Lynn Canterbury, Mountain Man

Usually I find an image to post by going through digital files that relate to the theme of the moment, in this case portraits. Today, though, a print jumped out at me, grabbed me by the shorts and demanded representation.

Prompted by the print I searched for the original file. It wasn’t in its rightful home, the Monumental Heads portfolio. So, I photographed the print on the top of the stereo cabinet in the living room window, handheld no less.

Lynn Canterbury is later day frontiersman, mountain man reenactor and a maker of tools from the early nineteenth century. This was taken at Lynn’s Alcalde (mayor in English) New Mexico home in a living room crammed with things being crafted and materials for a myriad of projects.

My best guess is that this was taken about ten years ago on an excursion led by my great friend Lindsey Enderby, the lapsed lawyer and full-time raconteur.

Come to think of it, that day whenever it was, was a fine one for portraits. Lovely open shade and good, good, good, good vibrations.

Another man in a hat: Fedora Issue

Peter Lev is a big time rock and ice climber as well as a noted avalanche forecaster. He calls the later skill a black art, one that’s more a crap shoot than a precise science. Like our dear friend George Hurley, Peter got his first taste of vertical rock while a student at the University of Colorado in the late fifties. That passion morphed into an ownership stake in famed Exum Mountain Guides in Moose, Wyoming which is the oldest climbing school in the United States.

Now a resident of Lead, North Dakota, pronounced lead as in leader not lead as in led, Peter continues to climb the famed Needles in Custer State Park, a state park that rivals many a National Park for shear grandeur. This candid photograph happened over adult beverages in the town of Hot Springs during a climbing trip. Matter of fact, George was in attendance, too.

The man has a great mug but he winced about this depiction. Said it made him look older than his years. I feel his pain.

A man and his hat

Troy Brown left our company last year. I had the pleasure of attending a party in his memory at his beloved cabin in Taos Ski Valley last summer. I can say “pleasure” because it was an upbeat do hosted by his wife of more than fifty years. She and Troy were high school sweethearts may be even grammar school. Her name is Peggy so when Troy and I talked about our wives the terms we used the terms ‘my Peggy’ and ‘your Peggy.’

Troy was a fine watercolorist whose work reflected his architectural training and practice back in Texas.

The well-worn hat was his trademark

The height of disinterest

Continuing the portrait series here's a ten year old shot of an unnamed model during a photo session at the state prison on the Turquoise Trail south of Santa Fe. It was taken under a wooden guard tower if memory serves. So, it was in open shade and with a single white reflector to provide fill. The young woman was wearing a monster hang over and was as interested as her face suggests. It comes across melancholy but was outright boredom.