Just walking around, almost mindlessly, and yet on another plane, quite attentively, I can stumble upon some interesting scenes. These are from downtown Santa Fe and the Railyard area. I like moving around in bad weather. It’s helpful to have a camera and a lens that can tolerate these conditions. The Sony 6500, so far, has proven itself to be a Champ. Even so, I’m careful with it, sheltering it as much as possible. Maybe this is why equipment tends to last a long time with me. I use it hard, but treat it like gold.
Rodeo is part of New Mexico culture, and there is a small one very close to my house. Of course the words “very close” out here means about 20 miles away. These shots are from one of my visits. We can all see rodeo events on TV, but you rarely see this part, the part where a man dies right on the hardpack ground. These men are tough, but they are not immortal. In the bottom photo is a young cowboy, 25 years old, being carried from the arena. He had a wife and new child. The paramedics were there quickly, but to no avail. It still upsets me to this day. That’s his hat laying on the ground.
I decided to include the “Junkyard Jesus” photo. This is another interesting site relatively nearby. I guess it’s called Outsider Art. Someone in the boonies has been collecting what other people would call “junk”, and he, or she, has arranged all of it into an enormous stretch of make-believe. It changes all the time. I find it rich.
The first shot was taken at one of our reservoirs. It’s a quite large expanse and people boat and swim there.
The railroad pictures are from several different locations in the Santa Fe area—that being either the Lamy Stop or the old station in downtown Santa Fe. The photo with the two young people standing out on a flat car, is from a July 4th train trip that would depart the Lamy Station, after a barbecue, and then wind its way to downtown, where it would stop on the tracks just in time to get a superb view of the fireworks display put on by the City of Santa Fe. The ride started in downtown Santa Fe and ended there about 5 hours later. A really fun trip.
Here we have one of my favorite and recurring “haunts”, i.e. the railyard. I’d gotten a fisheye lens and was really enjoying discovering what that’s all about. It’s not a lens I’d want to use all the time, but, as a spice, it’s a ball to work with.
A fisheye lens allows you to see more of everything, all scrunched together. It takes my breath away sometimes. It alters “reality” that much!
Then, Peru: As someone who loves to “work the earth”, I was naturally drawn to these farmers harvesting potatoes. As I watched them I was literally stuck with the realization that these people are not only interacting with their biosphere, they are part of it. They are it, in ways that modern people are not and who live with no sense of that—at least not like these people do.
In that moment I almost could not discern where human beings began and earth ended. I’m tempted to say that it was a kind of metaphysical breakthrough. It was that compelling. It’s a hard life, but a good one, utterly devoid of luxury. Is that, perhaps, what makes it good? I don’t know for sure.
It was an odd experience to feel envious of them though. It made no sense at all. But there it was. They were poor, very poor, but far from miserable—rather the opposite I would say. Isn’t it odd to say that I envied their simple but physically very demanding lives? One of them was about to celebrate his 93rd birthday.
Regarding the photos from Peru: I was there a few years ago. Coming from Santa Fe, I was glad to notice that I was not effected by the altitude. Flat-landers, on the other hand, struggled.
Well, here’s a diverse group. I do like the railyard(s), so they always seem to pop up in any collection of mine. The tall church at the bottom is in downtown Santa Fe. And what’s the attraction of peeled paint in the gallery below? Nothing more than the design and organization of horizontals and verticals which always seems to settle me, even when the theme appears to be “decrepit/has seen better days”.
Sometimes the things right beneath my feet are the most interesting. I love plants anyway, so maybe these guys “call” to me. I just like the shapes and the never ending new compositions they make just for me. 🙂
santafeandme.photos 