Coffee Shop Shadows

Shadow Shot Sunday
February 6, 2011

Shadow Shot Sunday is many great photographs from across the world that use the shadow form as a common thread. To find out how to participate or just look at other submissions, go to Hey Harriet.

Shadow Shot Sunday submission
On the patio in the morning sun, Black Cat Coffee Shop and Book Store, T or C, NM

It hasn’t been all that long ago that the Winter solstice occurred here in the Northern hemisphere. Up where I live, in Northern Wisconsin, that makes for a Grandfather Sun that seems to rise way down in the Southeast and set way over in the Southwest.

This Winter, I am spending a large block of time down in the Southwestern portion of the USA in the state of New Mexico. Ole Sol is still South of dead East and casting long shadows most of the day. Down here, there are about 310 days per year of sunshine. You can almost count on it being a sunny day with rich blue skies. The shadows are sharp edged, especially in the morning.

This particular morning, I was at the local coffee shop, which is also a used book store and exchange. It’s called The Black Cat and is in the small town of Truth Or Consequences, NM. The locals call the town T or C. Some call it T or C Hot Springs, as it used to be named Hot Springs. That’s another story and you can read about it HERE.

The Black Cat has a great patio out back and gets that morning sun streaming as soon as it comes up over Turtleback Mountain. The space is decorated in a really kitschy style with furniture made from lumber scraps, trellises empty of plant life as Winter’s dormancy endures and this unusual wagon wheel which seems it might be a Western style wagon wheel hanging chandelier lamp that has been striped of its electrical hardware.

The turtles head is to the left of the peak.
Turtleback mountain is  casting its own shadows in this photo.

These Mexican inspired adobe walls as fences are adorned with all kinds of things to make art. For example, while riding about town yesterday, I saw a wall with glass bottles, green, brown and clear, embedded into the top to make it look like spikes.

Another shot of this unique shadow

This one, used this wagon wheel, and in that morning sun, cast quite a shadow on the weathered dimensional lumber scrap coffee table. By the way, I think I’m going to make some of these tables when I return home next month. I like their simplicity.

Peace to all