Framing and the Bridge to Sustaining Place

Today’s Substack post explains the value of physical framing in understanding places:

Back to some nagging questions about places, observation, and photography, regardless of scale. How and why do we choose to understand where we live and explore? What are your go-tos?

Today, regarding my go-tos, I will ask an even deeper question. Why have I constantly framed my photography lately (as in printed and surrounded with wood or metal) while adapting my passion for cities into an inquiry into broader landscapes?

I’ve met many people—often creatives—who have landed in Santa Fe from elsewhere. The climate, the landscapes, and the cultural mix inevitably influenced their moves. And some rarely leave the historic core’s architectural semi-Disneyland.

Frankly, many do not seem as curious as I am to decipher and assimilate the place’s context. Ironically, it’s as if they do not wish to understand the City Different’s attributes in the context of the region, the country, or the world.

I wonder why, but I have an inkling. In my case, I am still suffering from rampant, unmet assimilation energy from five years overseas, and I am adapting to a new place where threads intersect in ways quite unlike I have seen before.

No wonder New Mexico has become a core narrative of this Resurgence: A JourneySubstack—way beyond vernacular sunsets, chiles, art galleries, and popularized architectural styles. I immensely enjoy the region as a laboratory for understanding adaptation and gaining insight.

Of course, photography remains my go-to tool as I navigate transition (called by some liminality, purgatory, atrium, or the messy middle). Many posts here have chronicled that process—the search for context on the Mother Road, the monochrome wanderings, the textures of change seen through windows in Cerrillos.

But suddenly, the physical frames are taking over. Perhaps influenced by those Santa Fe creatives, there is joy and insight in framing these New Mexico images. Not to mention forays to the thrift shops in the “real” Santa Fe to find affordable frames and mattes for recycling and to bind new perspectives.

Framing merges the personal journey documented over the last year with the principles I’ve explored for years through my books and revamped Sustaining Place website. Google Gemini—my AI friend—just told me this is called “profound observation”—looking beyond the surface to understand the layers, context, juxtapositions, and innate identity that make a place what it is.

I’ve decided that framing, in all its analog glory, isn’t merely presentation, but a way to replicate those discerning glances out the windows (or into mirrors) we need to understand place. In the last few days, I’ve been taking photographs with additional awareness of what they will look like physically framed, rather than onscreen.

While in England, I wrote about a “Rosetta Stone Urbanism,” which involves decoding the language of place through careful examination. Now, especially with physical framing, New Mexico presents a new landscape for applying this lens.

Whatever skills I acquired by observing urban environments—seeking context, understanding historical backdrops, and searching for the “context keys” of familiarity, congruity, and integrity—felt immediately relevant, yet they have required some translation over the past year.

Qualities of light and irregular horizons, the history of water’s scarcity and spontaneous landforms, and the inadvertent blend of Indigenous, colonial, and post-colonial cultures have demanded the same level of focused observation I’d previously applied to cityscapes. But the merger of the Laws of the Indies into pueblo settlement patterns, kivas into churches, and more has led to physically framing these photographs as a crucial synthesis.

I am describing works in progress and a developing methodology. Notwithstanding, here are a few things I have learned:

1. Choosing which image merits a frame depends on which photos help identify the essential attributes of a place. Of countless observations, which image best conveys the specific quality of light on Tesuque land, the historical layers visible in a La Cienega sign, or the enduring spirit found along a narrow path at Tsankawi? Perhaps all—or—none—it’s a case-by-case, interpretive act, filtering the New Mexico experience through the lens of what feels essential to this place at this moment,
2. The choice of the frame itself is an important variable. While working on a physical portfolio, I have found that selecting materials is about the aesthetics and functionality that sustain a place and a sense of place. Does the wood grain complement the texture and color of adobe walls and soil? Does a simple, dark frame enhance a monochrome landscape? Does the presentation sustain the image’s connection to the New Mexico environment?
3. Most importantly, a physical frame contains the window and mirror-like boundaries referenced above. It isolates a chosen view and demands focus, and I have discovered its utility in suggesting what is crucial to understanding and context. The frame focuses on details—the earthen hues, the juxtaposition of old and new, and what may come next—helping to articulate why a specific view matters in understanding the larger whole.

My goal is to make intangible personal adaptations and place transitions more tangible. By selecting, bounding, and contextualizing images through physical frames, I aim to construct my understanding of New Mexico and help others see how people and places sustain themselves amid change.

In summary, it’s a new gloss on something I’ve been trying to do all along.