Layered
A 50mm lens is more front-to-back than side-to-side and compresses things together, perfect for layering foregrounds over backgrounds. It looks more deadpan than a 35mm.
Parks
Near passing cars, a walkway loops around a pond. Trees grow, and ducks eagerly anticipate snippets of bread. The park, known as Buffalo Wallow or Memorial Gardens, is an excellent place to walk in the evening hours.
Freight Depot
The Kansas City, Mexico & Orient Railway Freight Depot in Fort Stockton
Clipped Corners
A ground glass will have missing corners so you can see if the lens is projecting from edge to edge. If you can see the lens, it’s giving full coverage.
Mercantile
The desire to ornament a small store in remote West Texas is different in my time. The roof ornamentation of the mercantile is an outward expression of something creative, and I like that.
Faithful
A faithful rendering is accurate to the scene and subject as viewed through the eye.
Upper Canadian
Texas landscapes along the Canadian River are scenic and overlooked.
Tucumcari Union Station
The Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad in New Mexico
Downtowns
Downtowns accommodate recreational photography. It’s light, shadows, and reflections of ourselves in glass entrances. It’s seeing someone we’re responsible for and committing to being kinder and more forgiving, knowing that change requires small steps.
FM 3503
Sand haulers and company trucks roar today, yet in a lost decade, young mechanics revved muscle cars on two lanes, interrupting calm nights before red taillights. It’s been forever since I’ve considered FM 3503.
Sandhills
Monahans Sandhills State Park, Windmill, Texas & Pacific Railroad Section House
Happy
A dog barks, tin clanks, and wind whooshes across dormant branches.
New York Town
I caught the subway and went downtown. Helvetica lettering pointed the way. Passenger cars rocked, rattled, and clanked in the dark, and a platform musician sang Country Roads. People smiled on the boat to the Statue of Liberty, and Manhattan’s mountains rose above the harbor, where I later walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, picturing it as I would in a dry, dusty town.
Sunset Limited
With a ticket, backpack, and several rolls of Kodak Gold, I watched Amtrak’s Sunset Limited coast to a stop at Alpine, 2 PM, would reach Los Angeles at 9 AM, December 2005.
High Lonesome
High lonesome is a one-room bus stop near desert mountains.
9x12
Manufactured circa 1920, my Voigtländer is a back-pocket view camera that holds 9x12 cm film or glass plates (daytime film exposure: Foma 100, f/12, 1/100th).
Changing Barstow
Barstow, Texas (2010, 2021)