San Felipe St.

Morning Coffee

 Coffee at Santa Cecilia on Romero Street.  I nearly always find an open table in the tiny indoor space, but there is also a spacious back patio.

New In the Plaza Vieja

Saturday Morning

 I rode my trike into Old Town this morning at 9:30 AM.  The temperature was already in the 90s, so I went straight to the Black Bird for an iced latte.  When I left the coffee shop there was a group of large men in blue uniforms at the register.

 Their truck was appropriately parked in the fire lane.

Spanish Broom Flamenco

 Dinner on the Tiny Grocer patio and another fine performance.

 

Sunday Best

Spanish Broom

 The Spanish Broom flamenco group performs often in Old Town and elsewhere in Albuquerque.  The graceful dancers, guitarists and cantaoras frequently practice their classic style in informal settings at no charge.  One of the nicest benefits of living in Albuquerque.

 

Three Wheels

Friday Morning

2026

The Saturday Ride

 We had a little preview of Winter earlier in the week with a bit of morning snow on the sidewalk.  Then the sun returned, so a ride on the trike into Old Town was obligatory.

Custom '32

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And an inspirational message...

He is the undisputed master of self caricature.

The Verdict

A walk in Old Town gave me an opportunity to try out the new phone grip.  The generous size of the images from the iPhone 14 allows for a lot of cropping, so the end results don't look much different than from those made with the naked phone.  However, I found the grip to produce a much more familiar and comfortable shooting experience. 

Carrying the phone with the grip also encouraged me to use the phone camera in a more sustained exploratory manner, so that instead of one or two targets of opportunity I ended up engaging with a variety of subjects.

A big plus for the grip is that it provides  much more steadiness, leading to more carefully framed compositions and a much better chance of level horizons and upright verticals.

So, a more satisfying experience in using the iPhone for photography, but not without some compromises compared to shooting a real camera.  Activating the shutter release and the zoom with the bluetooth connection produces a small time lag, so capturing action is a bit of a challenge.  My experience with using the phone camera is very limited, so I may have more to say about that and other issues down the road.  Meanwhile, I feel at this point that the small cost of the grip has been a good investment.

November 1st

Tiguex Autumn

Day of the Dead

1948

 When we went to watch the flamenco performance on Saturday in Old Town I felt compelled to stop momentarily to photograph this Chevrolet.  Several other people stopped to admire the car also, impressed by the faultless restoration.

I thought my little Canon digital nicely captured the character of the car. The camera is not as compact as my Panasonic Lumix, but it has the virtue of an eye-level viewfinder which makes sunny day photos feasible.

Saturday Night

 I posted on my photography blog about Albuquerque's Flamenco tradition.  Later that same day I got an email announcing a performance the following day in the Old Town gazebo by the Spanish Broom group.  So, that set the agenda for Saturday.  We started the evening with a fine Mexican dinner at the Church Street Cafe.  There were some dark clouds over the city when we walked to the Plaza, but then the setting sun peeked under them to light up the dancers.

The dancers, the guitarist, the tabla player and the cantaoras were all excellent.

flamenco futures

Dead Morning

 A quiet morning in Old Town as preparations were being completed for the final day of Day of the Dead celebrations.

The Nash Metropolitan is an American automobile assembled in England and marketed from 1953 until 1962.

Everything to be known about the little Metropolitan is in the Wikipedia page.

Trouble in Old Town

 Several shops in Old Town have been seriously vandalized.  

Security cameras have been installed and the APD has promised to step up patrols in the area.  That will likely cut down on some of the vandalism and burglaries.  Mostly, though, those measures along with locking up a few more miscreants will just move the problem to some other neighborhood.

The old car guys who display their creations on Friday mornings are unfazed by the crime wave.  Their assets are on wheels and they are taken home at noon.

Old Town Color