Pecos National Monument, February 09


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Outside a kiva, a round underground room used for religious ceremonies. Sydney and her friend Tyra had fun climbing in and out. Pecos is pretty beautiful. It's pretty close to where I live, but the topography and forestation is pretty different. Some of the original walls were 22 feet thick. In the remains, you can still find sections as much as 11 feet deep.
If you look close, you're supposed to be able to see carvings in some of the original wood. I've never found any, but the broken-off ends are always interesting. I think they rebuilt the church the last time in the 1600s, so it's old no matter how you loo
Some of the fixtures are recreated; they hand-make adobe bricks out of local materials to redo some of the walls, and they have authentic coyote fences like this here to give an idea what it would have been like. Inside a smaller kiva with Sydney and Tyra
The ruins look a lot more dramatic when you can't see the highway, telephone lines, or metal rooftops in the background. Another example of the polarizer overused a little. On one hand, none of the whites or lighter colors got washed out, but the sky doesn't look quite real. Heavy-handed example of the polarizer in action; the sky wasn't actually black.
Back in the day, the pueblo-dwellers wouldn't let in strangers at night. A little farther back from where I was standing here is a big empty field, and they'd let visitors camp there, outside the wall, until morning so they could engage in trade, so this Apple-shaped cloud.
   
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Description: Took my daughter and her friend to Pecos over the weekend. It's the site of an old Indian pueblo, most prominently featuring the church remains, that was taken violently over by Catholics a couple of times and violently retaken by the original residents until the locals eventually took off. It's beautiful. I'm trying to work out a better way of shooting outdoor shots in our weird light and I dug out my polarizer. I was a little heavy-handed, but I like the results so I'll keep working on it.
Location: Pecos, NM