San Antonio
The day I arrived it was 120F warmer than where I was coming from. Now at the end of March, the ground soaks up so much sunlight that this place is like a thermal battery, absorbing energy during the day and radiating it out after dark. It cooks you like a rotisserie chicken, either from above or below as the heat of the night lasts long into morning.
But despite the heat, seeing the city on a bicycle these last four months has been the optimal way. You hear the music, the languages, the way people talk to each other. You smell the cuisine, feel the weather. In a car you're so insulated from it all, and I imagine SA would feel like any other city if I were in a car. A bicycle adds authenticity. Plus, on a bicycle you don't have to worry about parking fees that are so high they would delay your retirement.
Cityscapes come with a psychological shift from landscape photography. Whenever you're alone and point a camera at something, you're broadcasting that something nearby is interesting. People take notice. Every shot of San Antonio I took, and people nearby would take similar shots. I shot the silhouette of an enormous oak as the last of the sunset fills the skyscraper valley behind it, and they did the same. I shot the brick road collecting neon light around the horse carriages, and others did the same. I shot the birds in the trees that are so numerous and make a cacophony like I’ve never heard before, and a woman asks me what kind they are? I dread answering. I'm a 40 year old man, and I still struggle to pronounce my g's.
“Gwahkels." I inform her.
But the flocks warranted interest above all else, and I walked around downtown, listening for where they were loudest and the city quietest. At dusk they congregate in the downtown plazas, so many and so densely packed that they weigh down every single branch. And the noise they make! The acoustic profile of the city is such that the skyscrapers bounce sound back, and the artificial canyons are full of bird calls. I ordered a microphone and downloaded an audio recording app just for them. The mic has a furry cover that you pull over it like a sock when you need to filter out the noise of wind. It has me thinking... I usually pluck the hairs out of my ears, but I wonder if I could hear better in the field if I left them alone?
And just as lovely as the birds are the city and its people.
Per Spain’s Law of the Indies from 1573, all Spanish towns were to be laid out in a similar fashion with the church and government buildings bordering a central plaza. As I sat in the results of this law four centuries aged, an old timer emerged from the old cathedral and asked if he could join me at my table before heading off to work. That was the moment I met Alberto Martinez, who has a couple teeth left in the corners of his mouth that catch the light of day when he smiles, and he's brown-bagging a large can that I suspected was not a Starbucks espresso. He sips it, and the label peeks out like his teeth. Steel Reserve. He was an old man casually drinking before work. I like him. He informs me that he's 89% Apache and has no body hair. As evidence, he shows me his forearms, lifts his shirt to show his armpits, then his pant legs. I said I believe him and he doesn't have to keep going. I haven't met an Apache before but he's not like anything I've read. Genial and reflective, he said people used to greet each other but now they look at their phones.
Times are changing everywhere and nothing is immutable, even in this old city full of the past. I think I’ve changed too since I’ve been here. I’m more apt to say hello to a stranger. I have more greys, and less akin to the youth on the streets making their way. But to see the vibrance of these cityscapes and landscapes, to listen to them, experience them in these fleeting moments of the present before they become the past, I am deeply grateful.
Texas Sunset. 20×16”, colored pencils & alcohol markers, 2026.
