Desert Tango

In a prelude to a project that I worked on this past weekend, I wanted to post some images from a trip I made in May of this year to Black Falls, Arizona on the Navajo Nation Indian Reservation.

The residents of Black Falls, which lies just east of Wupatki National Monument, live in a harsh land with very little water. What little water there is, is contaminated with uranium and other heavy metals. Additionally, a number of the residents used to live in the area that is a now Wupatki. They were forced off of the their land to the other side of the little Colorado River, a barren wasteland that was once the site of many a mine operated by the U.S. government. To many traditional Navajo, being forced from the land where you were born is like a death sentence. Their land is their religion and their sustenance.

One other thing affected the residents of Black Falls; it was the southern portion of a 1.6 million acre tract of land known as the Bennett Freeze. For over 40 years this land was frozen from development due to land dispute claims between the Navajo and Hopi. Because of it’s disputed nature, no federal dollars could go into improving and developing the land, leaving many with no access to running water and electricity.

The freeze was officially lifted in May of this year by Congress, but I wanted to take a look and see what, if any, effect this may have had to people living on Bennett Freeze land. This past weekend I made a trip to the heart of the Bennett Freeze, Tuba City, Arizona to begin shooting for the project. This will be the first of many trips that I hope will be subject of project called The Forgotten People. This past trip will be the subject of future posts, but for now I wanted to show images that initially spurred this idea.

New Mexico Lt. Governor candidate Joe Campos recently paid a visit to Gallup, and while he was here I spent some time following him around and listening what he had to say about issues that are important to the people in this area. To be honest, I wasn’t real happy with the images I made of him interacting with voters. To me they were really dry and they said nothing about who he is or what his personality is like.  So after a little brainstorming I came up with the idea for this portrait. Campos is the mayor of Santa Rosa, N.M., but he’s relatively new to state politics, and he is even less familiar with the issues that are important to the people of western New Mexico. I wanted my portrait to show him as a larger than life figure full of idealism; a superman of sorts ready to step in and conquer our problems with innovative ideas and solutions. I liked Joe, he was a genuinely nice guy, but the one thing about politicians that always gets me is how they think everything is so simple, like they can just step in and solve all these problems with the wave of the hand and flick of the pen. Unfortunately, things are not that simple, especially in this area where several different governments (that includes city, county, state, federal and several tribal governments) are trying to work together. That being said, it was great to see a candidate full of energy and passion and a genuine desire to make New Mexico a better place.

I photograph a lot of kids. They’re easy features, what can I say? The top photo is from a Trike-a-thon at the University of New Mexico Gallup’s daycare center. The kids at the daycare had trike races and a few other games on a beautiful sunny New Mexic0 afternoon.  It was pretty funny watching the little ones zoom around. The other photo is from a parade of sorts.  Some kids from a local elementary school received a grant from the city of Gallup and had a parade to celebrate.

While I was out feature hunting a few weeks back, I came across Ric Sarracino, owner of the Gallup business “Signs of the Times”, painting a billboard along Historic Route 66.  I’d met Sarracino before when I photographed him painting the Gallup Hispanics mural as part of Gallup’s Downtown Mural Project. This time around, I was amazed as I sat there watching him to learn that he hand painted all of the letters on the sign. A better overall photo can be found here.

On Wednesday, Veteran’s Day to be exact, I was walking back from a spot news assignment that turned out to be a bust. No big deal, because on my way back to my home (the spot news happened to be a block away from my house) I came across these kids and their father, who was burying them up to their necks in sand. It took a while before the kids would stop staring at the camera and go about their business as usual, but I was pretty pleased with the results once they did.

This summer I spent a few days at the Navajo Nation Fair in Window Rock, Ariz. While I was there a big gorgeous thunder storm rolled through the area.