What is Being Printed

Ghost Elk of Santa Clara

Between the blog just before this about my choices of what images to have printed, and decision time I took more photographs on a great trip over the high plains. It is always nice to get off the deck and out with my camera. And being with another photographer always makes me pause and look at the options closer or linger longer. There is always the obvious and the elusive.

Main Street Gone

With Ana McCracken we discovered a surprising past in Wagon Mound and a wonderful old crumbling building in Miami. The array of opportunities was inspiring. And I was once  again amazed at how differently two photographers can record the same reality. We decided to do it again only this time over the Johnson Mesa and into Folsom and the grasslands of New Mexico.

Here, There, and Beyond

As I have mentioned before in this space photography began as a way for me to record my life much like a visual journal. Than it became a tool for me to capture images to translate into paintings in my studio. It is only in the last few years I have become to appreciate photography as an art within itself. And within the last couple of years it has become a profit center.

When I am out and about taking pictures it is the first two purposes which govern. I seldom, if ever, think this is a money shot. The elk on the wall in an abandoned hardware store in old Santa Clara and the window in a crumbling old building in Miami were because I felt driven to record for me. The photograph of the clouds below were for paintings. And because it just seemed such a wow moment in clouds building over the distant mountains.

Clouds Illusions

And the tree below was so wonderful in shape and form it had to be recorded as a possible inspiration for a painting or just an element in a future painting. I was surprised when I posted it on my Back Country Photography  page how popular it was.

A Tree Grows Beside It

And then there are the subjects I just love to record - old trucks. I just love old trucks. And this spring I was down in Ojo with another photographer Terry Atkin Rowe who also loves old trucks. And we were able to take pictures of our two favorite trucks. I also love playing around on photo editing with trucks. I have come to see them as a canvas for pixils. I also turn them into mixed media paintings. But they are the closest to a money shot as I have in my portfolio.  My giclee canvas prints of my old trucks sell. That is why they get selected to be printed but not why they are captured on my camera.  The problem was of all the photos of these two trucks which would I print first.

Big Red Chevy

Big Blue Profile

And, of course no run of giclee prints on canvas is complete without at least one pure landscape of the land I love.

Old Mike from Spyglass

The above will soon be displayed on the walls of Enchanted Circle Brewing. I am grateful for the opportunity to show my images there. I have picked sizes based on what fits. But all these can be printed in the size you want. Or any of the images that did not get picked in this round of what I can afford to have transferred from my camera to my computer to canvas.

What to Print - Choices

Wilted Beauty

 Not every photograph is a winner. But the beauty of photography is it serves so many different levels like memories, internet posts, inspiration for paintings, and some actually get printed and hung on walls. And there is even a level on that last. I do print and hang some of my photography on my own walls because they speak to me.

My photography is showcased in a couple local businesses. Lately Enchanted Circle Brewing as sold several of my photographs off their walls. Which means I have to replace what is sold. Ergo I need to select photos to have printed. And the third annual Angel Fire Studio Tour is in the future; September 29 and 30. My studio walls need new photographs.

Mountain View

The tourists love landscapes of the area they are visiting so what I print has to include a few of those. But all my landscapes are not necessary views of Angel Fire and Black Lake areas. But most are New Mexico. And a few could be any country road inviting you to walk in the quiet.

Country Road

Or hear the distant thunder and smell the rain.

Summer Rain

But always popular are the old trucks.

Blue Chevy

Smile

Big Red

But some decisions on what to print are done based on spaces to fill on my studio walls, the brewery or the walls of the possible owner. I am always looking for an engaging vertical composition.

Tres Amigos

Black Jack's

And in the process of doing this blog I know I have to look for more verticals.

What doesn't get printed large on canvas may become a part of my art note cards. Flowers rival trucks for note card sales.

Dancing Poppy

Week 30 - 2015 in Photographs

Day 204

Week 30 and not a single flower photograph. For the lovers of flower photographs there will no doubt be some next week. The hollyhocks should be in full bloom any day now. For me the week was not so much about taking pictures but culling through pictures already taken. And a horrid toothache I had. See Sidetracked Charley for that story.

I culled through photographs from 2011 into 2013. Not finished with that year yet but the number of pictures I had not done anything with got me reviewing the last few photographic folders of this current year and finding treasures I had overlooked. So since being quiet worked best for the toothache I worked the dry darkroom and painted in my studio. The painting I am working on is inspired by my trip to Johnson Mesa and the Folsom, New Mexico area and all but two of these photos are from that trip.

I absolutely love the photos I took of the church on Johnson Mesa and so you will no doubt see more of them. Before the snow falls I really must go back. Fall sounds like a delightful time. Summer has been so lush and wet and the grass over the drainage field is three feet high. I am letting the grass go to seed to replenish my property. Took the picture below from the ground up to give you an idea of the grass.

Day 205

Back to Folsom, a dying town I really must explore more. Like I said, Fall. Can you imagine the Folsom Hotel with the trees all red and gold. Photographers take not just the picture before them but their minds make notes about the pictures to come.

Day 206

Meanwhile dawn on my home grounds happened. Monsoon time makes for wonderful clouds to act as a canvas for the morning sun.

Day 207

Back to Folsom area. The greens are so varied. I am having trouble with that in my painting. I am used to canyons more than grasslands. But I cannot help to wonder what the color of this Laughlin Peak will be come fall. I will return.

Day 208

And then there are there are the Folsom trucks. They will remain the same color. But I have no doubts that if I were afoot with my camera there would be more to be found.

Day 209

I do not know what it is about photographers and painters that so loves an old truck but on my tour of Folsom there was a woman who did not do either and she remembered exactly where these two trucks were and made sure we stopped.

Day 210

So the tooth causing all the pain is gone. I will be out with the camera again. My less than two year old Nikon D3200 failed for the second time on this trip. Thankfully I had my trusty Nikon D90 with me. And culling through my files from 2011 through June 2013 has once again shown that it is not about the camera. And I like my D90 better.

The Nikon D3200 is coming back hopefully next week. It was the auto focus system which failed both times. Should be on a recall in my humble opinion. It was one of the attempts to put the drive motor in the lens instead of the camera to make the camera lighter. It makes it slower and the weight is still there because you do not carry the camera without the lens. Cannon did not do any better with the experiment. My sister finds the auto focus lens fail. And the Nikon Website for service sucks.