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.