More Connections

Victor 'Cuba' Hernandez

I first met Victor Hernandez on December 26, 2011. I was driving north on US 285 toward the Colorado border. I turned east onto the Taos Plateau toward a cleft between two rocky hills. A figure came walking toward me. He greeted me in Spanish, his only language it turns out. I responded in kind, and we shook hands.

Victor told me he fled Cuba in 1965 and had been herding sheep for Alfonzo Abeyta since 1975. He said he had commandeered a boat with a big pistola after escaping prison. He and his compañeros fled to Florida where they picked oranges. Then three of them got jobs tending sheep in the San Luis Valley of Colorado. He told me was born in Santa Clara just outside Havana though the map shows Santa Clara in the center of Cuba nearly 300 miles east of Havana.

I asked Victor how many sheep he was herding on that December day. He told me, “600.” Later I learned that it was 375 and that Victor couldn’t read, write or count. Moreover, he didn’t let facts get in the way of a good story.

As I spoke with Victor the skittish sheep spread out up the cerro, chomping on sage and eating snow to quench their thirst. First I photographed Victor on the flats near his metal campo or then walked up to the herd on the hill. When I walked back down to Victor’s campo a pick-up truck arrived with firewood and stores for the week. A stocky gentleman in his seventies named Alfonzo Abeyta asked, “What are you doing here?” There was distrust in his eyes. I told him I had seen the sheep from the road and came to take a look, that I was a photographer from Taos and was fascinated by the scene of Victor and the sheep on the plateau and by Victor’s movie worthy backstory. Alfonzo referred to Victor as the Cubano or Cuba.

I went on to post several blog entries and two magazine articles about the Abeyta’s timeless story of family, faith and life from the land. I hoped to understand the magnetic pull of that hard life and followed Cuba and the sheep for the next six years. I wanted to understand their timeless story of family, faith and the land.  Thirteen years later I appreciate even more their unbreakable connection to Mother Earth but am no closer to understanding it.

James Iso

In August 2014 I attended the pilgrimage at the Heart Mountain Internment Camp near Cody, Wyoming. I wasn’t sure how appropriate it would be for a non-Japanese to attend an event. But the historic site’s executive director told me, ”It’s absolutely appropriate.”

And it was and much more.

The participants in the pilgrimage were as impressive a group as I’ve ever encountered. From elderly former internees to their great grandchildren, they were energetic, warm, accomplished people to a person. Somehow those qualities underscore how tragic and indefensible the imprisonment of 110,000 Japanese Americans was.

At the opening dinner I was seated with Ron Akin, the Veterans Affairs Commissioner in Wyoming along with two former internees including James Iso of Roseville, California. During the evening’s presentation I overheard Commissioner Akin tell someone at the table that Mr. Iso had served in all three wars. That would mean WWll, Korea and Viet Nam.

The next morning I met James Iso. Our conversation went something like this.

I told him, “I overheard at dinner last night that you served in World War Two, Korea and Viet Nam. Is that even possible?”

He replied, “Absolutely, not always in uniform but always in the military.” 

Mr. Iso went on to say, “We shortened the war by two years. Everybody knows about the 442^nd Regimental Combat Team but some of us served in other ways. We translated Japanese communications, broke their codes and planted misleading information. In one case our forces won a major battle when the Japanese commander acted on the false intelligence we created.”

I asked him how old he was. He answered, “I’m eighty.” I was incredulous because James Iso was not eighty years old by any subjective measure. He was bright-eyed, engaged, smart and incredibly charming. The term “role model” is bandied around indiscriminately but James Iso was one. I was in awe of the man.

 

Continuing Connections

Continuing the snapshots from my Connections article for the November-December issue of Shadow and Light are three more Cliff Notes versions of same. The original text for each is several times longer but you’ll get the drift.

The Deaf Drummer

Fifteen miles north of Williams, Arizona on Highway 62 sat a guy dozing behind his drum kit. In front of him was a sign saying Deaf Drummer on Facebook, Donations OK. I’m still leery about approaching subjects but the Donations OK sign signaled the drummer’s willingness to photographed. I folded a ten spot and put in my shirt pocket. Peggy and I approached the musician who looked up and greeted us.

I asked, “How’re you doing? Do you mind if I take your picture?” and handed him the ten. He said, “Not at all. Go for it.”

He picked up his sticks and began to play the baseline in his head, so I’d get some action. After five minutes or so we began talking about the unlikely concept of a drummer that can’t hear.

I asked, “How do you do it? Do you hear something?”

He answered “No. I’m completely deaf. I feel the vibration and the rhythm.”

“How did this all happen?” I asked.

He said that his mother was deeply religious and that they went to church every day. On one of those regular visits he saw a set of drums and began to play them.

His mother asked. “How did you learn to do that?”

He told her he didn’t know. He just could.

She replied angrily, “Don’t lie to me in the house of God.”

Peter Larlham

My first conversation with Peter Larlham at the Grand Canyon began with a shudder. In his first breath he asked my age. I said, “I’m 81.”

He told me, “That’s really old. I’m 76.” as if that were prepubescent.

Our conversation turned to aging and the malicious manifestations of that malady. Bad back. Worse balance. Shrinkage. A flabby belly and no ass. Every man of a certain age has lost muscle mass and most of it vacated his nether regions. Peter, an actor and theatre professor, quoted a line from Shakespeare in which an elderly gentleman laments that he no longer fills his “pantaloons.”

And speaking of age, during our last evening of mediocre pizza, tepid pilsner, and heady repartee he probed a second time, “Aren’t people shocked when you tell them how old you are?”

Victor "Cuba" Hernandez

I first met Victor Hernandez on December 26, 2011. I was driving north on US 285 toward the Colorado border. I turned east onto the Taos Plateau toward a cleft between two rocky hills. A figure came walking toward me. He greeted me in Spanish, his only language it turns out. I responded in rudimentary Español and we shook hands. “Me llamo Victor.” he told me. “Me llamo Esteban.” I replied.

I learned that he had fled Cuba in 1965. He told me he had commandeered a boat with a big pistola after escaping prison. He and his compañeros fled to Florida where they picked oranges. Then three of them got jobs tending sheep in the San Luis Valley of Colorado. He had been herding sheep for Alfonzo Abeyta since 1975 though the year is in doubt. He told me he was from Santa Clara, Cuba just outside Havana. However, the map shows Santa Clara in the center of Cuba nearly 300 miles east of the city.

I asked Victor how many sheep he was herding. He told me, “600.” Later I learned from Señor Abeyta that there were 375 borregos and that Victor nicknamed Cuba couldn’t read, write or count. Moreover, the facts didn’t get in the way of a good story.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Stacks and Rocks

Murky Morning. Cayucos Beach.

Surfers. Cayucos Beach.

Sea Stack. South Beach.

Before I meandered toward Morro Bay on September 10^th 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.