Category Archives: architecture
Trio
If you are going to Spur, from Lubbock, the best route is to take the cutoff before you get to Dickens; that’ll take you by this place, for one thing. And you’ll get to see some spectacular canyon scenery (really), too.
And, just after you make the turn off the main road, you can see this nice arrangement of buildings, small against the large sky. But don’t wait too long – like a lot of buildings out here, they are abandoned and it’s only a matter of time until they succumb to gravity and neglect.
Crosby County, Texas
photographed 3.26.2014
My favorite building
Well, I don’t know if it’s my favorite building ever, but it is my favorite building in Spur. I’ve been watching it for a long time – longer than I’ve been a photographer – and make a point to go see it every time I am in town. I look to see how many more windows are boarded up or broken, or if that one door on the north side has finally fallen off the hinges. I think about how, if I had a few million extra dollars, I could fix the place up and turn it into something. What? I don’t know. But it would be something.
So that made me start wondering what my favorite building is. You’d think with my architecture background and all that I might have one. But, really, I don’t think I do. I’ll give it some thought, though, and let you know if I decide.
Spur, Texas
photographed 3.26.2014
Trapezoid
I am drawn to compositions like this one, with a roof slicing through the rectangle of sky. Sometimes less really is more, I suppose.
Caldwell, Texas
photographed 2.28.2014
Mystery. Or not.
There’s a mystery at every one of these old gas stations along Route 66, where it snakes through Santa Rosa. Well, some of it’s not mysterious: the Interstate made the old highway, which went through town instead of around it, redundant. And then the huge truck stops appeared out on the interstate, which made the little gas stations redundant.
So the mystery is what to make of what’s been left behind. Some places are full of junk, and others – like this place – seem to have been swept up when the last human left.
You’ve seen this place before, from the other side. Maybe you recognized it?
Santa Rosa, New Mexico
photographed 5.4.2013
It all falls down
Santa Rosa’s got three cemeteries – Evergreen Cemetery, out on the north side of town; San Jose Cemetery, down a narrow road on the east part of town; and the very old Saint Rose of Lima cemetery.
That’s where what’s left of a chapel stands guard over graves and weeds as the plaster falls away from the stone walls bit by bit.
St. Rose of Lima Cemetery
Santa Rosa, New Mexico
photographed 9.21.2013
One Day | One Image 