Blog Archives
Body Shop Diamonds
I found this nice little place on our short post-Christmas trip. I am always amused by places like this that have curtains in the windows (here’s another example of incongruous curtains).
But what really captured my attention were those nice glazed tile diamonds on the wall. You just know a body shop with diamonds is a good place to take your banged-up car. Except maybe not this place, as it doesn’t appear to be in business any more.
Childress, Texas
photographed 12.26.2014
Quanah’s Truck
Things aren’t looking so good in the town named for Quanah Parker, the last of the Comanche chiefs.
Quanah, Texas
photographed 12.26.2014
PS – Quanah Parker’s life is very interesting; his mother was a white woman who’d been captured at age 9 and who lived for 24 years with the Comanche before she was recaptured by Americans soldiers. The book Empire of the Summer Moon tells the story.
And, my friend Andy Wilkinson writes of Cynthia Ann Parker, Quanah’s mother, in the song “White Women’s Clothes.”
White Women’s Clothes
Andy Wilkinson: Charlie Goodnight (1994)In the moon you call December
On the river you call the Pease
It was cold and I remember
We had just packed up to leave
When a mounted line of soldiers
A sparkle in the sun
Rode down upon our warriors
And shot them one by oneAnd the ponies of our women
They were loaded down and slow
With our lodge poles and equipment
And the meat of our buffalo
So the cowards of your cavalry,
When all the fight was o’er,
Killed the women and their babies
‘Cept for me and Prairie FlowerThe white man’s liberation
Took me from my home
For the prison of his houses
And his white women’s clothesYou could see my hair was flaxen
You could see my eyes were blue
See my skin was white and ashen
Or you would have shot me too
But you could not see the baby that I cradled in my robes
Small red skinned Comanche
The color of my soulThe white man’s liberation
Took me from my home
For the prison of his houses
And his white women’s clothesDressed up for your amusement
In your used and second hands
You parade me through your settlements
And you call me Cynthia Anne
In these walls I’m suffocating
Where the wind never blows
While my heart is strangulating
In these white women’s clothesThe white man’s liberation
Took me from my home
For the prison of his houses
And his white women’s clothesThe white man’s liberation
Took me from my home
Took me from my home
Took me from my home
Took me from my home
Took me from my home
Took me from my home
The Homestead
My 75-miles-per-hour glimpse of this place gave me the impression that it was an abandoned church.
I drove three or four more miles before there was a place to turn around, so I could go back and check it out.
It was a farmhouse, with a garage/shop around back – some broken dreams. To be honest, I’m not quite sure why I thought it was a church. But either way, it was worth the few additional miles that day.
County Road 1
near Ashtola, Texas
photographed 12.26.2014
Hotel is Closed
This place has been closed for so long that the plywood over the (broken) windows is starting to fall apart. Not all that long ago, I probably wouldn’t have even noticed the state of the plywood, but now (thanks in part to Infrared Robert), I saw those holes as an opportunity, and looked inside. And took some photos, of course.
On the back door of the place, I saw a sign that said HOTEL IS CLOSED, which struck me as redundant. But only until I got home and started trying to find out what the place had been, and the sign was the only way I could tell that it had once been a hotel.
The winter sun was low enough that the hulk of the building cast a very nice shadow on the brick street; my vantage point wasn’t high enough to get a good shot, but you can see it here.
Clarendon, Texas
photographed 12.26.2014
A look back, with chagrin
Today is the start of my seventh year of blogging, and my fourth year on the current WordPress site. Because we’re friends, and you won’t judge me too harshly, I thought I’d take some time today to show you how far I’ve come since that day I started.
January 1, 2009:
(What a tiny image! What a poorly-framed shot! It’s a wonder I made it past the end of the week!)
January 1, 2010:
(Gracious. What the hell was going on here?! After a year of daily practice, this was all I had? No wonder I had a total of 5 followers at the end of that first year!)
January 1, 2011:
(Maybe I am finally making some photographic progress here. It took long enough, didn’t it?)
January 1, 2012
(Oh, yes. The year of the house renovation. And no furniture for the duration. What a pleasant time that was! I’m so glad I chose this bleak scene to start the year.)
January 1, 2013
(Here we go – now this stuff is starting to look like I shot it. After four full years, it’s about time.)
January 1, 2014
(And then there’s this, which featured a link to a non-related Talking Heads song.)
Which brings us to
January 1, 2015:
Who knows where I’ll take this photography thing this year?
To be honest, I have an idea or two. I’ve got a couple of book projects in the works, a return trip to the Santa Fe Photographic Workshops in the spring, a new LensBaby to play with, another adventure with my friend Ehpem. And, of course, the blog.
Thanks to everyone who’s stuck with me through this. I look forward to another year, and hope you do as well!
(The first 2015 image is from Santa Fe, New Mexico.)
One Day | One Image 