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important notice(s)
I cannot speak to the information on the sign on the left.
But I did enjoy the way the Fire Victims sign seems to have elbowed its way into the discussion.
The fire the attorneys are talking about raged across northern New Mexico from April-August 2022, burning over 340,000 acres. The Hermits Peak fire began in early April, when the the US Forest Service lost control of a prescribed burn; three days later the Calf Canyon fire started when an improperly extinguished Forest Service pile burn (from three months earlier!) rekindled. On April 22, as a result of a “major wind event” the two fires burned together and eventually became the largest wildfire in the state. So anyway, those attorneys are probably still pretty busy.
And if you were wondering what that might have looked like from a distance, here’s a photo I made on May 15, 2022, near Chimayó. The fire was so intense that it developed its own weather system, called pyrocumulonimbus. It was awful. But also magnificent, in a way.
Mora, New Mexico
photographed 11.9.2025
sixty nine years in the grave
Isabelita was fifty when she died; her tiny three-crossed marker lives on surrounded by tall grasses, mountains, and New Mexico’s skies.
unnamed cemetery
near Mora, New Mexico
photographed 11.9.2025
style
If you are the kind of person who appreciates a lot of choices when it comes to barber shops, you’d probably like it here in Las Vegas, where it seemed like there was place on every block.
As a bonus today, I present Some History Stuff: the poster on the right side of the image is a 19 year old Cassius Clay (later of course, Mohammed Ali), photographed in 1961 by Flip Schulke. The photo was made in one of the few desegregated pools in the United States, at a hotel in an historically black neighborhood in downtown Miami.
Las Vegas, New Mexico
photographed 11.8.2025
church, unused
My traveling partner and I had a discussion about the appropriateness of opening a closed (but not locked) gate to gain access to this abandoned church and similarly disregarded graveyard.
Argument One: It’s a gate. It’s shut. With a chain hooked on it keeping it shut. We should stay out.
Argument Two: The gate also has a sign that says “Please close gate” which implies that someone has granted us permission to, you know, open it.
Anyway, here’s an old church.
near Sapello, New Mexico
photographed 11.9.2025
fall light
I have a hard time answering questions like “What’s your favorite food?” or “What’s your favorite song?” or “What’s your most embarrassing moment?”* My mind, which certainly follows its own path, doesn’t prefer to categorize things.
However, if I ever am asked about my favorite color, I would say it’s the bright yellow of fall cottonwood trees in New Mexico, especially the way that from a distance you can spot a meandering river – even you can’t otherwise tell there even is a river – by looking at the golden leaves, and also the way when the light’s low it takes on the glow from the leaves and ( and!) the leaves also look beautiful when viewed from an open window on the third floor of an historic hotel in a mountain town.
“Yellow” would also be correct but fails to convey what I mean.
Plaza Hotel (and the plaza)
Las Vegas, New Mexico
photographed 9.8.2025
*I really DON’t know what my most embarrassing moment is. For one thing, many things are in contention. And also, if I did remember, do you really think I’d disclose it here?
One Day | One Image 