Santa Fe ...

Adobe is the most distinguishing symbol of Santa Fe in my eyes (2006).

Looking from the Plaza before dawn--Santa Fe is amazingly quiet at night for a tourist town.

The oldest house in America was the home of two witches and a headless corpse and is one of the most popular haunted houses in modern time complete with a gift shop next door and lots of tourists intrigued by the paranormal. Legend says that the head of headless corpse is seen to bob up and down De Vargas Street at night sometimes. I was not so lucky to meet the wandering head when I was visiting Santa Fe this time.

There is not a short supply of artistic merchandise in the second largest artist town in the nation.

All the galleries along Canyon Road constitute a free art museum.

The beauty of democracy and freedom is that they spur creativity. Some artists show us that undisciplined creativity is wasteful. Good art must have good form so that freedom of expression should not used as an excuse for wantonness. But again, since form is abstract and personal, beauty is not monopolized by right or wrong.

There are many old things in Santa Fe and old things are beautiful. (The picture was taken inside the mission house on Canyon Road.)

On the other end of the spectrum, young things are also beautiful. This picture taken of two young girls volunteering for an reenactment in El Rancho de las Golgondrinas is my most favorite so far because it shows that beauty is engaging.

Beauty is up to the eyes of the beholder. Do you see desolation or the charm of simplicity in this picture? (El Rancho de las Golgondrinas)

Beautiful things thrive even in harsh environments.

If the purpose of flowers is to simply provide pollens for biological reproduction, there is no need for them to be beautiful. In fact there is no need for anything to be beautiful in the world around us because beauty is abstract and impractical. Since the world is beautiful, there must be something out there that transcends basic survivability.

How shall we define beauty scientifically? What is it exactly that pleases the eyes? (A cliff overhanging the American Indian gift stores on the Arizona and New Mexico border)

The watch tower stands on the shoulder of giants on the south rim of the Grand Canyon.

The beauty of the Grand Canyon is its immensity.

Beauty is fleeting. But fleetingness on the geological time scale is of the order of millions of years.

Although I am still standing strong today, I am just a speck on the cosmic scale of things. When I am gone, all that is left are my foot prints. The meaning of my life is somehow measured by the way my foot prints are left behind in this world.