Text With a Mind of Its Own, or…

As much as I Iove traditional photography, there are many times when I imagine adding or subtracting something to or from the image. Often times I’d like to paint on the photograph or, better yet, find a way to work text into it. I want both elements to merge, photo + text. The idea is to write my story, either about the photograph or what I was thinking about at time, or how the image impresses me today. Ideally, the new combination will present as its own genre rather than as strictly informative text, like a newspaper or, as a purely photographic image in the classical sense.

I’ve added this page to santafeandme.photos in order to place those text-gone-wild images into their own separate space on the website. You can also visit the original individual postings by clicking on the underlined text to the left of each image.

Snow in Santa Fe is still somewhat rare, but always a treat. Here’s the full post.

I don’t get to see these guys too often out here. But they do show up from time to time. Sometimes they’re in a pen. Other times they’re free roaming with a ferocious herding dog watching over them. And that dog means business. Don’t mess
with him, that’s all I can say.

Graffiti remains a real fascination
for me. I have no interest in the political stuff or the obscene. Some artists (taggers) just want to make their mark, no attribution
necessary for them.

I read recently about a Chinese “artist” who was invited to the White House to show his “work”. What did his “work” consist of? It consisted of destroying an enormous, and lavishly decorated Christmas tree. All the guests thought that was just great. When a culture loses its center, it is not only already in a bad place, it is on the way to even
worse places. Guaranteed.

One of my many visits to The Santa Fe Railyard: This time, however, I decided to play around a little more with the image and the text. This is quite different from the rest of the Blog, but it’s a direction I wish to play around with and see where it goes…kind of like this train.

The Cold Streets of Santa Fe. The light was great, but it was raw outside. The kind of day when all you can think about is being warm and inside with a hot drink. And that’s what all the smart people were doing on this cold day.

The Gates of Santa Fe, there’s a subject that could go on for a very long time. People here like to paint the gates on theirs homes in a bright blue to honor St. Francis. I’ve done that and so have many of my neighbors. Well, just put a paint brush in my hand and I’m happy.

I packed up the van back in the Spring to visit Pecos National Monument. And even though it’s only about an hour from my home, I’d never been. There is an eery silence about the place. It’s remote, isolated and full of Native American and Spanish history, none of it good.

I found this Monarch Butterfly after it had been hit by a car and killed. It seemed in perfect shape, the wings were intact etc. On closer inspection, I could see that the abdomen had been ruptured by the impact. I took it home and photographed it.

This is an old rail line that goes through Santa Fe on its way to the West Coast. It’s called Santa Fe Southern. My son used to take this from the East Coast into Lamy Station, just a bit south of Santa Fe. I used to pick him there. It felt like something out of 1920.