My son and I were walking around the neighborhood where I live in Santa Fe one day during his stay with me, when we saw this improbable scene. There should be a law forbidding the posting of a “Beware of Dog” sign unless the dog in question is bigger than the average cat!
Click here to see more photographs from my New Mexico series.
Here is another view from old route 66 at Interstate 40 Exit 369. These magnificent clouds prompted my son and I to stop here during our drive from Indiana, where my son lives, to Santa Fe. This is in Quay County, New Mexico not far from the Texas border.
You’ve probably noticed that I’m not posting photographs in the order that they were originally exposed. They’re being added in the order that I get them processed and ready to print.
These two photographs were the last two that i made on my trips to Indiana this summer. They were made looking out over the plains of the Texas panhandle just south of the town of Vega just after the sun had dropped below the horizon. There was just a few minutes of light left as I made these last exposures at the end of the day. After packing up my equipment I drove the rest of the way to Santa Fe, arriving home at 1:30am.
This mouse has greeted customers at the door of a used furniture shop in Fort Wayne for many years. I never got the chance to photograph it when I lived up there so I made time to do it when I was there to take my son back to his mother earlier this month. The shop’s name is, of course, S’ALL GOOD
I have more photographs of the S’ALL GOOD mouse coming soon.
Here are two more photographs from my trips this summer between Santa Fe and Fort Wayne. Both were taken in July as my son, MacKenzie, and I were driving across the country toward Santa Fe.
The first was taken in Oldham County, Texas along I-40 between the towns of Vega and Adrian. These grain elevators are everywhere in the Texas panhandle. Every little town has one. Some towns have more than one, and some of the elevators stand in the middle of nowhere, like this one, which is abandoned. This is rather small compared to most of them I passed. The elevators in Vega and Adrian both had large silos attached to the back of the elevator, while this one had none.
This landscape struck me because of the beautiful clouds in the sky. As we drove the last miles in Tesas before crossing into New Mexico the sky began to fill with these big puffy clouds. A few miles into New Mexico I pulled off at Mile Marker 369 and photographed the pavement’s end. Most roads in rural New Mexico are dirt roads, without even gravel to keep them from turning to mud when it rains. Along main roads like I-40, the state hides it’s primitive roads by paving short stretches near the highway so visitors will think its a paved road. Of course, New Mexico isn’t the only state to do this. In Indiana I remember rural gravel roads being paved for short stretches near highways and main roads as well and for the same reason!
Just outside Groom, Texas along I-40 in the panhandle is an old water tower that looks as though it could fall over. The tower stands next to the ruins of a truck stop called Britten USA and was apparently placed there in its leaning condition by the truck stop’s owner in order to attract attention to his business along the interstate.
I first passed the leaning tower on my way to Indiana to get my son back in July, and stopped to photograph it. I was there around 7pm near sundown and photographed the tower and the old truck stop sign which features a replica of the tower.
After taking my son home to his mother in August, I stopped at the leaning tower again to photograph in late afternoon, when the light was warmer and brighter. I like both images, but I think I prefer the soft light of the evening.
This is my friend and fellow fine art photographer Kay Westhues. Kay has been documenting small-town life in northern Indiana for several years now and displaying them on her photoblog site, Fourteen Places to Eat
I visited Kay and her boyfriend, sculptor Jake Webster, at Jake’s studio in Elkhart, Indiana when I was in Fort Wayne to bring my son back to his mother.
These two photographs came from my trips to Indiana this summer. I went to my hometown, Fort Wayne, to pick up my son in July and took him back to his mother in August. The first photograph is from an abandoned gas station and restaurant located along I-40 just outside Groom, Texas. The building is a big red quanset hut, completely empty except for this chair. This was made on August 16 during my trip home after taking my son back to Fort Wayne.
This next photograph was taken between Groom and Amarillo during my trip to Indiana in July when I went to pick up my son. It was shot as the sun was setting, looking north from I-40.
I’ve finally set up a blog to serve as my “What’s New” page. I’ll be posting here to show off new images as I add them to my main website as well as to share news about my work.
I just returned to Santa Fe from Indiana. I went up there to take my son, MacKenzie, back to his mother. He spent part of the summer with me here in Santa Fe. Along the way I shot 17 rolls of film and will have a lot of new work coming soon from the journey.
My 10 year old son, MacKenzie Crawford climbing the apple tree in my backyard
When I was in Indiana I met up with my friend Kay Westhues and her boyfriend Jake Webster. Kay and Jake are incredible artists and great friends who I met through my photography. Kay lives in a small town in northern Indiana and has been photographing the life of rural northern Indiana for several years now and displaying the photos on her photoblog Fourteen Places To Eat
A couple years ago she emailed me asking the name of a church she had photographed in the tiny town of Ora. She’d forgotten its name and did a Google search for the town to see if she could find a photo of the church. She found mine, shot a few months before she made it to Ora.
My photo of the Ora Gospel Chapel from May, 2005
I don’t usually look good in photos, but Kay did a snapshot of me under a streetlight as the sun was setting that is one of the best portraits ever done of me. Check it out here:
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