Blog Archives
planning ahead can be helpful
I’ve seen a lot of things in cemeteries, but this was the first “reserved” sign I’ve ever noticed.
I found a book called Spanish Surnames, Older Baptismal First Names and the Origins of the Spanish Language at a tiny grocery store in New Mexico earlier this month. I bought it because it seemed like the right thing to do (it’s less a book, honestly, than it is some photocopied pages stapled together) and because it seemed like the sort of thing that might come in handy. And that’s why I can tell you that the name “Rael” previously appeared “as the name of a soldier, Real de Aguilar from Lorca, Murica, Spain, at paso del norte in the lower Rio Grande in 1689.” My new book further notes that as a surname, “Rael” is of Jewish-Greek origin.
And that concludes today’s lesson. Please carry on.
Truchas, New Mexico
photographed 9.3.2024
everything will run out
Mt. Zion Cemetery, in Crosby County, isn’t visible from the highway. To get there, you drive past a farmhouse and down a narrow dirt path called Dump Ground Road. Most of the graves are unnamed. Most of the people buried there are black. So that’s one thing to think about.
And the other thing to think about is how this part of the state sits atop the Ogalalla Aquifer, whose water is pumped out (mostly for irrigation) at a rate that far outpaces its replenishment. (Want to know more? Read Running Out: in search of water on the high plains by Lucas Bessire.)
Anyway, somethings things line up in a particular way that shifts your brain around and lets you think about it all in a different way.
Crosbyton, Texas
photographed 7.28.2024
church/yard
Adobe + crosses + clouds + a churchyard: a perfect photography day.
San José de Gracia church
Las Tampas, New Mexico
photographed 7.2.2024
bound for the infinite
This is one of my favorite cemeteries to photograph, and I’ve never even been inside; it’s locked all the time. There’s a path all the around the outside and the wall’s almost always low enough to see/photograph the graves.
Or if you are really lucky, you can get the wall, the graves, the mountains, and a fast-approaching thunderstorm all in one shot. (And then, if you hurry, you can get back to your car to wait out that rain.)
Galisteo, New Mexico
photographed 7.1.2024
lilies, considered
On the front end of a recent trip, we encountered a cemetery that was home to approximately all the stickers in the entire world; it was in a town called Old Dime Box.
On the way back to the airport at the other end of the trip, we found a well-organized and manicured cemetery; it was in a town called Dime Box.
Go figure.
St. John’s Lutheran Cemetery
Dime Box, Texas
photographed 6.15.2024
One Day | One Image 