Moorish Window

MoorishWindow3367

One of the best things to do when you are a photographer is to simply wander around looking for the unexpected and in Santa Fe you find the unexpected almost everywhere you look. While walking down a back street I came up to a wall that stretched for the better part of a block that enclosed someone’s property. It was constructed of the typical adobe that is Santa Fe’s soul and other than being beautiful on it’s own there wasn’t much to distinguish it from any other adobe wall you see. But as I walked along, there it was, the unexpected, an incredible fantasy in cast iron set into the wall where hardly anyone but a wanderer would see it. Why would anyone put a fantastic window like this here, where as beautiful as it was it seemed out of place when viewed from this side. As I stood there looking at it a shadow passed by on the other side and I suddenly understood. There was a garden on the other side, there had to be. A deep rich secret garden, filled with shadows and dark green foliage with a fountain glistening in the dappled sunlight. The window was for those on the other side, placed there to catch a glimpse of who might be passing by without being seen themselves, a portal from the cool refreshing unknown to the hot dusty street.                                                             For a photographer the back story of an image can be as pleasurable as the image itself. The possibilities are one of the things a photographer sees even when they may not be there.