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Clouds overhead were ghostly gray
It’s unusual to see cloudy skies out here. These kinds of clouds, anyway – low gray ones that hang around all day. In the summer, it’s not uncommon to have thunderclouds build up and quickly dissipate.
But how about the way the lighter shapes in the clouds echo the shape of the shrubbery by the stairs?
Shafter, Texas
photographed 12.22.2018
Museum in progress
I first visited this little ghost-town museum in November 2017; I don’t think one thing had changed between then and my return visit a year later. Evidently ghosts are pretty slow at building finish-out.
Shafter, Texas
photographed 12.22.2018
No ladder, no problem
See? You probably don’t even NEED a ladder for most things. A chair will work just fine.
Shafter, Texas
photographed 12.22.2018
Grotto
On my only other visit to Shafter, the church door was unlocked and I was able to get some photos inside. I didn’t realize how much I was looking forward to shooting inside there again, in muted light this time, until I discovered the door I’d gone in before was locked. And so were all the others. It was a disappointment.
But at least I got to see this, on the back of the church.
Shafter, Texas
photographed 12.22.2018
Unmarked
It’s mostly a ghost town now, but at one point the place had six silver mines and a population of around 4,000. (The 2000 census listed the population at 11; I’d guess that by now the population is in single digits.)
But the cemetery is sizable. It’s also rugged, with cactus and mesquite trees alongside rocked-topped graves. Most of the graves are marked with simple wooden crosses, none of which have any identifying information on them. And, oddly, in a town with almost no inhabitants, the paint on most of the crosses appears to be fairly new. But someone paints them…
Shafter, Texas
photographed 12.22.2018
