Except as noted, all images copyrighted by and should be attributed to E B Hawley.
I had become many eons ago a traveling literary gnome, inquisitive about places I had and had not visited,
walking the same paths of peoples from the past, through places once grand and still grand,
photographing images that now show me the places about which I still dream . . .

Sunday, March 17, 2013

Cow Poke Cow Catcher Club

       I grew up hunting for food at the market and reading stories set in the old cowboy days of the southwest. Today, when I watch cowboys branding cattle, I am awakened by the significance of their work. The beef at the market? They raised it. The stories about the old southwest? They still live the lifestyle. Cowboys, known as "vaqueros" in Mexico, worked long before Texas became a state.
       My observations are that most cowboys are stoic and gentlemanly; they are humorous and playful; they are great story-tellers, too. And they are sensitive, though they wouldn't show it.
       Clay tells me they love to have their pictures taken, though they wouldn't show that, either.
       "Don't cowboys smile?" asked MyFriendFrances, attempting to coax a smile out of them as they posed for a group photo after their morning's work. A slight lift of one side of their lips and there they had them, the smiles.
MyFriendFrances brought out her flash unit to bring light under the hats of Clay and the other cowboys.

First, they have to catch a calf. Sean prepares to lasso one of them. 



Cowboys hold the calf while Clay medicates and Stephen brands.


Sometimes, a calf gets away.


Sometimes, too, they have a moment to play.





After medicating and branding, cowboys release the cattle into the pasture.



Stephen and his fine horse at the end of the day's work.

This is the photo MyFriendFrances set up with her flash unit, making the colors look rich.

And this photo I took under natural light, then brought up their faces with the dodge tool in PhotoShop.


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Let Lovely Turn of Phrase Begin

JMHawley Gave Me a Kiss to Build a Dream On

Listen, will you? I think that . . . literature, poetry, music and love make the world go round . . . while mathematics explains things; I fill my life with them, then go walking in snowy woods.
Let us go then, you and I
like two etherized patients floating
through life, together feeling prufrockian.
DDB Jr. makes my world go 'round; during his absence, Pachelbel fills it up.
One summer I sailed across the Atlantic Ocean, then through the Gulf of Finland to reach Saint Petersburg; I pursued Joseph Brodsky in its alley ways. I dream of making that two summers.
I read “Biking to Electra;” found my way in a Jaguar car, and glanced at the flashing steel grasshoppers at sunset. I’ll follow K.O.P.’s footsteps after he followed N.Scott Momaday’s; find warmth and inspiration on a rainy mountain.
Throw chinese coins for the I Ching.
Save the whales, the spotted owl, the woman in toil.
Cast a fly for trout; my memories of fly fishing under the sunny blue Colorado sky remain; I yearn to build more . . . with more trophy Browns.
Listen for the swan’s calls on the Baltic Sea. Feel KKII's joy, his arms spread wide in Yazilikaya.
Good night, Jimmy Durante, where ever you are.