Blog Archives

drops

I sure do like the way the water sluices off her hair…it was just about my favorite thing all day.

Balmorhea State Park, Texas
photographed 3.22.2025

virgil, reading by a tree

This kid was amazing – he was garbed up in his cowboy gear and seemed to feel really at home talking to all the cowboys at the chuckwagon breakfast. He liked to pose for photos, a thing we noticed and that was independently confirmed by his mom.

And when he’d had enough of all of that, he sat under a tree and read his book (a graphic novel about dragons).

Alpine, Texas
photographed 2.22.2025

song circle

My friends and I have a tradition (because we’ve done it twice, so it’s a legit tradition) where we take ourselves and our cameras on road trips to see what we can find. For the most part, we travel without an agenda but with strong curiosities.

In February we headed out to Far West Texas for a few days. One day we ended up in Terlingua Ghost Town, where to our very great delight there was a song circle set up in a parking lot. The musicians agreed to our request to photograph them, so you can guess what we did.

(To be fair, they probably thought we were asking to take a handful of photos, not about a million. But still.)

Terlingua Ghost Town, Texas
photographed 2.19.2025

sam

I ended the photos from Sicily with Claudio, a storyteller.

And now I’d like to introduce you to Sam, who is also a storyteller. He was the cowboy in charge of the chuckwagon breakfasts during a cowboy poetry gathering. And when he had a few spare minutes between overseeing campfires, Dutch ovens, biscuits, and so forth he was happy to tell some tales. Some were probably true, and others were like to have been tall. But it didn’t matter: we were having a great time.

On the surface it might seem like he doesn’t have anything in common with my Sicilian pal Claudio, but they share a quiet graciousness, an understated confidence in what they do, and an open and approachable personality.

And Sam also has the world’s oldest cowboy hat.

Lone Star Cowboy Poetry Gathering
Alpine, Texas
photographed 2.22.2025

smoking section

This man, dressed in the traditional outfit for the feast of Sant’Agata, was taking a quick smoke break before continuing with his feast day activities.

Catania, Sicily
photographed 2.4.2025