Jacobo clearing willows, El Valle, New Mexico, 1979

On another level, Jacobo welcomed the attention. Sometimes he visited in the darkroom while Alex printed pictures from their hours together. He liked to stare into the developer bath and watch his likeness form under the red light. “Oh, what a handsome man,” he’d say. “Where do you find such a handsome man around here?” And he would study his image with a kind of detachment, as though it surprised him the image was his own.

Jacobo was no egotist, but he could see that the photographs spoke strongly of him, of his work and his place. He took satisfaction in participating in that statement, and maybe, in his private thoughts, he saw it as a legacy. When a print went into the waste can, as many inevitably did, he’d bid it a mournful, self-mocking good-bye: “There goes poor Jacobo. Maybe we don’t see that old man again. Pretty nice man they say, but he’s gone now.”

  1. Heading to the river, El Valle, New Mexico, 1979
  2. Jacobo clearing willows, El Valle, New Mexico, 1979
  3. Preparations for baling hay, El Valle, New Mexico, 1979
  4. Putting away Jacobo's hay, El Valle, New Mexico, 1980
  5. Jacobo irrigating, El Valle, New Mexico, 1979
  6. Jacobo Romero, eightieth birthday portrait, El Valle, New Mexico, June 11, 1979
  7. Jacobo and Eloisa at the corral, El Valle, New Mexico, 1979
  8. After baling hay, El Valle, New Mexico, 1979
  9. Jacobo Romero, El Valle, New Mexico, 1979
  10. Jacobo Romero telling stories, vuelta Sáles, El Valle, New Mexico, 1979
  11. Jacobo Romero telling stories, vuelta Sáles, El Valle, New Mexico, 1979
  12. Jacobo Romero telling stories, vuelta Sáles, El Valle, New Mexico, 1979
  13. Jacobo Romero telling stories, vuelta Sáles, El Valle, New Mexico, 1979
  14. Jacobo Romero telling stories, vuelta Sáles, El Valle, New Mexico, 1979
  15. Jacobo Romero telling stories, vuelta Sáles, El Valle, New Mexico, 1979
  16. Jacobo irrigating, El Valle, New Mexio, 1979
  17. Jacobo on the El Valle Road, 1979
  18. Jacobo Romero in his barn, El Valle, New Mexico, 1979
  19. Jacobo and Eliza in
  20. Jacobo feeding the cows in the winter, El Valle, New Mexico, 1979
  21. Jacobo and Eliza walking home with wild spinach, El Valle, New Mexico, 1979
  22. Jacobo Romero, Kit Carson National Forest above Pot Creek, New Mexico, 1979
  23. Jacobo's whip, El Valle, New Mexico, 1980
  24. Jacobo's bridge and hay storage at the river, El Valle, New Mexico, 1979
  25. Jacobo and his great-grandson wait for the hay to be baled, El Valle, New Mexico 1980
  26. Jacobo at his barn and corral, El Valle, New Mexico, 1979
  27. Putting away the hay, El Valle, New Mexico, 1979
  28. Jacobo's hay in the old gristmill, El Valle, New Mexico, 1979
  29. El Valle, New Mexico, 1979
  30. Baptism, Dixon, New Mexico, 1983
  31. Jacobo Romero in the River of Traps, 1979