Title: A Friend Waiting for Neal Cassady — San Miguel de Allende, 2020
I started walking south along the tracks — past a loading dock, a water-treatment plant, a squatter’s farm built from scrap wood and tin. A small garden, a chicken coop, clothes drying on a line, a horse shifting in a makeshift stall. In no time, the city fell away and the country began. Burros grazed in the orchards to the west; a jagged hillside of mesquite and prickly pear rose to the southeast. The air was cool, thin, mountain still.
Cassady once walked these same tracks on a February night in 1968. The story goes that he wandered into a village wedding, was welcomed with food and mezcal, and later drifted off alone into the dark. By morning he was found unconscious by the rails, taken to the hospital, and gone by the end of the day — four days before his 42nd birthday.
Shot on Kodak TRI-X 400 film, this photograph looks down the same line Cassady followed — quiet now, except for a stray dog waiting in the frame, like an echo of what never returned.
Limited Print: 25
Medium: Fine Art Photography
Size: Available in multiple sizes
Ink: High-density, archival, state-of-the-art pigments
Paper: Fine art photographic paper, museum-grade, acid-free
Authenticity:
Each limited edition print is hand-signed and numbered by the artist. A Certificate of Authenticity accompanies every print. This edition is limited to 25 prints only, maintaining the integrity and rarity of the work.
Framing:
Prints are sold unframed. Frames shown in product images are for display only. It’s often more economical to frame locally.
Artist’s Reflection:
A Friend Waiting for Neal Cassady grew from a sense of quiet presence — the feeling that stories don’t truly vanish, they just wait for us to listen. As I walked those same tracks outside San Miguel de Allende, the stillness felt inhabited, like memory pressing softly against the air. The photograph isn’t meant as a portrait of a moment past, but as an echo — an image that carries the weight of wandering, of friendship, of the mythic and the ordinary meeting in one forgotten corner of time.
About the Artist:
Harry Johansing is a California-based artist whose work bridges visual storytelling, documentary sensibility, and emotional resonance. His photographic prints are held in private collections and galleries worldwide.
Explore more of my work: https://www.harryjohansing.com
© Harry Johansing. Artwork may not be copied or reproduced without the artist’s permission. The purchase of a print does not transfer copyright.