Corrales Chronicles: New Mexico Reunion Photo Expedition

[This is the second of a three-part series on a reunion photography tour in New Mexico over the Labor Day weekend. See previous post (dated October 7) for the first installment and background.]

Day 2 of our photography expedition began very early. We left Corrales at 4:30am so we could arrive before sunrise at Plaza Blanca, one of Georgia O'Keeffe's painting locations near Abiquiu, NM.

As you can see from the sunrise image above, we had peek-a-boo light for a while, but the clouds eventually moved out until late in the day.

I have been to Plaza Blanca many times, and have posted images in this blog here and here. This was the first time, however, that I had visited Plaza Blanca early in the day -- all other visits were mid-day -- so I was hoping for some nice light. Here are some images made between dawn and about 9:00am.

After a couple of hours the light was growing harsh and we were getting hungry, so we moved on to Rancho de Chimayo for a hearty New Mexican breakfast.

Then we jogged over to the Santuario de Chimayo, a small Roman Catholic church built in 1816 and the destination of nearly 300,000 visitors a year, including 30,000 religious pilgrims during Holy Week. Legend has it that the "holy dirt" around the church has healing powers.

From Chimayo we headed south toward Santa Fe. On the way, in the village of Nambe, we spied a cemetery across from a large (and more recently constructed) church, so of course we had to stop and shoot.

Cemeteries in New Mexico may not be as luxurious as the beautifully landscaped and tended cemeteries in more wealthy areas, but they are visited and decorated regularly.

In Santa Fe we stopped to visit the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum (having just that morning visited her stomping grounds near Abiquiu) and the Hotel St. Francis, where we three first met at a photography workshop in the summer of 2007.

From Santa Fe we continued south to Lamy, NM, whose principal claims to fame are (1) being named after the Roman Catholic archbishop Jean-Baptiste Lamy (on whom the central figure in Willa Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop is based), and (2) serving as the Amtrak station for Santa Fe 18 miles away.

But there's a classic old train station there, as well as some abandoned railroad cars now covered with graffiti.

We hung around waiting for the arrival of Amtrak's Southwest Chief, which runs between Chicago and Los Angeles, that was already two hours overdue, photographing the old railroad cars.