing on the other and… we found the missing weight pouch.

So, is a dive watch the mandatory piece of kit as it used to be?  Well, no, it is not.  I do believe, however, that it functions as both a useful backup and a practical tool, in its own right.  Used correctly, it can make you a better, safer diver and let’s face it, it looks a lot cooler than wearing a computer on your wrist, especially while telling tall tales after the diving is over.  Best to leave the computer to fully dry off and charge for the next day’s diving.  You can leave it to your watch to tell you when it is time to go to bed as you regale the palm-thatched bar with stories of mutant sharks, near-escapes from giant squids, and the increasingly uncommon underwater knife duels with agents of shadowy international criminal organizations.

A Single Photo: Auto Safari Chapin or a Park Full of Hungry Dinosaurs?

GUATEMALA — Somewhere not far from the coast, just off the highway, is a sign for “Auto-Safari Chapin.” We had the time and drove down this long road reminiscent of another, fictional animal park also in Central America. As I am posting this, it is obvious we were not eaten by hungry dinosaurs, or, for that matter, hungry hippos, lions, ostriches, giraffes, or any of the other, many animals on this surprisingly lovely auto safari. Leica M9 Monochrome, 25mm f/4 Voigtlander Snapshot Skopar.

The 7 Artisans 18mm f/6.3 UFO Lens: a Glorious Point and Shoot in the Digital Age

This amazing and affordable little focus-free lens turns any digital camera into a gloriously trouble free point and shoot like those of days gone by.

GUATEMALA CITY–Behold the amazing oddity that is the 7 Artisans 18mm f/6.3 UFO lens mounted on a Fuji X-Pro 1. Photo taken with a Fuji XT-4 and a 35mm f/2 Fujinon.

GUATEMALA CITY — It’s a little-known fact that when Cindy Lauper sang her iconic 1983 hit, “Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” she was lamenting how her second career as a photojournalist, a career that had led her to cover the Iran Hostage Crisis and the early stages of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, left her little time to simply enjoy the pursuit of photography and her love of music.

MONTERRICO — Red head, black sand, white foam, blue sky and water. Looking out over the Pacific Ocean from the beaches of Monterrico, Guatemala. 7 Artisans 18mm f/6.3 UFO lens on Fuji X-Pro 1.

So, yeah, I just made that up completely out of Wednesday-morning boredom but hey, you read it on the Internet so it must be true.  But I was, quite honestly, thinking about having fun, about the lack of it, about how our deep and serious pursuits (and what seems like an increasing inability to simply have fun) has led the world to some pretty dark places.  I think the general public’s reflexive, addictive need to document everything, every meal, every meeting, every little moment where we used to have space to disconnect, is a large part of that.  And somehow we still end up with no actual pictures.  Instead of having a few snapshots acting as touchstones for memory and nostalgia, we have what amounts to stop-motion movies of our entire lives, movies that are increasingly complete as people take more photos and videos, start using dashcams, bodycams, and action cams that record automatically, film every mundane moment with a cam on a selfie stick, reflecting their own images back to themselves in an endless feedback loop that leaves less and less time to actually live life.  It’s a terrible thing, a strange and brutal way to live where nothing is experienced for what it is and simultaneously, we have created a record whereby nothing can be forgotten.

MONTERRICO — Why are the Piña Coladas always gone? Out of focus up close, everything sharp in the background. 7 Artisans 18mm f/6.3 UFO lens on Fuji X-Pro 1.

So that’s why I am going to convince you to buy another lens!

You see, this lens is different…  This lens is fun!

This is the 7 Artisans 18mm f/6.3 UFO lens and if just saying that isn’t fun enough, you can buy it for about $62.00.  It looks sort of like a flying saucer.  It weighs only a few ounces, it’s the size of a lens cap, it has no moving parts or electronics, is all metal and glass, and it actually works.

It works, mind you, within its particular parameters and in my opinion, does very well at that.  I have one mounted on a Fuji X-Pro 1 and I would like to get one for my first ever mirrorless camera, the Panasonic GF1.  And what this lens does best, I think, is turn a loved, senior digital camera into a glorious, worry (and focus) free point and shoot like we sometimes had back in the 80s and 90s (when we remembered to bring one).  You can put this on a small, mirrorless camera, slip it in a jacket or a bag, and pull it out every now and then to take sunlit pics on beaches and group photos in front of monuments or canyons and maybe a friend holding the Eiffel tower: pictures I am more thankful to have than any of the images I have published in newspapers or magazines or shown in galleries.  I do think the lens could well be used for certain styles of street photography, for documenting processions and parades and other public events, and perhaps for certain styles of art photography making use of the particular lens signature.  It certainly doesn’t take up much room or weight in your bag.  But I don’t think this is really what this lens is best suited for.  I think it’s best suited to just use on its own, to mount it to a dedicated, loved camera that has been languishing on a shelf, and to take it along just as it is, with no other lenses, no other cameras, and to, every now and then, remember (or not) and to take a picture (and print a picture) as a keepsake, as a memory of family and friends, because we have far too little fun in this world.  In short, this lens is something that lets you take intentional photos while at the same time relieving you of the responsibility and angst of fiddling with your settings.  Turn on camera, point, shoot, return to your life.  Look at the pictures later.

ANTIGUA — Payaso y Volcan. Ronald chills in the courtyard of the best McDonald’s in the world with Volcan de Agua rising in the background. Seriously, in addition to the amazing outdoor seating, this Golden Arches has the freshest, tastiest Big Macs I have ever eaten and old school deep fried apple pies for that sense of danger. 7 Artisans 18mm f/6.3 UFO lens on Fuji X-Pro 1.

The 7 Artisans 18mm f/6.3 UFO lens is focus free.  The manufacturer says it has a minimum distance of 0.35 meters, but I think it’s more like two meters.  You might have to remember to set your camera (I had to do this on both the X-Pro 1 and the XT-4) to “Shoot Without Lens,” in the menu.  On an APS-C sensor the focal length is approximately 27mm.  This is fine though to really have that classic point and shoot vibe I’d like to see a 40mm equivalent focal length.  You aren’t going to be taking any macro or tightly framed portraits with this one.  Subjects in the fore=ground might well be out-of-focus.  Who cares?  It vignettes a bit.  It is, particularly in the center, quite sharp enough, but with that particular glow that only a fixed-focus lens can achieve, a look that is drenched in sun and fun and the nostalgia of events best left mainly in memory and maybe one or three snapshots shared with friends that will fade a little over time, like the memories of that day, and like all the people who were there.