The first time I ever visited Texas was in 2010. After I visited my brother in Dallas, I went down towards San Antonio to photograph the missions.

I made a stop at the “LBJ” Ranch, the former U.S. President Lyndon Baines Johnson’s homestead. When he was president, this place was often called the ‘Texas White House’. Lyndon Johnson was born and raised there, it was the place that he had always called home. In 1973, it was also the place where he died and was buried.
The President and Mrs. Johnson donated their private home to the National Park Service but retained lifetime rights to use the house. Following the death of Mrs. Johnson on July 11, 2007, preparations began to make the home available for public tours.

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I left the LBJ Ranch and drove to San Antonio, Texas to see and photograph the famous missions. As I was walking through Mission San Juan, I noticed this broken down bench beneath a window on a patio of what appeared to be an occupied stone building. I admired the uniqueness of the bench because it had one end propped up with a board. At the time I thought this would make an interesting shot and I had already settled upon the title name of “Hospitality”. This was taken in the morning with the sun to my back, nicely illuminating the entire scene.

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This handsome church looks essentially as it did in 1731. In those early years, religious festivals were held as friars strove to replace traditional Native American rituals with Christian ideals. Remnants of original wall and ceiling paintings in the surviving rooms of the mission’s convento have been conserved. Exhibits lead visitors through the grounds and into various quarters set up as they were at the time of the mission’s inception.

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Still life photography has never been my ‘forte’ but while walking though the mission San Jose’, I saw this broken ceramic pear positioned in a recessed area in the wall. Something about the whole scene really caught my eye, so I set up the camera to photograph it the best I could. There was a small picture light illuminating just the right spot. I thought the image turned out really well.

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