La Conquista, Mural Detail

This is a detail study of an old mural in the Barrio Viejo of Tucson, right next door to Teatro Carmen on South Meyer.

To me, capturing just this portion of the entire mural–with the peeling paint, the deep cracks through the face of the a helmeted Spaniard, and the skull “buried” below a galloping horse–does more to sum up the nature of the “Conquista” and its eventual aftermath (the fall of the Spanish Empire) than a broader photographic image of the entire painting would have done.

I am not even sure my interpretation is at all close to the original intent of the muralist, but this is how I chose to frame the composition–and tell the story–on this particular warm, near-winter, day in the Sonoran Desert.

La Conquista. Tucson, Arizona, 2015