Not far from Santa Fe is the little town of Cerrillos, population 229. Once a bustling mining town, Cerrillos is now a vestige of a frontier town, with its dirt streets, store facades and the lone Catholic Church at one end of the main street. The easy diggings in the little hills that yielded turquoise, lead, silver and gold played out and by 1900, Cerrillos started to experience a population decline.
Now, it is an enchanting source of photographic opportunity, especially if you walk the dusty streets and allow your reverie to translate what you see to what might have been. The sky is a cobalt blue and the buildings interesting faded colors, now showing the patina of bright leaded paints aged by years of arid unrelenting sun. This is a perfect mix for location directors who have used this location as a backdrop for motion pictures.
