Curating Two

I was driving the Enchanted Circle with the extraordinary photographer David Michael Kennedy last year. He was on a reconnaissance trip to prepare for an upcoming photo tour with frequent clients. We drove to the height of land in the village of Lama where I knew of a stash of abandoned homesteads that might appeal. This window framed the sky beyond so I called it just that, Sky Beyond.

More than 20 years ago I was exploring the sleepy downtown of Bartlett, NH. What had been the general store in the the hamlet was long shuttered and would soon be leveled in the name of progress. That factoid speaks to the need to photograph that withering thing you've passed a hundred times before it goes the way of the Bartlett store. It wasn't until I was processing the file that I saw that the photograph was really about the sky, the Reflected Sky.

Perhaps fifteen years ago I was shooting the cover photograph for the Taos Art School's catalog. The owner had arranged for the truck's owner to park his pristine 1939 International pick-up truck in front of Ranchos Church. You can see it's famous adobe buttresses beyond. It's called Iggy Peralta's Pick-up.

At the bottom of our street in San Miguel de Allende was a street light and a tangle of wires. It, as always, began as a color image but leant itself to the spot color treatment we know and love. It is Night Light.

Rusting away in the abandoned mining camp, Elizabeth Town, NM, was a convertible that some artistic soul had decorated with plastic flowers as if it were a grave. I call it Adornment. 

Continuing our ruthless culling of the brace of possibles for Immel + Immel Side by Side in , here are five more victims for your critiques and comments. Other than captions that describe the place, time, and circumstances of their capture, that’s photo speak for taking the picture, these candidates will speak for themselves. That opinions are personal and that no two eyes see things the same way was illustrated last week when some people choose Pozos Gold as the best of the five image batch while others didn’t think it stood up to the other the other four contenders. For what it's worth it was my favorite of that grouping.