Daryl

I had the chance to photograph my friend and colleague Daryl Black last week.  Not only is she a wonderful photographer and writer but a high level Black Belt in Taekwondo and an accomplished Tango dancer with her husband Fred who's a pilot, architect and award winning weaver.  Daryl says she doesn't like the business end of the camera very much but I beg to differ.

Uli 3 and Out

This is the impish Uli who is in Munich ( I  think) and readying for his return to Saint Petersburg.  It's also the last post of the young lad for now.

Uli 2

Lost or confused?  I have no idea.  I do know that all the Uli shots were done with a Profoto Acute 2 head through a Chimera Medium Softbox.  And all were shot with a 70-200mm lens at f2.8.

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?