Sunday, November 26, 2017

Vanishing Points and Big Skies


New Mexico Highway 104, a regular on these pages, slices a diagonal course from Tucumcari to Las Vegas or the reverse if you must know. It's a mighty scenic, mostly empty and a favorite in the Immel household. In April we traversed the road in both directions since it's the most direct path to and from I-40 and the mind-numbing boredom of freeway driving across the flats of eastern NM and Texas. While the tarmac twists and turns as you ascend from the nothingness of Tucumcari it runs arrow straight when you reach the height of land past Concha Lake, like a horizontal plumbline into slowly gentrifying Las Vegas. 

I have a thing about vanishing points and big skies don't hurt my feelings in the least.

Sunday, November 19, 2017

Precious moments


The lissome lass has leapt from Vermeer's easel it seems to me. The alabaster child and her loving papa pose serenely beneath a gnarly oak at the Taos Wool Festival and are the beneficiaries of the much ballyhooed open shade referenced in last week's post.

Sunday, November 12, 2017

Commending Open Shade


On occasion a street photograph enters the realm of environmental portraiture. This may be one. Two things were at play. First, this vendor at the Taos Wool Fest this year was awash with woolly garments and was posing pensively almost poignantly for my camera. That she had the grace to place herself in the open shade in front of her booth is a marvel of good modeling. 

Let’s raise a glass to a photographer’s best friend; the soft light provided by a canopy of something or other. Once again I attest to the glories of diffusion at midday. The stuff shot with direct sunlight moments before and after was harsh, harsher and harsherer.

Sunday, November 05, 2017

El pago en cash


This hand-written sign made me smile. Staffing that graveyard shift must be a bitch. If ever there was a blatant effort to beat the system this is one. Could they be more obvious? Apparently paying $12.00 an hour cash money for a dishwasher on the vaunted 12am -4am  shift Fridays and Saturdays is the only shot at getting a pearl diver. I've waited decades to use that term.

Ask yourself who in the hell would report at midnight for a four shift? $48.00 tax free dollars is, well, $48.00 tax free dollars. I get that.  But this is 2017, chico. This little Tacos al Carbon operation is throwing caution to the wind it seems to me. Does getting caught cheating Governor Brown’s Tax and Revenue department and the IRS mean anything to you? And, did I mention the INS and ICE?