I arrived into Santa Fe a while before sunset the other evening, and figured I had plenty of time to check into a hotel before heading out to shoot. Big mistake. By the time I left the room, camera in hand, the sky was a brilliant orange—and I was standing nowhere worth shooting it. And by the time I got somewhere cool, the sun was too low and the good stuff was over. Damn.
So I figured I’d get up and do the sunrise. Unfortunately, that was sorely disappointing! I spent a lot of time waiting for the sun to break through and bathe the town in gorgeous warm morning light, but a big could bank had other ideas. By the time the sun broke through, it was high, high, high.
I stuck around for a while, and got some images uploaded to the blog. I finally ventured back out and explored the town, which is quite beautiful, but of course in the strength of the full sun, not ideal for photography. I was considering staying through the sunset and possibly the night again, but around 5pm I suddenly had an intense desire to hit the road again. And I’m glad I did, as the sunset — like the sunrise that morning — was again not spectacularly orange and red. I’d have been disappointed if I’d killed an entire day waiting for that. Instead I found myself on a stretch of Route 66 as the sun went down, and captured a few nice images there (where the colors on display were more appropriate). But those shots are for the next post.
I wanted to share a few of the shots I did get in Santa Fe, as un-remarkable as they are. There’s more on Flickr, and I’m really only posting those ‘cause it’s fun for my friends and family who haven’t been to Santa Fe to see the architecture there (something that obviously is quite different than most places in the world). A couple are below; more on Flickr (as always, click any photo below to open the Flickr set). The two shots that are the most fun though were of a couple of gents dressed up for the “Mountain Man Fair”. These guys really looked the part—one glance at their hands with their long, yellowed, brittle nails, and I really don’t think this was much of a “costume” for them. They were kind enough to let me photograph them.
