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jesus needed a.c.

I was looking back through some older photos when I spotted this one. I barely remember stopping to make the photo except for this part: the door was open but as I was about to go in, I got A Feeling. And not in a good way, either, so I headed back to my car to escape whatever was in there waiting for me.

It was probably a rodent, although it could have been a murderer.

We’ll never know for sure.

Doole, Texas
photographed 6.5.2020*

*I know 2020 isn’t THAT long ago and doesn’t qualify this as an “older” photo. I probably should have started this post by saying “I was looking back through some photos where I may have barely escaped with my life.” Sorry for the confusion.

lipstick gal series #4

Well.

This is different.

During the years I’ve been shooting Route 66 I’ve developed weird fascinations with certain of the photos I made along the way. (You may remember Wide Elvis?) (Or the Murder Church?) And now here’s Lipstick Gal, a mannequin I met in Seligman Arizona. I’ve edited the photo quite a few times and made seven or so monoprints of her. This one is my current favorite…she’s printed on a page from a book that I found in a thrift store. The book’s title is How I Raised Myself from FAILURE TO SUCCESS in Selling (c) 1949.

Hey, hello, again. I just wandered away to research some stuff on the page I printed the L. Gal on. The address mentioned – 925 Filbert Street in Philadelphia – appears to now be in a block that’s a shopping mall/transit facility/parking garage. And the Mr. George J. DeArmand that’s referenced lived his whole life in Philadelphia; he had eight siblings, most of whom died while they were in theirs 20s. He made it all the way to age 91, and passed away in 1944. Apparently, his upholstery-and-hardware lifestyle was healthy. And he had no problem killing a whole day gabbing to a couple of salesmen.

What does Mr. DeArmand’s story have to do with the L. Gal? Not one single thing, except that she landed on the page I randomly pulled from a book.

original photograph 6.1.2023
printed 5.9.2026

BONUS:

Lipstick Gal – Seligman, Arizona

Wide Elvis – Braidwood, Illinois

Murder Church – Allenread, Texas

desert bones

Hey, does anyone feel like a quick trip out to White Sands National Park to look at dead stuff?

I am not actually heading that way myself, but I guess I was just gauging interest. Or something.

Anyway, here’s a photo that I made when I DID go there at the end of last year. And, yes, I was lying flat on my stomach in the sand.

Pushing aside the personal concerns I had about actually being able to get up from that position, I had the idea that the sand felt wet. Not damp, like the packed sand at a beach. But there was a coolness to it that gave me the impression of water lurking somewhere below me. I later learned that the water table at White Sands is only one to three feet below the surface of the sand, which reinforced my initial (weird) thoughts about it.

Also, here’s a Fun Fact: the sand, which is actually tiny eroded particles of gypsum, never gets hot in the sun because gypsum does not absorb heat the way silica or quartz sand does.

White Sands National Park, New Mexico
photographed 12.13.2025

this is how my tale begins

This is not the first time I’ve not broken any photographic ground by making a short depth-of-field photo of this same white picket fence.

And you know what? I bet the next time I visit, I’ll not-break that same ground. I can’t help myself.

National Ranching Heritage Center
Lubbock, Texas
photographed 3.8.2026

by a white-baked wall

This is the first historic building visitors to the National Ranching Heritage Center see; there are tons of pictures of the front of it.

So – you know how I am – I headed down the path and behind a berm to try to catch a different angle on a place that’s familiar to me.  The windmill that’s nearly obscured by the trees was a bonus.

National Ranching Heritage Center
Lubbock, Texas
photographed 3.8.2026