When I lived in Santa Fe, there was a weekly antiwar protest held every Friday at Noon near the city’s biggest intersection, the corner of Saint Francis Drive and Cerrillos road. I began hanging out with the protesters and photographing them. Over the year that I spent with them I became good friends with many of them and met some really interesting people.
This photograph was made last February. I have many of my photographs of the antiwar protests on my website already, but there are many more to add as I find time to finish working on them.
See the rest of my photographs of the Santa Fe Antiwar Movement
Mary was a worker at the carnival during the Fiesta de Santa Fe 2006, working the basketball game. She carried her tiny dog, wrapped up like a baby, at all times. The little dog was sick and she was caring for it while she worked. I made several photos of her and promised her a set of prints. I never heard from her after that, despite giving her my business card so she could call me with an address to send the photos to.
The next summer another carnival was in town during the Rodeo de Santa Fe, and Mary was there again, this time without her dog. The dog had died a short time after I photographed her, and Mary was glad to see me again. She’d lost my business card and hoped to run into me again when she came back to Santa Fe in the summer of 2007 for the Rodeo. I made her a set prints the day after I saw her again and took them to her before the carnival left town. She cried when she saw them, the last photographs that were taken of her baby.
Click here to see more of my Carnival photographs
When I was a kid first getting into photography, someone gave me a stack of Popular Photography magazines that were a couple months old at the time. This was in the mid 80’s when I was about 11-12 years old. One of them had, on the cover, a photo of a carnival ride called The Zipper. It was shot at night, with the ride in motion, using a long time exposure so that the lit-up sign was sharp and the ride formed a round blur of light behind the sign. I thought that was the coolest picture I’d ever seen. All the years after that I never saw a real Zipper ride, until I went to Santa Fe. The zipper has come to town a couple times with different carnival companies. These photographs were the first I took of the Zipper, and are from the carnival at the Rodeo de Santa Fe 2007 back in June.
This was made as the sun was setting and a storm was approaching. It began to rain soon after I made this exposure.
This was done a little earlier than the first photograph in the post before it got too dark.
This is my favorite. The lit up ride in the dark glows beautifully and the little boy waiting his turn to ride is so excited! This was made the day after the first two were made.
Click here to see more of my Carnival photographs
Here’s a few more from the carnival held during the Rodeo de Santa Fe back in June. The first two were shot at night, my favorite time to photograph carnivals. I love the motion in the Tilt-A-Whirl and the forelorn look of the nearly abandoned game booths at night. Few people played the games or rode the rides due to the unconcionably high prices charged. Most of the rides cost $4 per person per ride!
The Tilt-A-Whirl Ride
The Goofy Golf Game
The Roll-A-Ball Game. Notice the little kid pushing a stroller on the right edge of the image?
Click here to see more of my Carnival photographs
This is the ticket booth at the Rodeo de Santa Fe Carnival just after closing time.
Click here to see more of my Carnival photographs
This photo booth was itself photographed during the carnival at the Rodeo de Santa Fe 2007. I just redesigned the section of my website where I had photographs from the annual Fiesta in Santa Fe to include all of the carnival photographs that I had scattered through my website. This photo was made back in June and I have many more from the Rodeo carnival to add soon!
Click here to see more of my Carnival photographs
I found this tree in the parking lot of the Santa Fe Place Mall one day in September. The graffiti on the exposed area of the trunk says: “YO MAMA IS UGLY”
See the rest of my New Mexico project here.
Greg Pike is famous in Santa Fe for his “Rat, Cat, Dog” act. He and his pets are seen most summer days hanging out on the Santa Fe Plaza collecting donations from tourists who stop to gawk at the unusual friendship between his Rat, his Cat, and his Dog. The rat lets the cat lick him like a kitten, and will hide under the cat when too many tourists gather. The dog mostly sleeps!
Click here to see the rest of my Santa Fe Snapshots street photography
