Sunday, November 10, 2024

Connections

Connections is the November-December article in Shadow and Light Magazine.  It’s about encounters that occur quite by chance with strangers who tell me the arc of their lives or the most important events in them. Here I offer snippets that are part of longer stories. These highlights offer a glimpse of what I heard, felt and remember. All three approached me and my welcoming countenance. Each was a gift.


Rudy Mauldin

When I told Rudy Mauldin that I live in Taos, he said, “It’s a neat town.”

I replied that, “It certainly is but there’s a palpable separation of the cultures and simmering resentment beneath the surface.”

 “Tell me about it. I went to high school in Pojoaque and got my ass kicked more times than I can remember. It was so bad I was hospitalized with ulcers.” 


Ken Tingsley

I was photographing the Rio Hondo when Ken Tingsley yelled, “Take my picture. I’m getting married today.

I was taken startled but intrigued so I said, “Sure.”

I took a handful of photographs at the overlook and we walked back to Tingsley’s Trailer. He stepped into the trailer, poured himself two inches of whiskey and pointed at a makeshift altar. “See that photograph? That’s my late son. I’m wearing his tee shirt right now.”


Cristiana

I sensed someone behind me as I photographed the alley behind Main Street in Santa Paula, California.

I turned around and a woman asked, “Mind if I photograph the artist at work?”

I told her to “ Go for it.  I’m Steve.”

She responded, “I’m Cristiana."

I told her, “I love connecting with a stranger like we’re doing right now.”

She responded, “That happens when you feel safe with a person. Like I feel with you.”


Each of these meetings was the subject of a blog post which was more fulsome than these snapshots.

Each connection was life affirming and joyous. They filled my chest and pointed me down the highway of discovery. Meeting Rudy Mauldin propelled me south on US 285 toward Marfa, Texas, elated and excited about my newest friend.

I have thirty such experiences that may grow till they fill an album of portraits and stories about strangers who became a friends on my long highway of life.

Sunday, November 03, 2024

The creative life and other fables

San Antonio Chapel #1

I’ve been giving a lot of thought to creativity and the Creative Life. I'm contemplating my own, that of my wife and people whose very existence is creativity. It permeates those lives completely. At least two couples are creative in the art they produce and the way they live. Their lives are imbued with creativity in all things: the way they set a table, pour wine, bake fresh bread, and make their home and land oases of earthly pleasures.

San Antonio Chapel #2

I’m seeing this through the prism of couplehood, of course.

Yet, I wonder if my life is truly creative even if I do produce something artful most days. Am I driven to do creative things because my soul requires it, or do I post a blog weekly and write a magazine article bimonthly because it’s an obligation and there’s a deadline? I fear that I know the answer and it gives me pause. The fact that I’ve photographed with artistic intent exactly once since I returned from the California Coast may offer a clue. That's more than a month. The proceeds of that meager effort live herein. 


San Antonio Chapel # 4

This is the San Antonio Chapel in Angel Fire, New Mexico. The picture book house of worship resides in a lush valley at 8,500 feet five miles east of the ski resort which might as well be Texas.


Sunday, October 27, 2024

More to the Point

North Beach #1

North Beach #2

I’m knocking out these words as I shuffle between setting up a new computer, prepare to spend the weekend in Santa Fe celebrating the Harvey House railroad hotels, and writing my article for the November-December issue of Shadow and Light. It’s due Wednesday and I haven't really started. The easy way out for the blog and the article is to wrap up my California Coast photo safari with a last nod to the Point Reye National Seashore. Smiley Face. The other choice is to weave together stories of First Encounters, those fleeting yet amazing moments when I’ve met someone at the side of the road, in the middle of nowhere or in a dive bar and have said adios a few minutes later knowing the most important things in their life. To date I have dozen or so if I don’t bend the rule. The rule being that it’s a first and only encounter. I’d have dozens more if I were more in the moment, listened better and thought to photograph my subject when I had the chance. As recently as last Thursday I had my old computer cloned. It took two visits. In the visit to pick-up the old and new machines I learned the arc of the repair dude’s life. But it didn’t occur to me to get his picture. Does it count If I go back to the shop to get his photograph?

North Beach #3

North Beach #4

And speaking of magazine articles, First Encounters will be the subject of the Shadow and Light article. That’s the working title. Other contenders are Encounters of the First Kind, Fast Friends, Snap Shots, First Takes, First Impressions, blah blah.

To the surprise of absolutely nobody here are four shots of Point Reyes’ North Beach on my last day on the coast. Mr. Easy Way Out that’s me.

Parallel horizons and surf. Check. Birds, too.

Sunday, October 20, 2024

The Gift

Petaluma to Point Reyes #1

Petaluma to Point Reyes #2

After photographing Point Lobos with Rupert Chambers I followed my nose north toward Sonoma, West Marin and its crown jewel, Point Reyes. From the moment I discovered my computer didn’t function on my first afternoon in Cayucos I was off my game. I couldn’t focus, literally or figuratively. Everything I posted from the coast was taken with my trusty iPhone. That thing saved me my sorry ass. So instead of aborting my adventure and driving back to Taos I plodded on through an storm of rookie mistakes. Poor depth of field and shutter speed combinations were rampant. Rain speckled lenses went unaddressed. I was a mess. And while there were worthy photographs from Cayucos, Morro Bay and Point Lobos my batting average was underwater.

Petaluma to Point Reyes #3

Petaluma to Point Reyes #4

Despite all I would soon encounter scenes that were magical. In Moss Landing and Davenport I got nothing. The only highlight of the Carmel to Sonoma stretch was a stellar cappuccino in Half Moon Bay. But after my first night in Petaluma and some killer BBQ, I hit the bricks at the crack of 7 and drove toward Point Reyes Station and my real target, Point Reyes National Seashore. On the 20 mile Petaluma to Point Reyes Road I had a mood-altering moment when I encountered the farmland between Petaluma and the Coast blanketed with fog. What a game changer it was. Coastal fog was the inspiration but inland fog was the gift.

Sunday, October 13, 2024

Stacks and Rocks

Murky Morning. Cayucos Beach.

Surfers. Cayucos Beach.

Sea Stack. South Beach.

Before I meandered toward Morro Bay on September 10th I braved the morning fog and drizzle on Cayucos Beach for one last shot of the empty strand. Then I drove to the southern most point on the beach for a photograph of two surfers walking south and another of a sea stack cloaked with cormorants. Five miles south I entered Morro Bay and drove straight to Morro Rock for a wide view back at downtown Morro Bay and the smokestacks that still stand after the power plant closed a dozen years ago. A sailboat motored to open water along spit of land.

Power plant in fog. Morro Bay.

Motoring to open water. Morro Bay.

Since the power plant closed the plan has been to demolish it, but the town can’t afford to tear it down. It’s a situation that suits most locals just fine. To them and to me for that matter the three stacks and Morro Rock are the symbols of the tourist town. The town’s nickname is “Three Stacks and a Rock” after all.

I’m more drawn to the stacks than the rock anyway, especially in dense fog.

Sunday, October 06, 2024

I spent a week in Cayucos one night

Dense fog, mist and surf, Cayucos Pier

Pilings, Cayucos Pier

Morning stroll. Cayucos Pier.

Into the fog, Cayucos Pier

The first evening and morning of my West Coast photo safari were spent on the beach in Cayucos which is 25 miles give or take from Paso Robles, my usual stop. But since it was 106 in Paso and a cooling 71 in Cayucos, I had made the right call. As for fog there was plenty. Then it drizzled Saturday evening which darkened the sky, muted the colors and brought even more mood to the scene. I am nothing if not a sucker for moody tableaus.

Cayucos, on the other hand, was almost forlorn. It felt like its time had passed. I couldn’t find a good seafood dinner and wound up in an empty saloon with a world weary bartender, two Chicago dogs and an IPA. Not quite the first night I dreamed of. Cayucos was sleepy. Morro Bay ten miles to the south was bustling but a tourist trap and Cambria fifteen miles up the coast might have been a better call. I reckon that's how you learn.

Today it’s all Cayucos all the time. Next up some Morro Bay and north to Sonoma, West Marin and Point Reyes. That's where the fun starts. Point Reyes is my north star o' the moment as you have learned already.

Sunday, September 29, 2024

Point Lobos Horizons

Point Lobos #1

Point Lobos #2

Point Lobos #3

Point Lobos wasn’t my first stop on my recent California Coast photo safari. That honor belongs to Cayucos and Morro Bay. But since I photographed Point Lobos with my friend Rupert Chambers it gets top billing. Rupert lived in Taos with his wife Suzanne till the high altitude took its toll, moved to San Diego’s North County before a seller’s market drove them to the outskirts of Orange County and finally to Carmel. As he tells it every passing day the price of a habitable abode went up $100,000. It was insane. I told Rupert that Carmel, Monterey and Pacific Grove are the sources of my first memories of place and terrain. It was at the end of World War Two. I was in kindergarten and living with my mother in Salinas. Later in the Sixties Carmel was the place of Peggy’s and my dreams. So, the pull of Carmel and the Central Coast is longstanding and strong.

Rupert Chambers, a Leica man through and through, at Point Lobos.

Rupert proudly boasts that it’s 10 minutes from their home in Del Mesa Carmel to Edward Weston’s beloved Point Lobos. It’s no wonder that he posts an image from Point Lobos or elsewhere on the Coast to Instagram every single day nor is it a surprise that his images are stunning and infused with his love for the enchanting place. Rupert Chambers is a happy man.

He shared Point Lobos with me one marvelous September day.

Sunday, September 22, 2024

Photo shows and iPhone dreams

Rolling Surf on North Beach with the Point Reyes Headland buried in distant fog.

A shimmer of light on the Salt Marsh south of Point Reyes Station

An organic dairy farm kisses the Pacific at land's end on Point Reyes.

Life threw me a curve ball on Wednesday when artist Mark Gould who operates the Sliver 815 Art Space in his wife’s Taos Lifestyle home store asked if I would be part of a four person photography exhibition. He was mounting a show to open Friday, September 27 and one of the photographers had cancelled. I would be the substitute if I accepted and if Rob Nightingale the owner of Wilder Nightingale Fine Art in Taos agreed to the arrangement. Happily, Rob thought it was “a good idea” and I said yes. Pinch hitting for Taos’s best known photographer meant a mad scramble to assemble already framed photographs. Mark and I hung the show at Sliver 815 Saturday. If I had a brain I'd have taken a photograph of my wall and the show Light it Up would be the subject of today's post. Oh but no.

Which leads to today’s modest offering of more iPhone images. That trusty old iPhone 11 Pro has bailed me out once again.

All are from my beloved Point Reyes.  As you read this I have downloaded and processed exactly one of the six memory cards from my coastal photo safari two weeks ago. Photographs from that card and others will be reflected in several posts I expect. Imagine that. Real photographs from  a real camera.

Sunday, September 15, 2024

Up an estuary without a paddle

Headland, Point Reyes

Salt marsh, Drake’s Estuary 

Drakes Estuary, Point Reyes.




I feel like a boxer with one fist tied behind his back. Or more to the point I”m a photographer who can see the images on the SD card in his camera but can’t download and process the files because my laptop PC won’t turn on much less show images on the screen in front of me. This situation announced itself on Saturday, September 7 in my room in Cayucos, California. So, now nine days later I have six memory cards to download and develop and I have no computer.

This has put a real damper on my spirits as you can imagine. I’ve lost sleep over the prospects that I cannot post my weekly blog post except with iPhone photographs and text from my trusty iPad. That’s what happened last week by the by and will continue this way till my PC is repaired or I buy a new one. Both will be attempted at first light on Monday. The renegade machine will be delivered to Electric Sheep in Taos when they open and I will order a new unit before noon. The sad thing is that I have been gnashing teeth for weeks about the purchase. Now, of course, I wish I’d done it earlier and I would have saved myself the misery I’ve felt all week. The new machine will take a couple of weeks to be built and delivered and the repair, if possible. Should take less time. My worry is that it can’t be fixed and, worse, I’ll lose all the information on it. I’m a nervous wreck to tell you the truth.

Sunday, September 08, 2024

The Contenders Are

Found Art, Rinconada, New Mexico

Butternut Squash, East Conway, New Hampshire

Tubular, Colebrook, New Hampshire

Hubbard Squash, East Conway, New Hampshire

Last week I said I’d disclose my four selections for submissions to ArtsThrive 2025, the prestigious juried exhibition that benefits the Albuquerque Museum Foundation, the fund raising and outreach arm of the Albuquerque Museum. The annual show is sweeping in its range of visual arts, every kind, and scope. There are 135 artists represented and more than 400 artworks. So, it’s a big deal and I would submit the finest annual juried exhibition in New Mexico, and it’s not close.

In short, I have been a proud participant for two years and have crossed fingers that I’ll make the cut again next year. It’s not a gimme. The competition is outstanding. I take nothing for granted, that’s for sure.

Choosing the portfolio from which to pick my four entries was a tough task. I think these images from the Found Art series work together beautifully though I'd be proud of four images from any of the portfolios, Under a Big Sky, At the Edge of What’s Left, Sketches of Winter and Found Art. Ultimately, I chose Found Art because I like the way the four photographs look. flow and feel together. At the top of the page are those images in the order in which I would hang them.

You’ve got to make the call at some point. And this is the way I’ve called it. Which is not to say that I’ve haven’t second and third guessed myself. Boy, four of those sky images would have been strong. Wouldn’t Presbyterian Church and other places that have been left behind be powerful?  Blah, blah.

Now I’ve done it. In the words of several thousand sages of art, “Don’t do it for anybody else. Do it for you.” May I paraphrase, “Screw ‘em if they can’t take a joke.”

Sunday, September 01, 2024

Portfolio Envy

Leading up to my September article, Into the Fog, for Shadow and Light magazine was the arduous task of selecting the images to submit to ArtsThrive 2025 at the Albuquerque Museum. I worry that I vest too much psychic energy in choosing work for any juried show. Perhaps I want it too much. Choosing is the hard part. I know that I have in my vast stores of photographs ones that will be accepted and that will sell. But which ones are they? Damned if I know.

In my winnowing, there’s that word again, I’ve sought order in the process by selecting the portfolios from which my images will be chosen. Further, in the search for cohesion, all four of my submissions will be from a single portfolio. In principle, they belong together as if hung on a gallery wall.

While I have a nine portfolios, I have chosen five to consider. The other four, while worthy, aren't a fit for a Southwestern show, like The Fog Series which is too coastal and might not sell, or like Monumental Heads because portraits don't unless they're of a loved one. In no particular order the nominees are below. Visualize that each of these are examples of the theme and style of the four images submission.


Under a Big Sky 

Book Cliffs, Grand Junction, Colorado

At the Edge of What’s Left

Presbyterian Church, Taiban, New Mexico

Found Art

Found Art, Rinconada, New Mexico

Sketches of Winter

Lines of Defence, Brazos Pass, New Mexico

The Last Shepherd

Winter Dance, Taos San Luis Valley, Colorado

Based on these single images which theme would you choose? 

Next week you'll see the portfolio and the four photographs I submitted.

Sunday, August 25, 2024

The fogs of a lifetime


Farm in Fog on the road to Ukiah. 1969.

Silent Running, Putney Vermont. 2005.

The Bridge to Nowhere. San Francisco. 2009.

Canopy. Point Reyes National Seashore. 2013

Three weeks of exploring the Fog Series, the photographs from which my article in September’s Shadow and Light magazine will come, culminate with a short look back at the long history of the series. It all began in 1969 though I didn’t know it at the time. That first image, Farm in Fog, and the feelings I felt when I saw the farm, stopped our VW on the road to Ukiah and made the photograph are as fresh as yesterday. That it took 36 years to identify a second image for the nascent series is evidence of my inattention. It’s not like I didn’t see any fog between 1969 and 2005. We lived near the ocean in Massachusetts for 25 of those years for heaven’s sake. And a tidal river was a block away in the mid-Seventies.

The second image from 2005, Silent Running, was made on the socked-in Connecticut River during the Putney Rowing Regatta in southern Vermont. I was tagging along with my friend the writer and photographer John Snyder who was on a magazine assignment. Then in 2009 while on a fashion shoot at the Presidio of San Francisco I made a dozen or more fog shots including The Bridge to Nowhere taken the Presidio of San Francisco. I didn’t put it all together till a fourth photograph in 2013, Canopy, from the Point Reyes National Seashore in West Marin County, California signaled that The Fog Series had become just that, a series. It only took 55 years. But who's counting.

Sunday, August 18, 2024

Riches to Riches in the land of plenty: Sonoma here I come.

Bishop Pines and horizon line on Bodega Bay.

The sun burns through in Tomales.

Depth of Field in Valley Ford.

As was the case last week these images were made in California fog, specifically along the Sonoma Coast. They lean toward abstraction and the shapes within seek interpretation. They’re details rather than landscapes.

The soul of Sonoma is agriculture so wherever you look is a tilled field, a farm, a dairy or a vineyard. Gifts from the soil and the cheese, bread and wine from nature’s abundance are what makes Sonoma my very favorite place.  Then there's the seafood. Don't get me started on freshly shucked oysters at the Marshall Store on Tomales Bay, cheeses at the Cowgirl Creamery in Point Reyes Station, and the best pastries ever at the Route One Bakery in Tomales. My list of tastes to be rediscovered is long but I have a big appetite. There's wine to be quaffed in Sonoma I'm told.

Happily, I will soon be savoring Sonoma and West Marin after a absence of five years. What was an annual pilgrimage before Covid will begin again. I am giddy with with giddiness.

Sunday, August 11, 2024

Otherworldly treasures

Pines and fence line. The Presidio of San Francisco.

Sea Grass. Cayucos, California.

As thick as it gets. Cayucos Beach.

The bridge to nowhere. The Golden Gate Bridge from Battery Godfrey in the Presidio of San Francisco.

At least two probably more of my most satisfying photographic moments were fog cloaked mornings on the California coast. Correction. Four were in Coastal California and another was at a rowing regatta on the Connecticut River nearly 20 years ago. Photographing in thick fog is almost too easy. The dense, mysterious otherworldly atmosphere makes every shot magical. I guess that’s the reason that picking ten for Shadow and Light out of a hundred is such a scramble.

Today’s offerings come from the Central Coast and San Francisco. All were taken in early morning soup. The San Francisco image was accidental. A friend and I had hired a model but when he was half an hour late, I was able to play near fog shrouded Battery Godfrey with the Golden Gate Bridge disappearing into the murk.

Succinct is my middle name at least for today.