Uli

Yesterday I was shooting a basic passport photo for my new friend Ulrich Gleiter, an incredibly talented young painter from Munich by way of the Repin Academy of Fine Arts in Saint Petersburg.  As I'm writing this today Uli is boarding his flight to Toronto or Montreal and then to Munich where he'll be desperate for sleep and a decent meal.  This shot is pretty much unmessed with.  And the next post or two will be a tad more adventurous.  You can google him.

Twisted Relationship

A kind of desolation is depicted by this twisted wire and the shallow depth of field that fades into the flat scrub land in the bright sun.  The fence separates a decaying corral in the fuzzy background from Highway 64 which will rise from high desert to more than 10,000 feet of alpine splendor in the next 25 miles.

Canale and Cloud

This image is more about shapes and spatial relationships than subject matter. But I do I like the way the solitary cloud directs the eye through the adobe and straight into the canale.  It's like the canale is the hood ornament and the cloud is the exhaust.

Skyward

The second leg of my Taos Three Step was these commercially produced tipis in Llanno Quemado just south of Ranchos de Taos.  The tent poles appear to pierce the clouds as if they point to the heavens.  It takes 12 or more poles to make a proper tipi.

Bonus Round

A couple of days ago I danced the Taos Three Step by photographing three iconic Taos subjects.  First were tepees or tipis that are manufactured just south of town, then famous Ranchos Church and finally the haunting Morada de la Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe, a lay chapel operated by the Penitente Brotherhood.  Penitente, penitent, penance, you get the picture.  Those guys don't have a lot of fun.  Anyway the blue door that I left blue in this toned black and white image seemed sinister or forbidding beneath the heavy sky.

Soft Box

If I could bring just one light source and modifier to a portrait shoot it would be a big flash and a fairly large softbox.  This I learned from the estimable Alan Thornton. The operative word here is "soft."  Put that baby a few inches from your subject and you get the roundest and, yes, "softest" effect imaginable.  Here the lovely Mizahn is caressed by a Profoto Flash and Chimera Medium Softbox.

Canale and Sky

What the world need more of is photographs of Ranchos Church.  The darn thing is so compelling that I still am drawn there from time to time as shown by this architectural with the canale against the dark sky and the vigas silhouetted against the luminous adobe.

Masters Cup

Most folks would say that I'm a black and white shooter.  That's why being nominated for the Masters Cup Color Award was such a treat. Here's "Salt Marsh, Moody Beach, Maine" which was chosen in the Professional Nature category.

Peralta's Pick-up

Iggy Peralta still drives his 1939 International Harvester pick-up every day. He even drives the glistening beast 70 miles to work. That's each way.

Scott Conley Guitar

This special posting is of the real Scott Conley guitar that I play. I posted an impostor a few weeks ago. Sorry Scott.

Girl with the golden earring

Mizahn is a model to be reckoned with. At 23 she has posed for more than ten years. She's uncanny with the camera as you can see.

Body Parts

The hood and fender meet just so on this abandoned vehicle in Death Valley. The roundness of the bent metal have a trace of the feminine.

Book of Solemnity

Ranchos Church may be the most photographed edifice in the US of A. It's always a treat to catch it in a way that hasn't been done several thousand times. Laying on one's back in the dirt at sundown is always an option

Evil Eye

There's an adage that says "It's better to apologize than ask permission." Or maybe it's "Shoot first and ask questions later." Either applies with this tribal elder who was none too pleased with this shot. It's a good thing there were 200mm of glass between us.

Exit Wound

This pick-up truck north of Taos has been photographed countless times and it's a challenge to capture it a fresh way. Focusing on the hole left by an apparent bullet seems to do this but begs the question, where did it enter?

Shades of Brown

This shallow focus detail of barb wire before a blurred sea of grass and dirt creates an elegant design from the most mundane of subjects.

After Stieglitz

Rose crossed her hands over her breasts in a pose reminiscent of Georgia O'Keefe as photographed by Alfred Stieglitz. Was it modesty or an homage to the photographer and his muse?

Eaves

This abstract shot of famed Santuario de Chimayo, sometimes called The Lourdes of North America, captures the overhanging roof line in deep shadow. It takes most folks a few seconds to figure out what it is.

My Guitar

My sweet Scott Conley guitar is a true work of art both musically and aesthetically. I bought it after playing hordes of beautiful instruments at Buck Dancer's in Portland, Maine. The sound blew my socks off and the waist and hip of the thing are downright sensuous

Blanca Peak and Neighbors

You don't get a lot of straight landscapes from me since I like to include an architectural or man made component whenever possible. None here unless you give me credit for the haystacks.

Open Book

As much as Ranchos Church had been painted and photographed over the years it has a way of showing a new face if you look closely enough. Such was the case in glowing sunset light.

Other World

This emerald green drainage channel of a salt farm in the Mohave Desert was too weird to pass up. The enormous evaporation operation is the primary employer for the tiny village of Amboy. It would take an unusual character to embrace the Amboy life.

Heavy Silence

The sculler's stroked silently as the early morning fog clung to the Connecticut River in Putney, Vermont.

Agave

This photograph played a big role in switching from film to digital way way back. Taken with a five megapixel point and shoot it had acuity and tons of sweet mid-tones. I had recently purchased a new 4x5 but soon bagged the big box and bought an early Canon 1Ds.

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.