44 Years

Today is the 44th anniversary of my first trip to Chama. Then in my notes I misspelled the name of the town “Chalma”; today I think I got it right. Then I was a relatively poor grad student with a wonderful summer internship at Los Alamos NM, roughly 1400 miles, 22 driving hours, from my parents’ home in South Bend IN; today I guess the decisions of employers have declared me to be a feeling poor retiree, at my home in South Bend IN. Then I had taken my cheap rangefinder camera, loaded with some slide film I was experimenting with, instead of my usual reliable Kodachrome 25 slide film; today I use a digital camera, of course. Then for the fifth year, I was taking pictures of trains I might encounter; today, “if the Lord don’t come and the creek don’t rise”, I am one year away from fifty years of photographing whatever trains still available to me. Then I tried to minimize the number of people intruding into my picture of the equipment; today I embrace any surrounding people as the environment in which the equipment exists.

Happy Independence Day weekend, everyone!!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/03/2015 09:10AM by Randall Hess.