Fine Art Images from the American Southwest
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Holy Trinity Church – Iglesia La Santísima Trinidad – Church of the Most Holy Trinity Arroyo Seco, NM, USA. This church is a beautiful example of one of the finest New Mexico’s churches. I’ve photographed it many times over the years. Here is one image I made in 2007.
Merlin. “It’s mine, I killed it and now I’m going to eat it!” I made this image yesterday on my way home from my gallery in Arroyo Seco. I spotted the raptor on the fence post as I drove along. I pulled over, reversed about 100 feet and wound down my window. I said to myself, ‘that’s a male Merlin falcon, perhaps a juvenile’. I stopped about 20 feet away and while I was changing lenses I observed the Merlin tear at a dead bird’s chest … at least I’m pretty sure it was dead. I made about a dozen images, each, very much like this one. A few minutes later when a pickup came whipping by me, scaring the Merlin, the raptor took off clenching it’s prey. This evening I wrote to my friend Jean-Luc Catron, author of Raptors of New Mexico to confirm my ID of the bird. This is his reply … “What a beautiful photo!! You are right, it is a merlin, and because of the muted facial markings I can also say that it belongs to the subspecies richardsonii (prairie or Richardson’s merlin). It is a male because of the blue gray dorsal plumage”. Thank you Jean-Luc. Thank you for looking. G
Holy Trinity Church is close to my Fine Art Gallery in Arroyo Seco, NM. I often make the twenty yard stroll to see how the light looks on this historic adobe building. Sometimes it’s an intense afternoon glow under the New Mexico sun, or in this case, the belfry and branches are stark against the sky on a winter’s day. Not a problem! Tomorrow, I’ll take another stroll around the corner to see what’s happening in the neighborhood. New Mexico almost always surprises me when I least expect it. Come and visit! Thanks for looking. Click here for another image of this building.
