Human Destiny: Prints

'Human Destiny' states the title of a book by Lecomte du Nouy. The book is pictured slotted into a rack, with other books, at a thrift store in the town of Truth or Consequences in New Mexico. I don't remember seeing the book when I took the photograph. It is only upon it being revealed on film that I have really become aware of it. The woman who looks out from the frame is enchanting. All arrows point to Human destiny. I have since read the book by du Nouy and found it illuminating.

The curtains pictured on the first photograph, of the Cowbelles club frontage, have unusual symbols rendered in bold black. 

The second photograph shows variants of these kind of symbols pictured on an earth coloured wall inside the building. These ones are more clustered and gridlike. They include letter and  number configurations allied with delineated symbols. One such configuration reads 'K/G', another, 'KEE'. Most are not this clearly identifiable to my perception.

The third photograph shows a carefully arranged collage of newspaper cuttings that someone has placed over a window, covering the glass. One headline reads, 'The End of Camelot', another, 'To Hell with High Prices'.

The fourth picture shows a seemingly eternal elderly gentlemen in a white stetson and blue jeans standing beside a mural on the sun-bleached wall of a street in Truth or Consequences. A painted sign above him reads, 'Texas Motel', down the street one sign reads, 'Barber Shop', another, 'Books'.

I was immediately drawn to these places by Wim Wenders' photographs and was filled with yearning. Some ten years after first seeing these photographs I, at last, set out for Truth or Consequences. I didn't consult Wender's book specifically before I left but had what I thought was the picture in my mind. It is only now as I am writing this that I have realised that I had melded the four photographs by Wender's into one distinct image and believed it to be in Truth or Consequences. I can still see it in my mind.

A Booklet

At certain points during the journey I wrote down my thoughts and things about what I had experienced and seen. These were transcribed in the book between the photographs I had taken and presented chronologically.