Blog Archives
Snout
Well, who wouldn’t notice what the sun was up to on these concrete grain elevators and pull off the main street to get a photo?
I would absolutely do it! This is a shot from 2013 of the other side of these very same elevators.
I’m in a rut, but at least it’s six years wide.
Clovis, New Mexico
photographed 5.24.2019
*Actually, one day short of six years, but who’s counting?**
**I am. I’m counting.
Underneath the lights
You know how I always like to go around back when I am shooting, just to see what I can find? I also try to remember to look up. Which is how I found this interesting array of lightbulbs hiding (in plain sight!) under the marquee of the Mesa Theatre in Clovis, New Mexico.
I wasn’t able to find anything much out about the Mesa, other than it had a fire in 1948 and was rebuilt. Perhaps my Research Department can take over from here?
Clovis, New Mexico
photographed 5.25.2013
Zia. Zia.
Zia. It’s everywhere in New Mexico. On the flag. On license plates. Twice on this building in Clovis. Even, according to this article, on public toilets.
But it’s also a sacred symbol of the Zia Pueblo, a tribe of about 850 members, who feel that perhaps their tribal symbol is being used in ways that are not in accordance with their beliefs. The current session of the state legislature has asked the State Department of Cultural Affairs to prepare a report on the matter. A previous fiscal impact study on the issue said the Cultural Affairs Department should consult with Zia Pueblo, but cautions that “there is potential for conflicts of interest between the state and the pueblo, particularly if the report is intended to include recommendations.”
Clovis, New Mexico
photographed 5.25.2013
Inside my head
Another day of prowling the archives, and I found this, from a trip to England a few years ago.
It wasn’t the grandeur of the cathedral that caught my eye (though it certainly is grand), nor the beautiful music we heard (it was very nice), nor the vast amount of history associated with the place (the building was saved by a deep-sea diver?!)
Nope. It was the way the columns of the great cathedral reminded me of some grain elevators in New Mexico.
Inside my mind? Yeah, it’s scary in there.
Winchester Cathedral
photographed 10.2007
I’m on vacation. And on vacation from the internet. Please go ahead and comment; I’ll get caught up with reading what you’ve got to say, and replying, sometime after July 7.
Building elevations and shadows
Back when I was in architecture school (Yes! I was in architecture school!) my favorite thing to draw was shadow lines on building elevations. I loved to calculate the angle of shadows and the different shapes they’d be. The fact that this was my favorite part of architecture school explains why I went to graduate school and studied something else.
But it will also probably explain why even now – a LOT of years after architecture school – I photograph all these building elevations. And you can thank (or not, depending) Professor Ric Vrooman at Texas A&M University for making us draw shadows accurately, based on actual sun angles at actual building locations, instead of taking the easy way out and using a 30° triangle to strike shadows across our drawings. It was from him that I learned to love a nice building elevation with good shadows.
(He also made us cut our presentation boards down so they maintained the Golden Mean ratio, which was actually sort of a pain in the ass. Good with the bad, I suppose.)
Clovis, New Mexico
photographed 5.25.2013
One Day | One Image 