Santa Fe to some Scavenger Hunt prompts......

This week, with the exception of the photograph above which I took of a stranger before I went on my week long adventure, all my photographs are from the images that I managed to take in Santa Fe, New Mexico, which for me will always be a very special place. If you would like to see more of the Santa Fe images, then just have a look at the posts I did all of this week which I started posting up more or less upon getting off the plane!

I didn't have a lot of spare time to take photographs as I was attending a Review there, but even so, I still managed to take over 500 images (not that I have posted all of these, I couldn't so don't worry, ha, ha, ha)!  I am just such an obsessive photographer :-) so much so that I really don't use photoshop because I couldn't with the volume I take for fear of having another addiction and then I would never be able to do anything else!!!  That said, I do know that there are cool things that you can achieve using it so I am not "downing" using it at all, it is just I don't use it. 

So this week's prompts over at Ashley's are Long Exposure, Shape(s), Green, Fruit and Childhood Memory (which could be a flashback or a then and now suggestion).  Here are some of my snapshots which I took and think fit these prompts.  They are taken straight from the camera using only photographs from my Santa Fe trip to remind me of the wonderful experience it was!

Long Exposure:

Shapes:

Green:

Fruit:  Whilst at the Photo-eye Gallery opening celebrating the start of the Review Santa Fe reception I was chatting to Rizwan Mirza and we were enjoying some of the buffet which had been laid on for the Reviewers and Photographers.  Rizwan mentioned he quite fancied eating some cherries but I said "they looked a bit deformed".  Reaching for the bowl, we inspected them and I said "they remind me of Siamese twins" and then started laughing saying "I am now thinking of Diane Arbus and Twins, I must take a picture" and started laughing even more as I took out my camera! That is what they reminded me of (and a really horrible, pointless horror film I watched about a month ago. One which at the end of made me think "you have stolen an hour and a half of your life which I will never get back" which you might think of too if you have seen it and if you have then you might know which film it is in the second of these cherry pictures! It was one of these films which you think they will never make again and then you then find out they have brought out a sequel to it in which they want another hour and a half of your life which in my case they will not get!).  Anyway, long story but that  is what sprung to mind (I know, my mind is something I don't always understand too, ha, ha, ha).  So the photo's might not be great, but then either was the film and as I am also trying to diarise about the fantastic experience in Santa Fe I had just had, I popped these in as the prompt was fruit! So apologies to Diane Arbus for saying these could even remotely resemble her Twins work, so there you go - Cherries!

Childhood Memory (flashback or then and now).  Well I have gone with flashback and then/now! This was the first photograph I took when I arrived in Santa Fe, it was taken on the 1st June 2011.

 This next shot is how I think my mind was spinning in anticipation of the event I was about to attend!

This last shot, is the one I took at 6.30am on the morning I left which was the 6th June 2011. This is the corridor which was buzzing with activity, friendship, hope and creativity, and a place which on departing was quiet and just echoing what once had been with everyone having gone home to take in all that they had just discovered and experienced!

I loved Santa Fe which has inspired me like I could never have imagined, and having attended this amazing event I am raring to go (I have already thought up 2 new projects too!). I have left with so much to contemplate and digested. In fact, today (Saturday), I went out and took some more photographs of the project series I did to get into this Review looking at it with what was said and having taken on board the comments that I was so incredibly lucky to have gotten purely because I had been selected along with 99 amazing photographers which I will forever be grateful for. I can't wait to see how my project will improve through the new images I have taken and even more so because of the new eyes I am using to look and interpret it.  Thank you to everyone I met at Santa Fe, I will forever be grateful to you all for your support and you will forever be in my heart :-)