New Mexico, US – Outside Tony’s Rock Shop in the sleepy town of Magdalena, in New Mexico, Ben Valentino Otero stands amid a menagerie of animal statues, two wooden eagles, a merry-go-round horse, a metal sphinx and a variety of obscure rocks. “Which is your favourite?” asks Ben, an avid rock collector and descendant of miners who once worked the hills above town. His shop, one of the few remaining in Magdalena, is a kind of museum to the nearby mountains and the men who mined them.