Two Operas, Part 1 - Dolores

 

Last fall I photographed two operas (one in October, one in December) presented by Albuquerque's local opera company, Opera Southwest.  Both have their origins in Hispanic culture and traditions, and both featured scores by Hispanic composers.  This post is about the first one, Dolores.  I will post a separate installment for the second one, The Farolitos of Christmas.

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The October opera was Dolores, based on events in the life of Dolores Huerta, a labor organizer and leader born in New Mexico who worked side by side with Cesar Chavez in the 1960s to co-found the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA), which evolved later into the United Farm Workers (UFW).  The opera takes place in 1968, during the Delano (CA) vineyard workers' strike and California grape boycott . . .

 and depicts key moments in the workers' struggles including Chavez's hunger strike; 

Martin Luther King's and RFK's support for the strike, and their tragic assassinations barely two months apart.

One of the most moving moments was an aria sung by the character of the Ambassador Hotel busboy who held the dying RFK in his arms:

Dolores, Chavez, and the workers' movement faced oppression by growers and the U.S. government (embodied in the character of Richard Nixon, whom my camera loved and who nearly stole the show) . . .

. . . as well as internal disputes among the strike leadership . . .

. . . and, for Dolores, a dark night of the soul:

The opera ends as Dolores rallies the workers to continue the strike and their mission.

We were honored to have the librettist and composer -- Marella Martin Koch and Nicolas Lell Benavides -- attending the rehearsal . . . 

with Nic literally cutting and pasting last-minute changes in the show . . .

 and fine-tuning things with the director and the conductor.

If  you would like to see images from the complete dress rehearsal in a larger format, please visit my photography website, Todos Juntos Photography, by clicking here.

Enjoy!

Thanksgiving Weekend Ramble

 

Itching to get outdoors on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, my friend, Alan, and I hopped in the car and headed out for a serendipity photography ramble.  On the proposed itinerary were three very small villages south of Santa Fe:  Lamy, Galisteo, and Cerillos.

After lunch on the outskirts of Santa Fe, we drove on to Lamy (pronounced "LAY-mee"), so named for Archbishop Jean-Baptiste Lamy, who served as Bishop of the Santa Fe diocese from 1853 to 1885.  He was the model for the fictional archbishop in Willa Cather's novel, Death Comes for the Archbishop.

Today, Lamy's principal reason for existence is the Amtrak train station closest to Santa Fe.  We happened to arrive just in time to see the Southwest Chief roll in on its way from Chicago to Los Angeles.

Besides the daily Amtrak train, there's also a wildly-painted tourist train that runs on the 18-mile spur from Lamy to Santa Fe, featuring themed events from wine tasting to outlaw ambush.  To visit their website, click here.

The station was decorated in New Mexico holiday style.

Here are a couple of images from a visit to Lamy in 2021:

And watch out for the loose caboose!

From Lamy we headed 8 miles southwest to Galisteo, another small village (pop. maybe 200).  Not far from the village is the Cerro Pelon Movie Ranch, where pieces of a lot of western movies were filmed, including Young Guns, 3:10 to Yuma, Silverado, and The Cowboys.

We poked around for things to photograph and found this one-lane bridge:

We were apprehensive about driving across it, but while we were photographing it, another car came along and drove over it, so we figured it was safe enough . . . and lived to tell the tale.

On our way out of town we noticed an old overgrown cemetery up on a hill above the town, so of course we had to stop and photograph it.  The cemetery was enclosed by a rock wall, and the front gate was locked with a padlock, so we chose not to enter, and photographed it from outside the wall.  Here are a few views:

Our last destination was Cerillos, originally a mining town for nearby deposits of turquoise, gold, silver, and other minerals.  There is evidence of Native American mining in the hills surrounding the village as far back as 700-900 CE; in the 16th and 17th centuries the mines were controlled by Spanish colonizers using indigenous people as slaves.  

After the end of the Spanish-American War in 1848, land grants were taken from the Spanish owners and reopened to Anglo-American settlers.  By 1880, the area surrounding Cerillos had a population of 1,200 - 1,500, and eventually there were over 2,000 registered mines.  By 1900, however, the mines were exhausted and shutting down, and, like many other New Mexico mining towns, Cerillos began its long slow decline, exacerbated by the Depression and World War II.  Today, there are only about 200 people in the town and environs.

There is still a very active and beautiful church in Cerillos -- St. Joseph's, established in 1922.  We arrived as the sun was sinking fast in the west, but it provided beautiful light for photographing the church.

Here's the "Homage to Ansel Adams" version, complete with moonrise:

If you would like to see these images in a larger format, please visit my photography website, Todos Juntos Photography, by clicking here.

Enjoy!

Dia de los Muertos 2025

 

Last Sunday afternoon my friend Alan and I hopped down to Albuquerque's predominately Hispanic South Valley neighborhood to stroll among the costumed characters for this year's Dia de los Muertos celebration.

The event, held at the Westside Community Center, is great for portrait photography -- all you have to do is complement the costumes and ask if you can photograph them.  Everyone says OK.

The calavera face painting and masks ranged from simple to elaborate . . .

. . . and the costumes ranged from whimsical to serious . . .

. . . traditional to steampunk:

Most would dutifully pose, but a few would "strike a pose" unasked:

This year there seemed to be a lot of elaborate headgear:

The most stunning was a woman I photographed last year . . .

who came with an awesome new costume.  It was all black-and-white, so I had to go that way too.

Finally, there was always time for a selfie:

If you would like to see these images (and more) in a larger format, please visit my photography website, Todos Juntos Photography, by clicking here.

Enjoy!