Fly Ways

Late last winter we drove to Socorro and through the Bosque Del Apache National Wildlife Sanctuary for some of the best bird watching in the southwest.  Bosque Del Apache which means “woods of the Apache” lies in the flood plain of the Rio Grande River in central New Mexico.  The bosque is home to more than 500 species of birds most notably the Sand Hill Crane, Blue Heron, Snow Goose and the rare Least Bittern.  The Least Bittern, I’m sure you know, is one of the smallest Herons.  Quiz to follow.

I’m no birder but I am impressed by the sight of a bizillion Snow Geese wintering in balmy New Mexico.  Balmy at least compared the Arctic tundra where they hatched and first took flight.  They spend half the year migrating to and from the frozen north and as far south as Mexico.  Calories provided by some of America’s richest farms and fields along the route.

 

 

 

 

Connective Tissue

Rarely do I do a follow up post.  Here's one.  The railroad car shown above displays the words Emmett Kelly painted over the words Santa Fe as you can see.  We can deduce that Emmett’s name was affixed at a later time probably after the car was decommssioned or sold to the Verde Canyon Railroad. 

This follow up is prompted by an email from my long time friend Lenny Levenson in Florida.  It seems that Lenny posted today’s blog post to flikr and that elicited a response from Emmett Kelly’s son-in-law Steve Woodburn.   This is all this morning, folks.  Mr. Woodburn said that Emmett had retired to Arizona where he became active in civic affairs and he was likely honored for his good works with the Emmett Kelly rail car.  That’s as logical a scenario as any.  But another friend Jim Rogers in Dallas wondered if Kelly had been a big enough star to warrant his own car.  I had wondered as much.  Then I did a little research that indicated Kelly died and was buried near his home in Sarasota.  That muddys the water a tad until you compute that Sarasota is the winter home of the Ringling Brothers circus and it's fitting that he be buried there.  One supposition begets another question.

But mostly this is about the magical and speedy connection the internet and social media can make between humans and information.  I'm amazed and a little inspired by the interaction bred by a post to a relatively minor blog and it's extended reach through social media.  I connect with Lenny and Jim.  Lenny connects with Steve Woodburn and back to me.  I post the whole shebang and the circle starts anew.  As Lenny said, “Small world.” 

Railroad Redux

It turns out that I’ve photographed the Verde Canyon Railroad in Clarkdale, Arizona on at least three occasions, the first in 2004 and the most recent a week ago.  One of my first shots from the railroad, then called Verde Valley Railroad, is the close up of my beloved engine 1512.  The other from the same visit in 2004 is the mechanical detail, specifically the “truck” below.  When I walked toward the train last weekend there was old 1512 giving me the eye.  

1512 in 2012

1512 in 2004

This time I wandered to the graveyard of mothballed passenger cars.  If there’s anything I like better than vintage rolling stock it’s the ones put out to pasture that really speak to me.  The one shown below is named for Emmett Kelly, the sad faced circus clown from the mid twentieth century.  Kelly was arguably the most famous clown ever.  I don't know why the car was named for him.  Maybe all passenger cars in that era were named for famous folks.

Emmett Kelly 2012

Emmett Kelly 2012

Truck 2004

Verde Valley Memories

This old hulk from the twenties lives at the Gold King Mine in historic Jerome, Arizona.  Since we're on the road this post will be short on copy and, well, is a one shot wonder given our tight schedule and the haul back to Taos.  To paraphrase the peripetetic Joe McNally, MTC.  That's more to come in layman's terms.

More Street



When we think about street photography we conjure gritty urban scenes of which there are pretty much none here.  The key in street photography, it seems to me, is that some context is provided by the setting, the backdrop.  A story may unfold in the "decisive moment" as in the first image where Jean Luc prepares to enter heaven's door beyond which his life as a monk begins.  Or a lonely hooded soul slumps toward the "vielle ville" as his peers across the beach enjoy a laugh and a smoke.  There's palpable isolation.

A couple of these are portraits that don't have precise environmental context but the subject's attire and ethnicity provide ample texture and sense of place.

 

Street

Last week I talked about street photography.  It’s something very much on my mind so I’ve been sifting through hundreds, nay thousands of images that fall into the category.  Street photographs are the ones that unveil the candid, un-posed, slice of life moments in the human ballet.  At least that's the premise.

There seem to be two schools of thought in the wonderful world of street photography.  One involves a fly on the wall philosophy where the photographer is unseen and theoretically can capture a truly candid moment.  In the other the photographer is known to the subject and may be very engaged in the scene even to the point of choreographing the dance of life. There's one of those here.

 

 

Shy fellow that I am I fall into the former category most of the time.  Responses of my victims when I am recognized vary greatly, from hostility to a warm embrace.  In this series are examples of total disdain, of disinterest and “take my picture, please.”

My program isn't letting me post all the images I intended and I don't know if that's a glitch, operator error or a real limitation of the template.  In any event,  you're getting about half of the photographs I planned.  Is that a sigh of relief or are you just glad to hear from me ?

 

 

 

High Desert Hues

Truth be told I spent the morning assembling a host of street photographs, the kind embodied by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Frank and many others.  The task proved so daunting that I've bagged it for now and am going with a couple of Autumn shots using motion blur as an artistic device.  The golden hues of fall seem to lend themselves to this kind of abstraction.

Street Photography to follow.

 

Night Music

Nocturnes are on my mind.  I am, after all, a light sleeper.  Anyway it's a theme I want to pursue.  In light, or perhaps dark of that, here are a couple of glitsy glimmers in the dark of night.  The first is Austin's Congress Street bridge and the second is parking lot lights at a Denver Barnes and Noble. Technicolor dreams.

Snippets

The images herein are connected in some kind of midcoast Maine mindmeld. I just loved writing that. They're a hodge podge of sweet moments in a two day two step, can't help myself, from foggy South Thomaston to placid Castine and the good ship Guildive.  The ice cream truck just closed for the season.  The shiny apples just steps from the sea.  The abstract of shadow on clapboards and the nineteenth century brickfront in downtown Rockland.  All part of a tapestry from magical Maine.