Texas

I am currently in Las Vegas, and finally have the opportunity to post some pictures, after accumulating a good amount over the past couple weeks. I’m going to try and post the photographs in chronological order. These are from around the 8th to the 10th of September. Mostly from northwest Texas, in the Lubbock area, where I stayed with a wonderful Couchsurfing host (who grew up on a cotton field), and then the final sunrise pictures are after Lubbock, en route to New Mexico.

The first four are from a park in Austin, Texas, in the early evening. What these pictures (almost) can’t relate is the beautiful silence of that place, the people walking quietly by, the river slowly flowing, birds slowly singing and dogs happily scampering about. What these pictures also don’t relate is the devastating drought that Texas has been experiencing, and this was the only river I saw (I think it’s actually part of a lake) that wasn’t completely dried up, with a cracked riverbed. The following two are from somewhere on the road. The field and trees photo is near a very old graveyard. The next is a cotton field in Lubbock, where my Couchsurfing host took me. She fearlessly “took us farmin'” and abruptly turned into the the cotton field, down one of the rows, and showed me the irrigation system they use, which is on a big pivot, and turns in a circle, watering the crop. I’ve seen these all over, including my family home in Vermont, but didn’t realise it’s on a pivot. You can see the crop circles here, in this Google satellite view. The remaining photographs are from the drive away from Lubbock, at 7:00AM, towards New Mexico. Many more from New Mexico soon …

Disclaimer : My non-phone iPhone has been acting up, as pieces of glass continue to fall from its broken surface, exposing even the circuit board in some parts ; as consequence, it’s been focusing a bit strangely. There’s also a good amount of desert debris in the lens (and for that matter, in the circuit board, I can only assume). One of these days I’ll get an actual camera, and hopefully also get my 1975 Canon TX up and running again. I have a roll of Ektachrome 64 just waiting to be used … So anyway, among the focus issues, it’s still an old iPhone, and some of the pictures are evident of that. Despite all this, I continue to be fascinated with the iPhone’s aesthetic, whether intentional or not.