Blog Archives
farming: an uphill battle
There’s a town on the flat, eastern side of New Mexico that has one building and a cemetery. What I mean is – that’s all that’s there. Other than a lot of horizon, a bunch of sky, and a crop of wind turbines.
I’m sort of digging the symbolism (which may be unintentional) of the farm implements struggle to get up the hill: agriculture life is rough and getting rougher.
Inez, New Mexico
photographed 5.31.2026
to colour in the cold grey light
Yesterday I wrote about using the Dictionary of Symbols and finding a reference to Irish folklore that I used as a title.
When I was editing this photo, the U2 song “Lemon” was in my head, for reasons that are probably easy to understand. I Googled up the lyrics and read through them, finding the phrase “to colour in the cold grey light” which then became today’s title.
And then, further down in the song was the phrase “midnight is where the day begins” which you may recall was a concept of Irish folklore that I had JUST used to title yesterday’s image. It was weird and proof that the universe has a sense of humor. (And is, I guess, also Irish.)
Portland, Maine
photographed 3.15.2026
midnight is where the day begins
To add a little bit to the post from Saturday, where I mentioned my naming of images…sometimes I will read the Dictionary of Symbols to find phrases that catch my eyes/ears and that I can relate to a feature in the image. (You might be surprised at how lyrical and emotional the language in that book is.)
I was reading about the symbolism of night during my title search and learned that by ancient Irish folklore each new day begins at night, an idea I’d not ever given the slightest thought to. But I liked it, and liked it enough to use the thought at a title.
And then the next thing that happened was that a weird and magical connection happened when I was naming the photo that’ll post tomorrow. Come on back to see what that’s all about!
Portland, Maine
photographed 3.14.2026




