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spotter with pearl snap buttons and a bidder
Oh, man – I sure do like watching the auction spotters as they coax ever-higher bids from people who want to buy a horse. They have great facial expressions and mysterious hand signs and they never, ever look discouraged.
Clovis Horse Sale
Levelland, Texas
photographed 5.18.2024
$69,000
Photography has led me to do some really random things. Like go to horse auctions, if you want an example.
This was the second one I’ve attended and I’m entertained enough that I’ll probably go to some more of them. The photography’s fun, but honestly the best part is listening to the auctioneers’ patter. That’s how I’ve heard things like, “He’s had all the outside stuff done on him.” and “Castration is not out of the question.” (This was not referring to the same horse, obviously.) And I heard, “…if you don’t know where your butt is compared to your feet…” which sort of reminds me of my own personal gracefulness.
Anyway, this horse sold for $69,000, in case you were wondering what the going rate is for nine year old geldings.
Clovis Horse Sale
Levelland, Texas
photographed 5.18.2024
family
This is just a block away from my office, so I drive by it often. And for some reason, April 16 was the day I noticed it and recognized it for what it was: a photographic opportunity. So on April 17 I brought my camera to work.
(I also spent some time that day driving around, seeking a particular body shop that I had very specific recollections of. My memories were that it was a corrugated metal building, that it had an unevenly-painted business name right on the metal, that there was a car – an old Impala? – parked in front, that it was on my right as I faced east. I never found it. I looked until I gave up. And that’s when I remembered a particularly vivid dream about being out photographing. So maybe that elusive body shop was just a dream?)
(Welcome to my brain – it’s weird in there.)
Levelland, Texas
photographed 4.17.2024
it’s curtains for this place
This poor old building….it’s got a notice from the City of Levelland posted on the front door telling the owner the place has been condemned and will be demolished.
For quite a few years, the building was the location of a business called – according to the spray-painted sign on the front – the Lawn Mower Fixer. Mr. LM Fixer often changed his business phone number, if the frequently re-spray-painted numbers on the brick wall were any indication. Sometimes I’d see him out front, looking over the mowers that had been left to be fixed.
But I guess he was eventually so successful that all the mowers in town were fixed and the source for his business fell away.
Or something like that.
Levelland, Texas
photographed 2.10.2024
a job to do
This horse and rider had a job to do – to show the horse to its best advantage in front of a bunch of bidders – and they both seemed to be real clear on what they were doing.
Random (to me) auctioneer comment: Not enough horse for him to go Denver.*
Mallet Event Center
Levelland, Texas
photographed 2.10.2024
*He may not have been referring to this horse. The combination of photos/notes/memory aren’t real clear.
One Day | One Image 