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Dia de los Muertos

One of my favorite holidays came up recently: Dia de los Muertos - the day of the dead. Two years ago I went the first time to see it, and the available light situation during the procession there is really bad. Alas, I brought my 5D MK IV, so I dared to crank the ISO up to 10k, and shot most of the pictures with a recently acquired Canon 100mm USM lens f/2.
It was also a day for me to remember friends and family I have lost on the way. Among them were my uncle and my aunt who both died in 2014 and a classmate from elementary/middle school, who died in the same year.
Dia de los Muertos still seems to be more of a celebration to me and I love to take pictures of the mask-like painted faces and gorgeous dresses, people are wearing to commemorate the deceased.

Cross at the El Campo Santos-cemetery in Old Town San Diego, decorated with Mexican marigold, next to pictures of loved ones.

Beautiful face painting on beautiful faces on the day of the dead, right after the procession.

A butterfly decoration attached to a twig seems to symbolize the randomness of life; you never know where it goes next.

I liked the dark and grave expression of these two visitors watching the procession.

This one I shot with a stunning ISO 10000 on a Canon 100mm USM lens with f/2.

Girls with beautiful face paintings and colorful dresses, flashy colors incorporating pink and even gold tones.

This person with the incredible headdress and the obviously fake eyelashes actually decorated the altar.

With the Canon 5D MK IV it's entirely possible to make the noise go away in Lightroom even when the ISO is set as high as 10000, like in this shot.

For some reason this little guy reminded me on a friendly version of a vampire, maybe it's the way his collar is sticking out, combined with the pale face and the black hair?

I am very glad I let my Canon 85mm f/1.8 go and replaced it with the Canon 100mm USM lens f/2, which is a very sharp awesome lens. There is a guy called Ken Rockwell, who reviews camera hardware and lenses, his review helped me tremendously in deciding to get this lens. If you're interested, check it out here.

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