Language of the Land

Wagon Ruts was taken on a photo safari down US 285 which crosses New Mexico from the Colorado line in the northwest to the Texas border in the southeast. I was approaching Cline's Corners near I-40 when I saw these tracks heading east to the distant foothills. The contrails top right made the difference on December 3 , 2010.

 
This post kind of writes itself. As you probably know I’ve been a contributor to the online photography magazine, Shadow and Light, for four years now. I’ve been proud to be part of it and it’s helped me hone my writing chops and learn to meet a deadline.

Heading west on my annual wine country jaunt I caught a glimpse of these amazing cliffs and billowing clouds east of Gunnison, Colorado. I got off at the next exit, flipped a U-turn and meandered through a housing development to the height of land next to I-70 where I got this shot. It was August 11, 2013. It's called Book Cliffs because that's their name.

I was caught in a sandstorm with gale force winds near Shiprock, New Mexico this spring. I braced myself against the car and photographed Band of Sand on May 11, 2022.

Walking Rain on the Navajo Nation taken on August 19, 2013.

This Vanishing Point is on the Pine Ridge Reservation near Wanblee, South Dakota on July 5. 2013

I had written my article, What’s Left, for the September-October issue of Shadow and Light only to discover that publisher Tim Anderson was introducing a special issue, Language of the Land. So he would run the September-October story in November-December instead. “You should submit to the landscape issue” he told me, “Some of your stuff could be a fit.” So, it wasn’t a lock, and I knew the competition would be fierce.

When the initial results were published, I didn’t think I’d made the cut and was mighty disappointed. No, the real word is embarrassed. Then I was relieved to find out it was an oversight, and a small portfolio of my black and white images would be included in the issue. If these babies weren’t good enough, I’d have had to resign my commission or commit hari-kari whichever is worse.

Here are the entries Tim’s panel of experts selected from the eleven I submitted. Getting to eleven from many dozens was in itself a dizzying task.