Finding Meaning

Cuba and his Mauser España on December 26, 2014.

Ferreting out the best or most memorable photographs from the thousands taken in any year is a daunting pursuit at best. But then curating a show of your own work is a fool’s errand, a little like being your own lawyer. Still that’s what’s required if you want to take a short look back.

Arguably the story of the year was the sheep herder Victor Hernandez, whom you know as Cuba, and his flock of wooly critters.

For all intents, the story began a year ago Saturday, December 26, 2014 when we chanced upon Cuba on the Taos Plateau. That moment launched me into a 2015 of following the sheep from pasture to pen, from shearing and lambing and back to the plateau and the mountains. The story had enriched my life greatly and has been, along with my series on the Japanese-American Internment Camps, the most commented on subject of the last several years.

The sheep story itself is represented by thousands of images. The three I’ve selected may not be the best of the lot but have the greatest emotional heft to me.

Bottle feeding a "penco" or orphan lamb.

Patron Andrew Abeyta and an orphan sheep during lambing on a raw March day in which 26 ewes died.

Introspective Retrospective

White Sage and Borregos, Taos Plateau

A couple of things happened. I was thinking of posting of the year’s more memorable images according to me. Then Rick Romancito the editor of the Taos News Tempo Magazine laid down the gauntlet for something called the Challenge on Nature Photography wherein the nominated photographer has to post a nature photograph and nominate a new photographer for seven consecutive days. I accepted the challenge and for my first act in office posted White Sage and Borregos which may be my favorite of 2015. That’s the first one in this post followed by its esteemed colleagues Four Year Drought Motif and Singular As A Snowflake.

The nature photography challenge coupled with the task of looking back at several thousand images to find the best photographs of 2015 was instructive and, I hope, worthwhile.

Four Year Drought Motif, California Central Valley

Singular As A Snowflake, San Simeon Beach

As luck would have it these three fall into both categories, nature and best as I see it. Patterns abound.

Still Seeing Red

An homage to Lenny Foster's Healing Hands series

Red has reared its pretty head and won’t go away. These images feature the color red in various incantations, some new and some seasoned veterans. I, too, am a well seasoned number but more of pinky beige.

My friend Marti Belcher, an extraordinary photographer, commented on my last post that red is her favorite color. Daryl Black, who has been victimized on these very pages, published red images on her Monday post. And there's an exhibition called “Color It Red” curated by yet another friend, Tim Anderson, who has red on the brain, too. It’s a veritable epidemic.

To the pantheon of red images I offer varying proportions of the passionate hue:

A spot of red on a Monhegan Island lobsterman's cottage

How much is that doggy in the window? San Miguel de Allende

Street art, Santa Fe Railyard

Still More Still Life, The Red Issue

Continuing the still life theme here are a couple of items from my famed red motif. Note the tones of the apples and the harvest table. So very coordinated. As last week these come from the Dixon Studio Tour in November. Both table and fruit are courtesy of furniture maker Rob Stout whose lovely abode caresses the Rio Grande in bucolic Rinconada, NM.

Apples on a Rob Stout harvest table

How 'bout them apples

And a little something extra from the red school of thinking.

Candy Apple Red