colors
I had the honor of being the official photographer for the Colorado River Indian Tribes Native American Days Fair and Expo this year. It was four days of packed, back-to-back events! I have so many photos from the fair, shinney games, tug of war, horseshoe and the pageant just to name a few.
What really caught my attention was the Friday and Saturday night pow wows. It was a beautiful display of tradition, culture and oh my… the colors!! The swirling, the dancing, the rhythm, it’s mesmerizing to watch really. On the way home I could still feel the beat in my bones. If you ever have the opportunity to attend a pow wow, I highly recommend it.
Since John was not able to attend I opted to share this 4 day experience with a couple of local amateur photographers and had fun talking shop in between events. Thanks to you both, let’s do this again soon!
I had originally planned on splitting this post into two parts but I just didn’t want to break up the images! I lump my experiences together by region so it just seemed odd to try and separate these out.
Santa Fe is a kind of assault of colors on the eyes. It was a constant OH! Let’s go there! Let’s see THAT! We HAVE to stop there!
We stayed two nights in Santa Fe which is the longest of any area that week. Partly because we were just tired of driving for hours in that little car another day in a row but also, there was just SO much to see. Did I hear a statistic (I love stats) that Santa Fe has the most art galleries per square foot than any other area? I think that’s for real but I’ll double check that. It definitely felt like that!
Santa Fe is also home to my favorite thrift shop ever now. It was fantastic enough that upon seeing the storefront, we became so excited that we dashed out of the car without dropping some change in the meter. Yes, I received a parking ticket, and Jillian happily paid half the sum of $16. I think she just felt sorry for me though since I’d already incurred the speeding ticket a few days before. I indulged in a nice margarita directly after to help me forget!
Santa Fe felt like there was something around every corner that would be new and exciting to take photos of. And did I mention the colors?! Ha… I think I did.
I also heard some of the best DJ mixing ever. Walking along the streets we were drawn into the cutest little cafe by the rhythmic beat. Out on the veranda there were only a few patrons enjoying the music so we thought we’d stay awhile… or a few hours. The food was delicious and the atmosphere was perfect and I have one of the best margaritas I’ve ever tasted. Sublime.
We decided to try to boy race later that night, since they seemed to think we couldn’t hang, us in our cute little barbie car blasting Ace of Base. Okay okay- so I didn’t beat them. My excuse is that I genuinely thought an officer was pulling up behind me and I was going to do nothing but obey the law in the strictest sense as I didn’t want another ticket! So I lost them but it was fun nonetheless. Ellie Goulding sang us back to our hotel but not before coming to a screeching halt to take a photo of that beautiful Mary Sculpture in front of the old mission style church. She was something to behold at that time of night. She’s bigger than you think.. maybe 10 or 12 ft tall.
I had an amazing time in this lovely city and will definitely visit again sometime. Hopefully with a pocketful of cash, because it is rather pricy and there are so many beautiful things. I’d probably spend it all in a particular store and warehouse made up entirely of reclaimed materials. I nearly lost myself.
