Photo by Keith Dannemiller

Keith Dannemiller is a photographer from Ohio who has lived in Mexico City since 1987. We have been friends for about 15 years. Today, he is more chilango than anything else -- he has a Mexican wife, the esteemed journalist Viétnika Batres, and their son Diego is now at university.

So many photographers have come to Mexico from other countries that their work, if not precisely clichéd, has become predictable. It is hard to come up with arresting images that the viewer hasn't seen before. I most admire Keith's work because it's original. He captures the immediacy, the contradictions and the mystery of the city. I've been here forever, but when I look at his photographs, I see my home with fresh eyes.

The Fideicomiso Centro Histórico de la Ciudad de México has begun to publish a series of booklets of photos of the centro, and the photographer they chose for their first book is Keith. For a limited time, the booklet, Callegrafías, is available, free of charge, at the Antigua Librería Madero, on calle Isabel la Católica 97 (near the corner of San Jerónimo) in the centro. Pick up your copy -- more than a memento, I think it will become a collector's item.