Windmills
I made this photograph a couple years ago while camping in cental New Mexico. I made several wider angle versions, but I like this tighter one.
The juxtaposition of the old ranch windmill and the windfarm on the mesa caught my eye as I was driving through an old abandoned settlement. I much prefer the more organic look of the old wooden one.
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Random Spontaneity
…strange how old, obsolete buildings and plants and mills, the technology of fifty or a hundred years ago, always seems to look so much better than the new stuff…Nature has a non-Euclidian geometry of her own that seems to soften the deliberate objectivity of these buildings with a kind of random spontaneity that architects would do well to study.
Robert Pirsig
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Random spontaneity; you can’t get much more un-deliberate than that. Robert Pirsig hit the nail right on the head with that one. Time and the elements have a way of blurring the lines, by the weathering of old wood, by the erosion of brick and adobe, and by the desaturation of colors that seem to make these old, ruined structures a cohesive part of the landscape.
I’ve driven for hours over backroads and two lane blacktops that (refreshingly) haven’t been repaved for decades. One of those roads brought me to Claunch. The village still has a functioning post office, but not much else. This old adobe with just the right amount of color added sits alone waiting for passersby to whom it can tell its story.
The front of this small bungalow near the village of Cerrillos is a hodge-podge of materials; stucco, fake brick, and, underlying it all, plywood. The door is beautifully weathered and the textures are all the more evident due to that weathering.
The thing I like best about this photograph is the cutaway caused by erosion of the adobe wall. It’s like a glimpse into the lives of the long gone inhabitants. The double doors were obviously a replacement of a larger one. The melting adobe gives it all an organic feeling. To me, these elements speak of lives lived here in times past.
This old wooden shed has been surrounded by Chinese Elm trees. They have grown around its perimeter in an opening gambit to reclaim the ground on which it sits. The scene has a sense of serene finality about it.
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Winterlude
…but alone in distant woods or fields, in unpretending sproutlands or pastures tracked by rabbits, even in a bleak and, to most, cheerless day like this, when a villager would be thinking of his inn, I come to myself, I once more feel myself grandly related, and that cold and solitude are friends of mine. I suppose that this value, in my case, is equivalent to what others get by church-going and prayer.
Henry David Thoreau
This small pine sapling stands in solitary splendor in front of its big brethren. which disappear into the snowy background. There is a sense of calm that comes over me when I am in the woods when the snow is falling.
The branches of these trees; gambel oaks in the foreground and willows in the distance are etched with snow which gives them a sharp look even through the softening effect of the falling snow.
I was attracted to this scene by the snow covered boulder in the foreground and the soft curve between it and the smaller stone. The arrangement of the more prominent trees and their relationship to those in the background had me moving back and forth and side to side until I found this composition.
Some photographs begin as a partially finished idea. But some, like this one, jump out fully formed. The monotone coloration and the chaotic simplicity of the scene made it all the more compelling to me.
I love the spareness of a leafed tree in the winter with a few brown, withered leaves still clinging to its branches. This oak sapling framed by two mature ponderosa pines speaks of the unexpected relationships in nature that only become apparent to the discerning eye.
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The Writing On The Wall
The title of this post may be somewhat deceptive. Most of us think of writing on the wall as actual markings of some kind made by man (or woman) for the purpose of communicating something to others. And, while a couple of the images included here do feature pictographs and petroglyphs, Most do not. Instead, they are images of natures writing.
This pictograph is on a wall about a quarter mile from my home. It is on the side of a state road, but most people who drive by it are unaware of its presence. Like most drawings of this sort, the meaning is unclear, and lost to the ages but someone in the distant past felt the need to scribe these images onto this rock.
This canyon wall and talus slope is located along the Green River near Hardscrabble Bottom in Canyonlands. I was attracted to the contrast between the rock wall and the living tamarisk as well as the no longer living cottonwood tree. I love the desert varnish on the sandstone and the beginning erosion of what will one day probably be an amphitheater.
This cross-bedded sandstone near the Escalante River in southern Utah speaks for itself. Its story spans ages, and now it is revealed as a work of art millions of years in the making.
These petroglyphs are in the backcountry of Monument Valley. They are called the Eye of the Sun Petroglyphs because of their proximity to an arch bearing that name. It is perhaps someone’s tale of the animals he came across that day, or perhaps a boastful recounting of the game he had killed.
These young aspen trees are growing against a sandstone wall which is covered with lichen. The combination creates a tapestry in which the trees reflect the stains on the wall and overlay them with a filigree of branches.
Here is another example of cross-bedded sandstone. I made this photograph while kayaking with my daughter and her husband in the Apostle Islands on Lake Superior. The colors of the stone combined with the intersecting fracture lines, the lichen, and the small, but tenacious, plants caught my eye almost immediately.
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A Visual Feast
There’s a feeling in the air, and over the land, like a quiet expectation that slowly builds until the first blossoms appear on the wild fruit trees. The river is high and fast with the runoff, and the trees and shrubs in the bosque are fairly bursting with nascent energy and life. Spring: a time of rebirth and renewal, a visual feast.
A wild apricot tree celebrates the warmer weather by putting forth its blossoms. I made several exposures of this scene, shifting perspective each time. There are branches above and just barely out of the frame which I found distracting. I tried to balance my in camera crop so I kept the branches from intruding while giving the tree enough room in the frame so it didn’t feel cramped.
This is a typical scene in the river bosque. What compelled me to make this photogrph was the colors. The tamarisks with their orangish red balanced nicely with what I knew would be a bluish green in the background and the yellow and green of the bosque floor. Again, the spacing of the trees became a dance of changing perspectives. Even though those on the right appear “heavier”, this composition seemed the most natural.
This photograph is more about the contrast between the elements than anything else. The blossoming tree is fighting the sage and chamisa for purchase and attention. At the same time it is standing out from the looming willows in the background. It has a subtle joie de vivre that I find attractive.
The colors are my favorite thing about this image. But the patterns and textures run a close second. The chamisa, the tamarisk, and finally, the cottonwood and willow trees in the background all work together to create a tension that feels just right to me.
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Breathing the Light
There are times when the atmosphere puts on a show that, combined with the right light, cannot be ignored. If you happen to be in a place that provides a suitable setting for such a show, you may be able to capture it all in a way that reveals the power and beauty that nature paints under these conditions.
I made this image in 2007. I was in Canyonlands at Grandview Point when I noticed the storm moving across the buttes and mesas to the south and west. The ethereal nature of the light through the clouds and the haze of the falling rain was stunning. It took me a moment to realize that I should make a picture of this. If you look closely at the bottom right corner, you can see the Green River where it exits Labyrinthe Canyon at Hardscrabble Bottom. A few miles downstream is the confluence of the Green and the Colorado Rivers.
A veil of clouds above the Valle Grande and The Missing Cabin obscures Redondo Peak. Winter scenes such as this are common in the high country of the Jemez Mountains.
I was driving to Las Cruces for a calendar shoot and decided to take the scenic route through Lake Valley. As the clouds lowered to obscure the tops of a small range of hills, I rounded a curve to find these Cottonwood trees still wearing their autumn colors standing out in an otherwise sere landscape.
I was leading a tour in the Bisti Wilderness in December and by the time we arrived at the Egg Garden, the clouds had moved in and dropped down low on the landscape. Looking to the southwest, I noticed the sun attempting to shine through the thick cover; the result was a number of beams which died in midair much like virga (falling rain that never reaches the ground). Of all the times I have been to this location, I never witnessed better light than this.
The Jemez River bosque south of Jemez Springs nestles close to the base of the wall of Virgin Mesa. I made this image on a winter morning a few years ago. The low clouds were veiling the canyon wall and created a sense of mystery and helped to define the branches of the cottonwoods and willows that line the bosque in that part of the canyon.
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The World At Your Feet
Closeup photography basically requires an observant and discerning eye, as well as a willingness to witness in the commonplace a display of the miraculous.
John Shaw-Closeups in Nature
All of the photographs in this post were made on my property within a quarter mile of my house. That is the wonderful thing about close-up/macro photography: there is a world of subject matter literally at your feet.
Also, all these photographs were made with my thirty-something year old Nikkor 105mm f2.8D macro lens mounted on one of my Nikon Df bodies. I normally don’t mention gear because it seems superfluous, but in this case, I have had a long-standing love affair with this lens and it still makes beautifully sharp images, so it needs to be recognized.
I have spent hours photographing leaves; cottonwood–as in these photos, aspen, willow, oak, birch, etc. You get the picture. I never grow tired of it, and I usually come away feeling fulfilled and happy with the day’s work. The first image encased as it is in ice is a bonus for me; when I’m working in these conditions, I don’t feel the cold. I get so focused that I am unaware of anything going on around me. Not such a good thing if you’re in a crowded city, but working in a field with not another soul within a mile or more, it’s an exhilerating freedom.
The everyday patterns found in the natural world are pretty much perfect. No amount of rearranging can possibly make them better, but rather it will usually leave them looking, well…re-arranged. So I take things as I find them and rarely touch any of the elements. The only caveat is I will sometimes remove a distracting element if it can be done without disturbing the rest of the composition.
This image of a small group of seed pods required a lot of forethought and some delicate maneuvering. It is a 1:1 magnification ratio, so the working distance was about twelve inches. At that distance, depth of field is measured in fractions of an inch; I needed to be sure my camera’s focal plane was parallel to the pods, and that my aperture provided a DOF that was wide enough to keep all the pods in reasonable focus, but was shallow enough to ensure a nice soft background. Add to all that the fact that I was working just a few inches above the ground and if I bumped the fragile pods with my equipment, they would be destoyed. Enough said.
Walking along the river one afternoon I looked down to find this arrangement of cottonwood and willow leaves, twigs, and grass at my feet. I actually shot this handheld (something I usually won’t do when making close-ups), so there was really no set up involved, I just squatted down, composed the image, and released the shutter.
Out again a couple days ago, I found these red birch logs lying near the river behind my house with the leaves tucked in between them. It took a while to set my tripod in the optimal position for this image because there were quite a few downed trees close to the subject and I needed to balance the legs of the tripod on them and get the whole thing close enough to the ground to achieve the right perspective.
It’s been a while since I’ve done any close-up work and I had forgotten how rewarding it can be. Getting out and crawling around in the dirt again brought it all back to me. I hope you enjoy seeing these photographs as much as I enjoyed making them.
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Far Flung Curiosities
In my travels photographing the roots of my home state, I have travelled mostly the two lane blacktops, what William Least Heat Moon called blue highways because that was how they were shown on maps. The back roads of New Mexico often bring surprises, things that are unexpected, things that fire the imagination. I have included a few of these treasures here. There are countless others out there waiting to be rediscovered.
This road grader sits in a yard behind a gabien/rail fence. It was owned by a friend of mine who died several years ago. He was a good man, a hard working man who did not tolerate fools. When I saw it with the falling snow I made this image without much thought other than of the technical aspects.
The Ayers Family built this house from a kit sold by Sears in the 1920s. Now it sits slowly deteriorating near Estancia, NM. I wanted a somber, brooding sky to emphasize the haunted look of the place. The two dead trees complete the picture and the feel of decay. While making this image, I felt the ghosts of the place not far from the surface.
This building, an old neighborhood bar, sits on the edge of a small village in the Rio Grande Valley. From the outside, it doesn’t look like much. I was drawn to it because I noticed the tree growing inside, but I was not expecting the eye; it seemed so out of place. Looking closely, it appears as though it has been there for quite a while. Whatever its origin, it adds an eerie presence to the scene. I shot through the opening to frame the interior and to reflect the shape of the opening in the far wall. This also has the effect of preserving the secret hidden within.
In the early days of the Manhattan Project, a woman named Edith Warner was living in a small house along the Rio Grande where the one lane Otowi Bridge crossed the river giving access to the Pajarito Plateau and Los Alamos. She often hosted the scientists and dignitaries who worked at and visited the site. The house on the right was her residence and the small building on the left was the tea house where she served many people over the years including friends from nearby San Ildefonso Pueblo.
I was on a one lane dirt road near the Rio Grande Gorge when I came upon this 1940 something Chevy pickup buried to its wheel wells in the sandy earth. There was not a single soul that I had seen within a mile of the place. After I finished photographing, I had my lunch while sitting on the fender enjoying the solitude.
I photographed this church in Taiban, NM long before it became a destination for social media photographers. I looked for quite a while for the right composition and finally settled on this head-on perspective with the dead shrubs in the foreground. They seemed to fit the mood of the moment and the lonely desolation of the scene.
I was about as far off the beaten track as you can get, even for central New Mexico. The windmill lying by the side of the road seemed bigger that it would look in its accustomed place: high on a tripod along a single track ranch road. It was November, so the trees were in various stages of decline; I would not not have made this image in the spring or summer when the trees were leafed out.
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The Bisti Wilderness
For many years, I led photography tours in the badlands of the San Juan Basin in northwest New Mexico. The Bisti Wilderness was, by far, the most popular, so over the years I have gotten to know the landscape quite well and have amassed a large archive of images from that most famous of New Mexico’s badlands.
This boulder field is not far from Hunter Wash on the northern edge of the Bisti. I have always been fascinated by the dispersal of the boulders in this one particular area. I’m no geologist, but I’m pretty sure these stones were buried in a softer matrix which eventually eroded away leaving them (the boulders) scattered about the field.
These steep-sided, broken hills are actually parts of a once continuous dike of clay, mudstone and sandstone. The sandstone still perches on the tops of the isolated formations. The slender hoodoo in the center I call Scheinbaum’s Hoodoo named for David Scheinbaum a Santa Fe photogrpher who, in the 1980s made the images for a University of New Mexico Press book titled Bisti which became instrumental in the Sierra Club’s fight with the Public Service Company of New Mexico (the biggest elctrical producer in the state) and the Sunbelt Mining Company who together had plans to strip mine the entire area. The result of that battle is the Bisti/De Na Zin Wilderness Area. In his caption of the photograph of this fragile formation he lamented the fact that due to coal mining activity in the area this hoodoo would likely soon be destroyed. I was happy to see that now, nearly forty years later, it still stands.
in the forward to Scheinbaum’s book, Beaumont Newhall calls the Bisti …an area of land that extends not only in space but in time. These mixed clay and volcanic ash hills are testament to that description; they are multicolored depending on which other minerals were present at the time they were deposited. These yellow and black deposits near Hunter Wash were probably influenced by sulphur and coal respectively at different times during the sedimentary phase of the area’s formation.
This hoodoo fairyland is in what’s called the Brown Hoodoos section of the Bisti. It is only about a mile from the Alamo Wash parking area, but requires some climbing and scrambling as well as a walk around deep, steep-sided drainages to access. I think the trip is well worth the effort.
These last two images are of the two most popular features of my photo tours. The first is the Stone Wings in the north section, not far from Hunter Wash. They are a series of deeply eroded pedestals with sandstone caps that are exposed on top of a tall bentonite mound.
And finally the Egg Garden, probably the most well known and most requested location in the Bisti tour. I was leading a client, a PhD in Nuclear Physics, who upon seeing the ovoid formations for the first time began jumping around and laughing like a child. Moments like that were the best part of my job.
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Intimate Harmony
This then: to photograph a rock, have it look like a rock, but be more than a rock.
Edward Weston
I found the opening quote by Edward Weston in Guy Tal’s book More Than A Rock. I thought it appropriate to introduce this post. The book is also worth a gander.
I love the diffuse light of an overcast, snowy day. All the images in this post were made along the Jemez River Bosque during a snowstorm last week. I used my 80-200 telephoto lens set at the upper end of its range. The result is a compression of the elements of the scenes. That coupled with the soft, misty depths of the bosque due to the falling snow serves to enhance the intimacy of the images.
My intention for this outing was to capture the delicate, subtle relationships between the various forms of vegetation. What I discovered is something I knew all along: nature is a master of design; it is subtle; its forms are deliberate; and its colors blend as naturally and effortlessly as the confluence of two rivers.
I have been doing this photography thing for a long time. When I was first starting out, I was keenly interested in the work of such luminaries as Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, and, the master of color, Eliot Porter. Today, some fifty years down the road, they have been joined by the likes of David Meunch and William Neill. These images are a return to the things that sparked my initial interest in the art of photography.
As I worked, I was repeatedly drawn to the similarities, and the contrasts between the chamisa and the cottonwoods. Later while processing the images, I saw that the blue color shift caused by the flat light on this cold morning was very complimentary to the yellows and reds of the chamisa, the dead oak leaves, and the tamarisk. I deliberately made use of that effect to convey my feeling of the experience through the photographs.
I had noticed this red sandstone boulder several times while exploring the area and I knew I would use it at some point. When I saw it on this day, it was immediately clear to me that this was the time. Environmental conditions and of course the light can transform a scene such as this from one of mere interest to one that speaks of the nature of things.
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The Ways of Water
If there is magic on this earth it lies in water.
Loren Eisley
Water, without it life cannot exist. It is elusive, you cannot hold it long in your hand (unless it is in its frozen state and even then it soon melts away), yet it carves mile deep canyons through billion year old rock.
I made this first image on a cold day last week. I walked up the East Fork of the Jemez River at Battleship Rock looking for water and ice, and while there was plenty of both, it took a while before I found a composition worthy of an image. This small cascade was exactly what I had in mind; the ice suspended above the rushing water and coating the small branches has a fragile elegance that is all its own.
After leaving the East Fork, I walked a ways up the Rio San Antonio to this waterfall. It is a favorite of mine; I have been coming to this place for many years. I used to bring my daughters here on hikes when they were little girls, so I have a deep connection to it. Again, I was looking for ice, and again I found it. I don’t know how many photographs I’ve made of this waterfall over the years, but this is certainly one of my favorites.
I made this photograph of upper Guadalupe Falls, as well as the two that follow, in the mid-nineties with my Nikon F3 using Fuji Velvia transparency film. To achieve this intimate perspective, I had to set my tripod on a boulder which was lodged above the falls where they drop about ten feet. It is a precarious platform with not much room to work from, but the results seem worth the risk. The snow and ice on the rocks and the greenish color of the icy water give this image a frigid feel.
This is the same waterfall as in the second photograph. It is an abstract to some degree, but the reality of the falls is still obvious. I have always loved the visual and physical contrast between liquid water–particularly if it’s moving–and its solid state when it appears to be moving. Here the immutable basalt face of the cliff provides yet another contrast to the ephemeral nature of the water.
This is the lower end of Guadalupe Falls; the rock in this location is granite, part of an ancient upthrust. The shapes and the solid presence of the rock juxtaposed against the relentless flow of the river through this narrow passage along with the figurative connection between the two provided by the ice are the elements I was reacting to when I made this photograph.
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Found Memories
I make it a habit to dig into my archives every so often just to see what might jump out at me. I am usualy pleasantly surprised and also find myself wondering why I didn’t see the possibilties of these images back then. The answer is, in most cases, a change in my perspective, or perhaps a maturation of my vision. In other cases, a simple change in long-standing habits, otherwise known as getting out of a rut.
I was in Lake City, Colorado for the Lake City Wine and Music Festival. After the two day event, I took a ride up the road to Cinammon Pass which summits at nearly thirteen-thousand feet. Somewhere along the way I made this photograph of a stand of aspens. I guess I didn’t think it worthy of any further work when I edited my photos from that trip. I let my expectations get in the way sometimes and when I revisit images later, those biases no longer inhibit my judgement.
The shading and texture of these deep erosion channels at the foot of Cainville Mesa caught my eye as we were driving past on the way to Factory Butte. I didn’t have a long telephoto lens with me, so I borrowed my friend Robin’s 70-300 and made this image. I didn’t think anything else about it and skipped right over it when I edited and processed my work from that trip. But looking at it now, I see the things that compelled me to make the photograph in the first place.
The coastal redwoods in northern California are an experience. It’s like being transported to another world, at least it seems that way to me, a desert rat who has lived for more than forty years in the desert southwest. This patch of rhododendrons was growing right along the road; the contrast between the delicate leaves and blossoms, and the looming immensity, and mystery of the trees disappearing into the mist in the background captured my imagination.
I try to do any cropping to an image in camera, in other words, as I’m making the image. I very seldom crop photographs when I’m processing them. But this one was nagging at me. the left side of the image was not doing anything, it was an unwanted appendage. At the same time, I didn’t want to lose too much of the brooding clouds at the top. The answer was to change the aspect ratio from the normal 2:3 of 35mm or, in this case, full frame digital to 4:5. I like the result. The subject is the Yeibichei Rocks in Monument Valley.
I often go to Tucson in February or March to photograph the blooming desert. In a good year, the wildflowers carpet large parts of the desert landscape. I remember very clearly the making of this image. This saguaro cactus was right across a dirt road from where my campsite was located. The sun had just set and, in the twilight’s glow, the clouds were a salmon color. This particular cactus was probably thirty feet tall and in order to isolate it, I had to be pretty close (once again, I found myself without a long telephoto lens. I have since started bringing at least my 80-200 Nikkor along on all my trips). The point is that the farther away you can get from a tall subject such as this, the less vertical perspective will be obvious in the image. I was able to do some correction in Lightroom, but I would rather make the corrections during the making of the photograph.
Here is another photograph from one of my Arizona springtime trips. I had read about crested or cristate saguaros and set about finding one. A crested saguaro is a mutation which causes the cactus to fan out, usually at its head. The mutation is thought to be caused by some event (a lightning strike, or possibly a freeze) which interferes with the plant’s normal growth.
I’m not sure why this photograph escaped me during the first go round. I made the image on my first visit to Bandon Beach. I had been looking forward to photographing there and I spent an entire morning moving up and down the beach making pictures. None of those images met my expectations at the time; this one languished in my archives until just recently. There’s a moral to this story: take the time to review your archived images. There are probably some gems waiting there for you to finally recognize their potential.
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The Crane Dance
These elegant birds, in their stature, grace, and beauty, their wild fierce temperment, are striking metaphors for the vanishing wilderness of our once bountiful earth…
Peter Matthiessen from the introduction to The Birds of Heaven
This sandhill crane at Monte Vista Wildlife Refuge in Colorado’s San Luis Valley is trying to attract a mate; this dance is part of the crane’s courtship ritual. I could watch these birds for hours, I have watched these birds for hours while photographing them and I never tire of their elegant interactions.
Well, mostly elegant. This bird recovered quickly when he hit an icy spot during his take-off from one of the crane ponds at Bosque del Apache. I really enjoy the antics that ensue on a cold morning when the ponds are frozen. The cranes remain in the water longer and there is more pre-flight activity
This image and the two below are all part of the same story. They were, all three, made within seconds of each other and capture a mating dance wherein the pair seal their lifelong bond.
I love the strut. The dance can be quite involved and includes strutting (as seen here), leaping, bowing, pumping heads, and stretching wings.
This was the last movement of the dance. They then went back to milling around with the thousands of other birds, and eventually they flew off to one of the farm fields on or near the refuge.
I made this photograph of a dancing Whooping Crane near High Island Texas. I was there to photograph the nesting great egrets and met a man who told me about reports of whoopers a little ways north of where I was camped. As I was leaving for home, I decided to detour to the spot he had mentioned just to see if the rumors were true. Whooping Cranes are endangered and I had never seen, let alone photographed, one in the wild. So, I could hardly contain my excitement when I saw this one along with a companion. I found a place to set up my tripod a respectable distance away and waited. It didn’t take long before they both began leaping and spreading their wings. This is my best image from that incredible morning.
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House On Fire Ruin
A while back, I wrote a blog post about the Fallen Roof Ruin on Utah’s Cedar Mesa. I stumbled upon it while researching another, more well-known, ruin which is located close by.
House On Fire Ruin is situated in the south fork of Mule Canyon which runs roughly parallel to Utah Rte. 95 about twenty miles west of Blanding. It gets its name from the way the alcove in which it is located lights up as it catches the reflection of the morning sun from the opposite canyon wall. When this happens, the texture in the ceiling of the alcove causes it to resemble flames coming from the top of the ruins. This phenomenon occurs mid-morning between 9 and 11 o’clock depending on the time of year.
This first image is pretty representative of most of the images I have seen made at the House On Fire Ruin. It does a good job of showing the ruin and the overall effect of the light reflection. But, I like to have a little more depth in my images, to tell more of the story of the place.
To do this, I simply backed off a little and changed to a portrait orientation to enable me to capture some foreground. This version seems less pinched to me than the first; it shows the floor of the alcove, which lends some context to the scene, and allows for some visual flow.
This final image is a portrait of Robin and me sitting in front of the ruins. I am always a little awestruck when I stand in a place where the ancients stood before me. This setting was even more powerful because of the interaction of the rock with the light. I wonder if the inhabitants of these ruins were as moved by the spectacle as we were.
These images were made in the fall of 2016. I had begun the draft, but, for some reason, never completed it. So, I am publishing it now, more than five years later. A lot of water under the proverbial bridge since then.
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Relics of the Mother Road
Along the route and at road’s end, the decay of man’s dreams and the simple elegance of the natural scene have been the premier attraction. The pattern of dunes, the color of sheet metal, the weathering of wood, and the changing sky are images that are as important to me as the ‘grand view’.
John Kiewit; from the preface to Gone to Sanctuary from the Sins of Confusion
As I mentioned in a previous entry, I have been travelling around the state making images of a decaying way of life. A project and a journey inspired by a book. I wish I could have known John Kiewit, I think we would have had a lot to talk about..
Cuervo, New Mexico straddles what is now Interstate 40. In Cuervo’s heyday, it was Route 66. This deteriorating frame house is in the section of the town that sits on the south side of the freeway. I was drawn to make this photograph by what remains of the cedar shake shingles on the roof. As with most of the photographs I have made for this project, I shot the subject straight on. I think of these images as a hybrid of objective documentary and subjective, expressive photographs.
The rusty, scavenged hulk of a car is as common in the rural New Mexican landscape as crumbling adobe. This one–I believe it’s from the 50s or early 60s– was parked near a small, completely abandoned village in Eastern New Mexico. There are many of these disappearing places and eroding vehicles along what was once “The Mother Road”.
I made this image in a small town that like many in that part of New Mexico is mostly a ghost town. The old picket and wire fence overgrown with weeds makes a perfect foreground for the faded pink wall and the glassless window. The rusted cans on the sill speak of former inhabitants, now long gone. I included just a little of the corrugated roof to provide contrast to the wall. As with most of my images, I made several versions, most of them wider views of the entire house, but I like the intimacy of this one.
I long ago outgrew the desire to use my camera as a Xerox machine. Standing amidst a throng of people with cameras on tripods to bag a “trophy shot” holds no attraction for me. That being said, when I saw a photograph by John Mulhouse of this quirky, timeworn truck parked in front of a now defunct resturant in Tucumcari, I knew I had to make my own photograph of it.
I love the mottled look of the adobe on this house. The rusty corrugated tin roof creates tension. The curtained windows led me to suspect inhabitants, but there were no other signs of anyone living there. I wandered through this town for more than an hour and talked with one resident, but he confirmed that most of the residents were gone elsewhere.
This steel suspension bridge over the Rio Puerco no longer carries traffic. I can remember crossing it while on a road trip with my young family back in the eighties and, further back, I probably rode over it as a hitchhiker in the late sixties. Now it stands playing an uncertain role between the freeway and the frontage road. It’s been disignated a historic bridge and is on the national registry; the small, dented, rusting sign on the western end of the bridge tells us so.
Early spring and the elms and cottonwoods were leafing out. I was on a part of old route 66 that still has a few towns that are relatively well populated. As I drove through this village, I spotted this shuttered service garage. It is right on the main drag, but no one was around to fill me in on its history. I stayed there for a while because it felt like someone could walk out the door at any second. My patience was not rewarded.
This sunlight reflecting off the broken windshield drew my attention to this old rusty chevy. It was parked back off the road between two buildings. I had to wait for the sun to move so the glare was off the glass. There is something poetic about these old vehicles, something almost natural about the rust and the paint and the shattered glass.
I was actually back off the highway several miles when I came across this old adobe ruin. The vigas still sit on the walls, but the roof has long since given way to decay and gravity. It’s a small dwelling that harkens back to a time when quality was more important than quantity. It’s fortunate that I made this photograph in early spring; the elm tree was still pretty bare which, I think, suits the image.
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Postcards From Home
After more than a week of unfulfilled promises from the weatherman, and several half-baked attempts, we finally got a substantial snowfall here in northern New Mexico. So, I awoke in the pre-dawn of the new year to find a foot of fresh snow and more coming down.
I made this image of my home from the southern boundary of my property. The rincon along the edge of Virgin Mesa is just visible through the falling snow to the north. I made several compositions and settled on this one. My main concern during the processing was to preserve the ethereal quality of the light through the snow on the distant rim.
Nikon Df, Nikkor 24-70mm f2.8
I call it the Number 10 Cabin, but it’s really just an old barn/shed. I have photogrphed it many times over the years–it is located a couple hundred yards from my house. This image was made, obviously, during a snowstorm. I love to photograph in these conditions; the world seems to shrink down to just the elements within the frame. I used a relatively fast shutter speed to freeze the falling snow, which gives the photograph an almost pointillist feel.
Nikon Df, Nikkor 24-70mm f2.8
This river runs through my land. I made this photograph from a wooden bridge located just north of my house. Normally when photographing moving water, I use a slow shutter speed to smooth the flow, but on this cold, snowy morning, freezing the movement with a fast shutter felt like the best way to portray the scene.
Nikon Df, Nikkor 24-70mm f2.8
South of the village, the canyon opens up and the bosque has room to breathe. These cottonwoods on the edge of a small meadow stood out againt the low clouds. The world was reduced to the immediate surroundings. As I said previously, these are my favorite conditions to work in. Again, I used a fast shutter to freeze the falling snow, which adds another dimension to the image. I made another exposure using a slow shutter to mask the snow and this version is by far my favorite.
Nikon D810, Nikkor 24-120mm f4
You can feel the silence and the mystery of the winter forest in this image. The trunks of Ponderosa Pine and Fir trees seem to go on forever and the veil of frozen air in the low clouds adds to the effect. I used a long lens to compress the separation between the trees. The sliver of snow covered ground at the bottom of the frame is essential to the composition; without it the image becomes more abstract.
Nikon D810, Nikkor 80-200mm f2.8
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Winter Burn
It’s been more than a decade since the Las Conchas Fire burned more than one hundred fifty six thousand acres (244 sq. miles) in the Jemez Mountains leaving a huge burn scar in its wake. Two years later the Thompson Ridge Fire took another fifteen thousand acres. While I mourn the loss of those large areas of forest, I recognize the photographic opportunities the burns produced.
The low clouds partially veil the burned trees in this photograph. There is an obvious contrast between the live trees in the middle ground and the seemingly endless ranks of burned, dead ones on the hills in the background.
Nikon D810, Nikkor 24-120mm f4, 1/640, f8, ISO 640
I used my 80-200 telephoto zoom to isolate these fir trees in the frame. They are losing their bark and what bark remains is burnt black; the result is an almost abstract image. I also made a landscape (horizontal) version of this image, but the strong vertical lines of the trees lend themselves better to the portrait orientation.
Nikon D700, Nikkor 80-200mm f2.8, 1/400, f8, ISO 400
I processed this photograph in a way that emphasizes its airy, dreamlike quality. It was snowing and the clouds were low, so I used a fast shutter speed to freeze the flakes in the frame. This is a relatively “high key” image for me, but I think it does a good job of expressing the mood of the experience.
Nikon D810, Nikkor 24-120mm f4, 1/1000, f11, ISO 640
These trees were coated with a filigree of hoarfrost on this cold morning. The delicate icy branches against the black trunks and the cloudy sky creates an interesting visual contrast. Again, I chose a vertical orientation to accentuate the strong vertical lines of the dark trunks.
Nikon D700, Nikkor 80-200mm f2.8, f8, 1/640, ISO 400
Here is the view looking west along highway 4 from Corral Canyon, a beautiful area just west of the Valle Grande. This image shows the indiscriminate path of the fire, leaving large swaths of forest incinerated and others unscathed. Again, I was drawn to make this image by the visual, as well as the conceptual contrast of the scene.
Nikon D810, Nikkor 24-120mm f4, F11, 1/200 ISO 1250
I noticed these horses grazing at the foot of a burned mountain. This is the area where the Las Conchas fire started. I wanted the horses to be dwarfed by their surroundings to lend a sense of scale to the image. Even so, I had to use a 200mm focal length to produce the framing I desired.
Nikon D700, Nikkor 80-200mm f2.8, 1/640, f11, ISO640
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Doorways
Doorways are often used as a metaphor for life: oopurtunities, events, seasons. They are usually spoken or written. But, in the context of this article, they are visual.
I made this photograph in 2012. At that time, I was spending a lot of my time exploring a particular area in northwestern New Mexico. My intent when I released the shutter was to say something about impermanence, more specifically the slow erosion of the adobe buildings which were built and inhabited by people whose way of life disappeared long ago. This doorway–which no longer exists–is an metaphor for that irrevocable past.
Nikon D700 Nikkor 16-35 f4 F22 1/10 ISO 100
At one time, this hall was full of children going about the business of aquiring an education. Now it is empty and decaying. While I was making this image, I closed my eyes and tried to imagine the bustle of its former life. I often do this while photographing abandoned buildings or ruins; it helps me to better understand my subject.
Nikon Df Nikkor 24-120mm f4 F10 1/60 ISO 400
Inevitably, the constructs of man give way to nature when left unattended. This adobe ruin with a tree growing in the entry is a good example. The colorful grafitti provides a visual as well as a metaphorical contrast to the scene.
Nikon Df Nikkor 24-120 f4 F8 1/320 ISO 400
While I was preparing to make this image I considered moving the tire out of the picture, but in the end, I left it in place. It serves as both a visual and a symbolic element. It is important to take the time to think about what you intend to say with a photograph if you want it to be more than just a representation of the scene.
Nikon Df Nikkor 50mm f1.4 F8 1/250 ISO 400
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In The Yard
I have mentioned in some of my previous posts that I do a lot of driving to make photographs, and while that’s certainly the case, there are times when the images come to me. I live in a cabin on a river in north central New Mexico, so it’s not uncommon to see wildlife on my land. I use a long lens when photographing wildlife both for their comfort and my safety, but, long lenses aside, there have been times when I have gotten quite close to my subjects.
This doe was browsing along the edge of my road and she posed for me as I drove by. I like the contrast of the gourds along the bottom edge of the frame and the sere grasses in the background.
Nikon Df Nikkor 24-120mm F6.3 1/125
There are several bucks that frequent the area where I live. They use my property as a corridor to access the river. They are a part of a family which also include as many as eight does, their fawns and an ever-changing number of yearlings. As is typical with mule deer, the males only congregate with the females and young during the rut. For the remainder of the year, they live a mostly solitary existence.
Nikon D500 Sigma 150-600 F8 1/800
I made this photograph in late September. Mule deer coats become darker, a greyish brown, going into the winter months. You can see the difference in color if you compare this with the previous image. I’m pretty certain it’s the same individual in both photos.
Nikon D500 Nikkor 80-400 F8 1/160
When the males are young, they sometimes travel in small bachelor groups. These two showed up together regularly through the summer, but as fall arrived, they went their separate ways.
Nikon D500 Sigma 150-600 F8 1/500
This bull elk is a frequent visitor. Here he is in early March looking pretty rough after a hard winter. His fur is matted and almost mangy looking; his antlers have just begun regrowing after shedding those of the previous year.
Nikon D 500 Nikkor 200-500 F 8 1/500
A month and a half later, the same bull is looking much better with a healthier coat and a sizable spread on his antlers. Being in such intimate contact with these animals always leaves me with a sense of wonder and privilege.
Nikon D500 Nikkor 200-500 F8 1/400
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Viva el Norte
The back roads of northern New Mexico are a treasure trove for a photographer willing to spend the time and energy driving from one remote village to another. I happen to live in one of those villages, so for me, it’s like visiting the neighbors.
I’ve discovered I have a thing for windows. More to the point, I have a thing for old windows in old walls. This first image required several trips before I got it right. I wanted to get the frame just so; the weathered log post plays an important part in the composition and the elevation proved to be tricky–I finally returned with a ladder in order to capture a satisfactory version of the photograph.
Nikon Df Nikkor 24-70mm f2.8 F8 1/80 ISO 400
These adobe walls are about worn to the nub and the window frames, along with the viga used for a header, will eventually join the pile of rubble. As I drove past, I noticed how the windows were aligned and that is what drew me to make a photograph. The sage in the foreground also provides a nice anchor for the scene.
Nikon Df Nikkor 24-70 f2.8 F11 1/500 ISO 800
This scene literally jumped out at me as I rounded a curve in the road just south of Taos. I spent quite a while shooting from different angles, and when I edited the images, I chose this version because I like the spatial relationship between the tree and the mailbox.
Nikon Df Nikkor 24-70mm F8 1/400 ISO 400
I saw a photograph of this bar in a book titled Gone to Sanctuary From the Sins of Confusion that my friend Robin had loaned me. The book is a compilation by photographer John Kiewit who traveled the west for three decades from the late sixties through the late nineties making images of the places he saw along the way. The book was published in 1997 and, sadly, John died a few years later. But I was so taken by his work and the subject matter that I started driving to the places from the book which were relatively close to me. It became akin to a pilgrimage. Unfortunately, most of the locations have changed so drastically they are no longer worth photographing. This scene, however, was virtually unchanged from the image John made all those years ago. This one photograph made the entire quest worthwhile.
Nikon Df Nikkor 24-120mm f4 F8 1/640 ISO 400
I wish I could have visited this bar in it’s heyday, I’m willing to bet it was a pretty rowdy place, like something out of The Milagro Beanfield War–just my style. But now it sits abandoned, nothing more than a curiosity for passers-by and wandering photographers. Viva el Norte.
Nikon Df Nikkor 24-70mm F8 1/160 ISO 400
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New Directions
This is my first post in more than a year and a half, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been busy. In fact I travelled and photographed more in 2020 than in the previous three years combined. What has changed is my approach to my photography and the subject matter. First of all, I have commited the ultimate sin for a landscape/nature photographer: I have pretty much left my tripod at home; most of the photographs I have made in the past two years have been shot handheld using a Nikon Df along with an assortment of lenses. As for the subject matter, I have been attempting to capture the detritus of a disappearing culture in a way that makes it pleasing to the eye.
This first image is of a quirky fence in the village of Cerrillos. I liked the way the winter weeds contrast the hard edged outline of the fence slats and the way the fence itself mimics the Ortiz Mountains in the distance.
Nikon Df, Nikkor 24-120mm f4 F11 1/640 ISO 400
This roadside tableau caught my eye as I was driving along a two lane blacktop in northern New Mexico. Actually, I made the first version in the spring when the leaves were green and new, but the image didn’t have the feel I was looking for, so I returned in the fall and got it right.
Nikon Df Nikkor 24-120 f4 F8 1/100 ISO 800
Most small rural villages in New Mexico have more than their share of abandoned homes and buildings which are slowly melting into the landscape. The broken window and the off-kilter door draw the eye to the reflection of the dead tree.
Nikon Df Nikkor 24-120mm F7 1/160 ISO 400
The shirt hanging on a carved door in a crumbling adobe is a bit eerie and, at the same time gives this image a human touch. I have come across several scenes like this in my travels and they always make me wonder about the lives of the people who called those places home.
Nikon Df Nikkor 50mm f1.4 F4 1/500 ISO 800
This last photograph is one of my favorites. The missing window pane, the tattered curtain, the broken stucco are all given a sense of hope (and a splash of color) by the blooming trumpet vines.
Nikon Df Nikkor 24-120mm F8 1/80 ISO 400
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Shipwreck-Low Tide
The Peter Iredale ran aground in heavy fog while trying to enter the Columbia River channel in October of 1906. The wreckage is still there today just west of the small town of Warrenton. The day I showed up to photograph the wreck, the conditions were just right. The thick overcast created a somber setting; all I had to do was wait for low tide so I could position the breaking waves where I wanted them in the image and capture the reflection and wave patterns in the wet sand.
I used my Nikon D810 with a Nikkor 24-120 f4 lens mounted on a Bogen-Manfrotto tripod. Post processing was done in Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop. Black and white conversion was done in Silver Efex Pro.
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Those Crazy Pelicans
I have spent a great deal of time over the last ten years photographing cranes, herons, and geese at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge. During that time, I have often thought of expanding my horizons to learn more about other birds, so I was delighted when the opportunity presented itself to photograph Brown Pelicans at La Jolla Cove near San Diego, California.
One of the first things that struck me about these ungainly creatures was their humorous behavior when they take a break from skimming the waves looking for dinner to rest on the bluffs along the shore. They can often be found in the company of cormorants and their interactions are sometimes pretty funny.
This one went through a series of gular gymnastics as a Double Breasted Cormorant looked on. The cormorant seemed unimpressed as the pelican turned himself nearly inside out.
Perhaps the most recognizable of the pelicans’ behavior is the stretching of their gular pouches in what has come to be termed the head toss. It’s not really a toss, but more of a steady extension of the neck until the bill is pointing straight up and the pouch is stretched. This is necessary to keep the pouch flexible and healthy. The trick in photographing this activity is catching a bird that is separate from all the others and in full view.
When you witness a head toss without knowing the reason behind it, you could be excused for believing these birds are a bit off kilter. Perhaps they’re howling at some unseen moon, or performing a weird pelican variation of the sun salutation.
Sleeping is a function that these birds perform with amusing inventiveness. The one-eye-open posture is one of my favorites. It’s as if they can’t quite trust that it’s safe for them to drift off. These two may have made a deal that they take turns napping and guarding each other.
And here is perhaps the most unique balancing act I witnessed over three days of watching these unpredictable creatures. He remained in this exact position for over an hour before standing to stretch his pouch.
One thing I have learned from all the time I have spent photographing birds is they are often synchronous in their movements and behavior, and pelicans are no different. These two were grooming on the bluff at La Jolla Cove. Even their feathers are in sync.
Four pelicans walk into a bar, one could care less, one thinks it’s all quite amusing, one is a bit embarrassed, and one is spoiling for a fight. Their antics endeared these birds to me. Watching them go about their daily routines had me smiling to myself almost constantly. I came away with a formative, but indelible image of these graceful, awkward, serious, comedic, eccentric birds.
Jim Caffrey Images Photo Blog 