Ranchitos Fog

The fog hung like a gauzy cloak over the grass and nettles on my little ranch in the flats of Taos.

Air of Melancholy

This one's late folks. On the road and life's a blur. The model here gazes inwardly or so it seems. Later she bid me adieu saying that she was nursing a hangover the size of Montana. Only Alaska, Texas and Montana have bigger morning afters.

Outdoor Dining

This was shot from directly above the stool and table after a light rain. The spoon punctuates the forms in a tableau of the ordinary.

Suspension

I like the way this wire gate hangs suspended between crude posts. The dirt road beyond meanders south into the barrens of sage and chamisa.

Barnicles

Often the most compelling photographs make you wonder what you're looking at. Such is the case with these barnicles on a large rock shaped like a ship's prow in Monhegan Island harbor.

Latch

In honor of the passing winter here's the hood of a favorite relic with a cozy blanket of fresh snow.

White Caps

I've often used the Great Sand Dunes of southern Colorado as an analogy for the ocean. Here the snow tipped ridges of jagged sand formations feel very much like light chop on a frigid sea.

Zoom Zoom Zoom

The arid expanse of West Texas is called the South Plains. This is oil and farming country that seems bleak in its austere nothingness. It's a place that saw its apex many, many years ago. A shuttered grain elevator in the sleepy town of Sudan is emblematic of the shallow decline that grips the Texas Panhandle.

Rio Seco

This wide, dry river twists through the Pojoaque Pueblo about 20 miles north of Santa Fe. In the background looms Truchas Peak and a monumental sky for which New Mexico is justly famous.

Totem

Some enterprising soul created this monument to manual labor in rural New Mexico. We can't know the impetus but it's skyward aim is compelling.

Ferrous Abstraction

One day in northern New Hampshire I chanced upon a graveyard of heavy equipment. As happens from time to time this was one of those places and moments when the photography gods were smiling.

Statuesque

Her back is quite powerful and beautiful at the same time.

Bunker Mentality

Battery Godfrey in San Francisco's Presidio is the gift that keeps on giving. Just couldn't take a bad shot in the place. As the fog moved through the WW1 battlement took on an eerie quality.

Lace

The delicate lines of this fence against the snowy white backdrop are particularly lyrical.

Taos Tipis

In the nineteenth century tipis (the right spelling) were made from hides but these 2010 versions are fabricated with heavy duty canvas. I'd been waiting for fresh snow and overcast skies to capture these imposing tents braced against the wind and single digit temperatures.

Verticality

For my money the early nineteenth century San Jose de Gracia church in Las Trampas, New Mexico is the photogenic equal of the more famous San Francisco de Asis usually known as Ranchos Church. This architectural detail depicts the the hand mudded iglesia looking quite contemporary with its vertical ebbs and flows.

Florence Junction

This sad little edifice sits in a sea of Saguaro cactus aptly named Cactus Forest. The sign on the building indicates that it was once called the Doll House begging the question of whether it was a store selling dolls or a strip club in the middle of, well, nowhere.

See No Evil

Chimayo Christmas

In a rare splash of color here's the Santuario de Chimayo, often called the "Lourdes of America" for the curative powers of its sacred healing dirt. This early evening shot captures the Christmas glow of the adobe chapel that was built in 1816. The Santuario or Sanctuary is considered the most important Catholic pilgrimage site in the U.S.

The rest of the story

This is the flip side of Wrenching Sadness that was posted last week. It speaks for itself.

Wrenching Sadness

The inscription carved into this crude wooden headstone memorializes little Amari Rose who lived but one day. The tragedy of her loss is amplified by the lonely location of her grave at the top of a hill by a barb wire fence in a bleak New Mexico ghost town. And in winter as if for emphasis.

Sod Buster

I was taken by the austerity of this old farmhouse. The spare geometric nature of the simple building reverberates with the barren plain that surrounds it.

Frontier Drive-in

The Frontier Drive In has been closed for as long as I can remember. The property is littered with the hulks of junked travel trailers, cars and a sinister building with a school bus out back. You don't know if it's really abandoned or still inhabited by some freak with a chainsaw.

All Fall Down

Nestled against the towering mountains lies the hippy dippy village of Crestone, Colorado. This corner cottage decays one brick and galvanized strip at a time while offering a melancholy counterpoint to the pristine peaks just behind it.

Welcome. We're Closed.

Rice, California said adios in the seventies. Situated in the Mojave Desert maybe 50miles from Blythe the empty crossroads has been left to die. All that's left is the shell of gas station and dozens of idle railroad cars.

Plastic Flowers and Rust

Here's yet another shot from the redoubtable Elizabethtown, New Mexico. There's a whole series to be made from this thoughtfully decorated slowly disintegrating old convertable on the hillside.

Lonely Planet

Continuing our theme of desperate dead ends in America we offer another look at beautiful downtown Keeler, California. The once bustling mining mecca is one more Owens River Valley community left for dead by LA's unquenchable thirst for water.

Moffat Church RIP

According to locals Moffat, Colorado's protestant church closed its doors six years ago. The church was unsafe and too expensive to heat for the 114 residents of the withering town. Once a bustling mining and ranching community of 2,500 and a likely state capitol it has become little more than a wide spot in the road.

This isn't Kansas any more, Toto.

If it weren't for the Sangre de Cristos rising to 14,000 feet in the background this shell of a farm house might be in western Kansas or Nebraska. Instead it resides in the San Luis Valley of southern Colorado. At 7,500 feet and measuring 121 miles long and 74 miles wide the San Luis is the largest alpine valley in the world.

Cemetary Hill

At at about 9000 feet in the rugged Sangre de Cristo mountains Elizabethtown is a treasure trove of memories. The town's graveyard sits on a hilltop with a commanding view of the Moreno Valley. This particularly handsome grave lies at the highest point on cemetary hill.

Water Tanks

The wide spot in the road called Nageezi, New Mexico is part of the Navajo Nation and lies far from any significant population center. Without water there is no life so these white tanks symbolize that a few souls actually live and procreate on this unforgiving patch of earth.

Crossing Pattern

Con Trails and highlines cross in the blue sky above Santa Fe. On my way to photograph The City Different's Saturday market I looked up to see this wonderful design forming above me.

Big, Empty

This bleak image is one my entries in the Taos Fall Arts Invitational that opens this weekend. The unforgiving scene reflects the utter desolation of the dying town of Keeler, California where a dozen or so oddballs defy 120 degree summers and bone chilling winters to be alone in its wrenching beauty.

Sirens of the West Mesa

This is about as far from a bridge in the fog as you can get. Aerialists in lingerie for heaven's sake. With the sun dropping below the western horizon these ladies performed lofty feats of derring while suspended from a crane-like structure high above the desert.

The Bridge to Nowhere

The fog moved slowly westward with patches of sunlight exposing the Golden Gate Bridge. In this image vehicles disappear into nothingness and the fearsome prospect of a nosedive into the straights below.

Cloaked in Fog

The fog off the bay made this image seem out of focus when, in fact, stationary objects in the picture are tack sharp. Part of this impression was accomplished by using a very long exposure to capture the ephemeral and mysterious nature of the slowly moving fog.

Rose's Eyes

Rose has elaborate tattoos and baleful eyes. Here those magical eyes are set off by alabaster skin that seems to have never seen the sun.

And Another Thing

This one is for you neo-cons (you know who you are) who think last week's high key post was not "a Steve Immel photograph." Taken in the same lighting conditions, this image is closer to an 'as shot' shot where I haven't blown the bejeezus out of the background. Whaddaya like?

Nima

My friend Steve Ray and I photographed the glorious Nima Nejad at the Presidio of San Francisco. The morning floated from fog to sun and back again as we shot him in the long closed battlements that line the bay within sight of the Golden Gate Bridge. With a light gray hoodie and gray sky this shot lent itself to a high key interpretation that fused the garment with the fog.

Dado

The dude walks into a room and all eyes are riveted on his wispy and white chin feathers. After 27 years in the military he now works for the BLM . He's also a photography buff who buys lenses as a hobby. His latest is some slow 1300mm. Gotta see him hand hold that beast. "But it was cheap", sez Dado. There's that.

Early Grave

The hilltop cemetary in Elizabethtown is strewn with humble gravestones and makeshift adornments. The teddy bear decorating the grave of a young child was especially poignant. Winter's last snow clung to the ground rendering the moment achingly sad and simply beautiful

Crossed Arms

This torso belongs to the disembodied legs several entries ago. I'm fond of the way the sun highlights the model's right arm. Naturally lit, this image depicts healthy athleticism and natural beauty.

Meeting Place

America's tallest dunes are 800 feet high and lie just beneath the 14,000 foot high Sangre de Cristo mountains in southern Colorado. These amazing hills of sand are blown off and formed again by winds that scour the San Luis Valley to their west.

Ornamentation

Elizabethtown, New Mexico is almost a ghost town. There may be a dozen residents today. Along with a smattering of abandoned buildings and a captivating little cemetary was the hulk of a thirties vintage automobile that some creative soul had decorated with plastic flowers. The effect was much like flowers placed on a grave to honor the departed.

Camera Magnet

It's funny how some folks love the camera and the camera returns the favor. Alain Comeau is such a character. He's not classicly handsome but definitely has the French thing going on. Easy to use. Easy to shoot. Works like a charm.

All Legs

My model was in a classic beach position on the mantel of a kiva fireplace in an old hacienda. As a globetrotting professional figure model the hardest thing to get was an unposed appearing shot. This image seemed to accomplish two things; to be both natural and abstract at the same time. The light was through a skylight that was diffused through a scrim mounted just above her

Decommisioned

The sun was low in the sky when I photographed the Frontier Drive-in near Antonito, Colorado. Defunct along with the closed theatre was this line up of decommisioned trailers; four of which were gleaming aluminum. Their reflective surfaces punctuated the scene as the 14,000 foot Sangre de Cristos rose above the San Luis Valley.

Butternut Squash

Occasionally I revisit a significant photograph from the past. This one of a bushel of Butternut Squash was taken just after leaving the Fryeburg Fair in western Maine. The weather outside was frightful or threatening to get that way fast. There was a gentle mist at the moment the image was made. The even light produced lovely mid-tones and tremendous luminosity. The richness of this image sealed my decision to go digital from capture to print. That was late September 2003.

Muffler Art

I've photographed a defunct gallery called "Outsider Art" on numerous occasions. Quirky assemblages of mechanical flotsam and jetsam adorn the exterior offering limitless still lifes and abstract compositions. This muffler welded vertically was the clear focal point of this image.

At the Marienplatz

On our way to some glorious back country skiing in Austria we spent three grand days in Munich and one beer soaked night the its famous Hofbrau Haus. The heart of the Bavarian Capitol's Old Town is the broad urban plaza called the Marienplatz. This ornate building once housed the state's legislature. A light rain had just fallen leaving the air clean and the details of the grand ediface ever so sharp.