This is a deliberately washed out looking image, created - to some extent - out of necessity, but certainly out of circumstance. I simply couldn't find my little point and shoot camera anywhere when I was leaving the house today - didn't really want to take an SLR out to lunch - didn't really think I'd be likely to use it (of course, these last two assumptions are always bound to be proved false). But I did have my iPhone (what now seems like an Outdated Model, given the fact that the new 3GS has a vastly - well, considerably - improved camera function), and I'm still hooked on using the Toy Camera app - which can be relied upon to produce something interesting and unexpected.
This one I tweaked a bit more in Photoshop, though, because I wanted to desaturate it, take its color register back down to those of the early FSA color photos (a significant number of which are from New Mexico), because this scene could have come straight out of the early 1940s: the unevenly hand lettered sign advertising Coyote Fence (that's the kind of fence you can dimly make out on the left, made from upright pieces of wood - cedar or aspen or juniper, supposedly at least five feet tall, to keep these hungry beasties out), and below these, latillas - or skinned thin branches or tree limbs which are usually placed between vigas - or beams - on a ceiling. Just recounting these names reminds one of how local are the terms in NM for building/domestic architectural work, and I think that if I saw this picture anywhere - even in its slightly blurry and darkened state - the lettering, together with the dried red mud, would scream New Mexico at me.
This tin shed is just at the side of the gas station by the 2nd entrance to Eldorado - I may well go back there with a better photographic instrument.
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