Snapping photos In Santa Fe

In the spring, I went to a photography seminar in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  Santa Fe is an artsy and historic little town with some picturesque architecture and a relaxed flavor.  There aren't a lot of suits and ties in this town, unless you're talking about bolo ties.  It's all very "spiritual."

If you like art galleries and southwestern art, you must go to Santa Fe.  In the old town, you can't throw a kachina doll in any direction without hitting some kind of trendy and expensive art purveyor.  In the modern new town to the west, you can't throw a kachina doll without hitting a Home Depot or Target store, which are quite artistic in their own ways, or maybe even Denny's.  I like Denny's.  I had one of their "grand slam" breakfasts, and let me tell you, that thing pretty much slammed me.  The serving was enough to feed an army of Spanish Conquistadors.  I wonder if they had Denny's back in those days?  It seems like that place has been around forever.  I'll never forget throwing up my breakfast of pancakes in one of their bathrooms when I was a kid.  I still love them anyway.

In mid-town Santa Fe, you can't throw a kachina doll without hitting a dilapidated post-WWII service station or motel.  This is the Route-66 era part of town, even though Route 66 itself passed through Albuquerque to the south.  It's interesting historically, because when you travel west from the old plaza at the heart of town, it's like passing through a time machine (work with me here), because at the plaza, it's like the years 1600 to 1895, and then as you head west, you pass through the 1940s, 50s and 60s, and then by the time you get to the western edge of town, you are firmly in the new millennium.  I can't think of any other cities where the historic progression of development is that linear and clear.

The afternoon that I arrived, I went right downtown and checked out the old historic plaza, which is interesting for about five minutes if you're not much into art galleries.  If you love art galleries, give yourself plenty of time here, or you will be dragged away salivating and protesting "but...but...but!"

The Palace of the Governors doesn't look anything like a palace, but it probably did when they built it four hundred years ago.  It's a one level adobe structure that's most notable these days for being a place where local injuns set up underneath the block-long porch and lay out their jewelry and art work for sale.  They will stare wordlessly ahead while you examine their wares.  They're generally not crazy about being photographed, but if you buy some stuff from them they might warm up to it. 

Do you remember those old Looney Tunes cartoons where Injun Joe was the big bad guy, but then that crazy goofy guy with big feet and a long beard would come along and tickle him?  I love that stuff. 

Those classic Santa Fe adobe doorways and windows are a lot more agreeable about being photographed, and they are oddly compelling, so I snapped a few shots within a block of the plaza.  The blue doors are on the side of the Palace of the Governors.  I told you it doesn't look much like a palace.

Wandering on, I did check out some of the galleries, where I discovered that there are plenty of old steer skulls for sale if you are in the market for those.  Lots of happy sunshine faces, too.

This, however, was my favorite window display.  Those colorful bunnies and their massively-dilated black hole stares bring back some happy memories for me.

Eventually I wandered into one of the adorable little courtyard cafes and had dinner with the beautiful people.  Actually, I sat alone at the bar while the beautiful people dined with each other at tables.  Afterwards, I headed back to my campsite, which was the parking lot of one of the hotels over on the modern western edge of town.

The next day, I drove into the wooded hills north of town to the too-expensive-for-me resort (the Bishop's Lodge) where the photography seminar was being hosted.  I spent the rest of the day, and night, listening to the pompous, portly, mustache-growing-into-his-mouth presenter talk about why he was a great photographer and we aren't.  "Twenty-nine years I've been doing this, blah blah blah."  After that, I retired to my cozy camper and drifted off to sleep as snowflakes drifted around outside.

The next morning, our group went down to the old plaza, where we assembled before sunrise.  Mr. Pompous blew some more hot air around to warm us up while we fumbled with our cameras in the morning chill.  Once we got set up, I got some decent pictures of the old Saint Francis Cathedral, which was completed in 1886.  It is one block east of the central plaza.

Later that day, we trooped out to the Eaves Movie Ranch, which lies a few miles south of Santa Fe off of Highway 14 and County Road 45.  This is a high plains cowboy town that was built as a set for Hollywood movies, many of which have been made here over the decades since it opened in 1962, featuring luminaries such as Jimmy Stewart, Henry Fonda, John Wayne, Johnny Cash, Kirk Douglas and others.  For our visit, a variety of models were on hand, including a couple of grizzled, gritty cowboys, and a particularly lovely cowgirl.  It was a really blustery spring day, with intense bursts of winds punctuated by fierce bouts of snowflakes.  The models were real troopers and toughed it out like champs. 

The guy in the glasses holding the reflector panel in the last photo is Joe McNally, a well known and highly respected photographer who was one of the instructors at this seminar.  His presence was the main reason I chose to attend, primarily because he is a wizard of using camera flash units, and I wanted to sharpen my skills with those.  More often than not, I find flash units to be unpredictable and difficult.  So I really wanted to see him do his thing.  The photo of the lovely cowgirl with the horse in front of the chapel was staged by Joe.  That was produced with a flash unit perched high on a stand to the left, and colored with an orange gel filter.  I snapped that shot with a couple of dozen other photographers behind me, waiting their turns. 

At one point, one of the horses was tied to a hitching rail, when an especially strong gust of wind blew one of the photographic accessories up and away near the horse.  The poor thing got spooked and started bucking and pulling, and in just a few moments, it had yanked all three segments of the hitching rail out of the ground and started to swing those around.  I would have taken a picture or two but we were all too busy trying to get the hell out of the way.  After a few tense moments, the cowboys rushed over and got the horse to calm down and everything was fine again. 

Just when everyone had enough of the fierce winds, the shoot was declared over and we all packed up into our carpools.  My ride was in a cushy Mercedes Benz, and after I got my own personal climate controls dialed in just the way I wanted them, we all spent the drive home to the lodge trading reasons why we thought the head instructor of the seminar was irritating, condescending and just plain unlikable.  My own particular reason was this:  when I sat down across from the poker-playing cowboy pictured above, and prepared to take his photo, Mr. Pompous was standing right there beside me, and before I even snapped a shot, he loudly criticized my camera-holding technique and told me I was being rude to the model.  Yeah, I know I'm not a perfect photographer like he is, but I didn't think I was quite so bad that I needed a round berating for it.  As lousy as my technique is, I still managed to get a few decent shots.  Live and learn. 

The next day, we caravanned back out to the high plains, near the movie ranch again, but this time we went to the New Mexico State Penitentiary.  The prison has a modern new section which is in operation, and an abandoned old section, which is where we went for photos.  The old prison had been the scene of a terrible riot in 1980, when 33 inmates were brutally killed, by other inmates.  During the worst of it, rioters used captured blow torch equipment to cut their way into the cells of other inmates that they wanted to kill, which they did by hacking them to bits with axes or burning them to death with the blowtorches.  Ouch.

Now, the place is decrepit and dingy and gloomy and damp and weird.  We broke up into small groups and spread out throughout the cell blocks.  Once again, some picturesque models were on hand to give us something pretty to look at amidst all that despair.

The pretty girl in the red dress is another staged shot, this time by members of the group.  I would have chosen a different way to portray her, probably something like putting her in one of the cells and having her gaze out longingly, instead of just standing in the middle of the cell block.  It was quite cold in there.  We were all wearing winter coats, but she was in a light dress and bare legs, which were covered only with gnarly tattoos.  She covered up with a big coat when the cameras weren't snapping.

I love this next guy's look.  His name is Adam Joaquin Gonzales and he is a "fashion stylist" in Santa Fe.  Another staged shot.  Joe McNally set up the lighting for both of these shots.

This next guy was our location guide.  According to him, he worked at the prison for many years, including the riot.  He told us that many inmates wanted to kill the "snitches," who were prisoner-informants that co-operated with the guards.  Known snitches were housed in protective custody, and they were the ones who got burned out of their cells and slaughtered, along with some of the sex offenders.

If the prison exterior looks familiar, that's because it has also been used as a movie set several times since it closed as a prison, most recently in 2005 when it was the setting for the Adam Sandler remake of "The Longest Yard."  Apparently Hollywood is going to remake every movie it ever made, thirty or forty years later.

I even had my own portrait snapped while I was in the Big House:

The prison shoot was the end of the seminar, and after some heart-felt goodbyes, it was time to travel back home to Colorado.  I took the scenic route home and snapped a few more photos along the way.  I was happy and considered the trip a success, because I learned a lot and got some decent photos, too.  Happy trails!