Last Saturday, while taking a week off from Substack, I visited a gallery exhibit on Canyon Road in Santa Fe and had lunch with a visiting friend.
Canyon Road is not a random byway. Instead, it is a magnet venue for the City Different and a well-known example of an arts and culture district that consultants emulate and reference for cities searching for broader appeal.
Setting aside my favorite debate about whether one-size-fits-all or cookie-cutter culture district solutions can or should be universally applied, I decided to be self-indulgent.
What would the first photos on the wall be if I had a gallery in such a place?
Then, I set some arbitrary rules.
These must be legacy digital camera photos—not from my iPhone—taken since my last Substack entry, and each must have a theme. There must be no price tag—the images should be the type that the customer must ask the gallerist about the cost and then be woefully insulted by the answer.
They must not have already been posted on social media, such as Instagram or Facebook, because people make fun of my faux Ansel Adams shenanigans there.
Indeed, they should not have appeared on LinkedIn, where such posts suffer algorithm failure unless they contain a self-promotional notice of the gallery opening itself, a career change, or a retirement.
With tongue-in-cheek, please enjoy my imaginary gallery’s first photos.
Happy Holidays to all.
The palace and church photos are solemn and beautiful and need no introduction.