Week 45 - 2014 in Images

Day 309

On my 365 Day Challenge it isn't taking the photograph on that day but processing it. It is easy for me to rush out and take 200 to 600 images but often they sit in their upload files and get ignored. I come home from an exhibition with a memory of the five to ten photographs I just must see and process. My trek around Northwestern New Mexico was almost a month ago and I am just going back and mining some of the also ran's like the one above. In fact, except for the photo below all this week's photos are also ran's.

Having photos I can go back to and post process does not mean the camera stays home. This cloudy day refection in a pond was entirely too good to pass up and one of those photos I rushed home to process. Thus putting me more behind on others.

Day 310

Day 311 is from Aztec Ruins near Farmington, New Mexico. I unearthed this one because I was opening a new Gallery - Details on my FineArtAmerica Artists site. I like taking photographs of textures and details on buildings. This one is an Aztec Ruins Detail.

Day 311

And this one is a detail of the colors in a hot spring on the San Juan as it passes through Pagosa Springs.

Day 312

A friend thinks she sees an elephant in this rock formation from Aztec Arches. I thought it looked like to aliens talking to each other so I titled it Conversation.

Day 313

Took a lot of photographs on San Francisco de Assi Misson in Ranchos de Taos. Took me a while to get around working on them in the dry darkroom. From Ansel Adams onward this mission has been photographed again and again. That alone can be off putting. No serious photographer wants to take the same image another photographer is known for. Ansel Adams is hard to compete with and yet when I looked at the photos I took I found myself going back to his signature black and white. The reflections in the rain puddle made this view unique.

Day 314

Day 315 was processed soon after it was taken and posted on my Facebook Timeline. It falls in that category of "Been There." And yet more people raved about this idyllic photograph than many of my more "professional" images. Probably because it falls into the area of landscape which makes the viewer feel at home. It lacks only a stream and a sheep or two.

I ended up posting it in my 365 day Challenge because of the clouds, light, and shadow. It is a good photograph. And the lesson for the week is perhaps that we as photographers can let our preconceptions of our subjects get in the way of a logical critique of the photo itself.

Day 315

Week 44 - 2014 in Images

Day 302
Trek through the Badlands

This week's photos come mostly from my road trip with photographer Terry Atkin Rowe. There are more pictures which need to be post processed so in the week to come there will be more of our trek through northeastern New Mexico. I came home from my days away from the studio with a desire to paint. And paint I have.

And it became clear the beautiful days of October could not last forever. There were things outside which must be done before winter closes in. The darkroom, dry or not, is for inclement weather.

Day 303
Slip Sliding Away

In addition to new subjects the photography road trip presents you with the desire (and time) to see things in different ways. The 365 day photography challenge gets you out with the camera and often it is brought back home with no new images. That is the camera going along on another mission like a trip to a store. But when the camera is the sole reason (or at least a primary one) for the mission you spend more time with your subjects. I do not want to tell you how many photographs I have of those four rocks above.

I wanted a picture of those rocks which showed how strange they looked in their environment, and rather out of place. The ultimate solution was to twist the camera.

Day 304

And in Aztec, New Mexico just outside of the Aztec Ruins National park the city was revamping a city park complete with new pedestrian  bridge across the Animas River. Nice bridge but it was the underside which defined for me its form.

Day 305
Monster in Stone

This sandstone monster in the Aztec Arches area was captivating. I have lots of pictures of him too from lots of angles. This one makes it look like he is sadly offering me a bush.

Day 306

Day 306 is the one photo from this week which was taken on home ground. I was trying to record something very different at the request of a friend and walked around the pond to get a different angle. The light and reflections were too good to pass up. It was one of three quick photos in the midst of a different subject.

The reflections through the midst in the photo below took more exposures but mostly because I was trying to capture the gold fish. I am happy I got the photo but nobody sees the gold fish. Some do not even see the reflections. They just wonder what the structure is. Guess you had to have been there.

Day 307

New Mexico has a lot of Anasazi ruins and so it becomes all about getting them in a different way. I stood around and waited for the sun to come through the clouds and illuminate this group of cottonwoods behind a bank of crumbling walls. I think the wait was worth it.

Day 308

The camera has been basically taking pictures of progress on two paintings this week. That is supposedly its primary function. Painters have to be able to take pictures of their work for portfolios and in this day of internet marketing to entice buyers to their sites. I sell photographs too. And this last week I worked at setting a FineArtAmerica Artists Website up. I invite you to visit. And if there is a photograph here on my blog (and any of the previous blogs) which you would like just let me know in a comment and I will post it to FineArtAmerica so you can purchase it in the size you wish.

Cottonwoods and Others

Cottonwoods at Aztec Ruins

Aspens get all the credit as far as New Mexico tourism is concerned. But the cottonwoods were grand this year. And they had the extra boost of being along full rivers because of rains. The reflections of the colors doubled their impact.

Reflections on the Rio Grande

The Chama River through Abiquiu

Chama River from Highway Overlook

Just the top of a huge Cottonwood

The wet summer and fall allowed a lot native plants to get into the fall dress up contest. Below is the most glorious salt bush I have ever seen.

Salt Bush

The banks of rivers are host to any number of willows scrub oak, native grasses and other plants which get into the spirit of fall even on a fogging morning on the San Juan River

Waterfall on the San Juan

Above the Hot Springs in Pagosa

Let's hope for a wet winter and summer and a 2015 fall every bit as glorious as this one was.

There are photographs, and there are photographs

Rock Slide?

Perhaps we all begin with taking the "we-were-there" sort of photos. Or at least those sort of photos are our first exposure to photography whether it was with the Kodak box camera my father gave me or the modern iphone of today. We all seem to want to record where we were and who we were with.

And if the conversation overheard in one of the pools at the Hot Springs was any indication we love to have those photographs or paintings with a mountain, a stream and a blue sky with puffy clouds. I have even been known to take a few myself. I also take detail photographs of architectural elements or rocks, etc to use in paintings. And then there are my "Let's-have-some-fun" shots.

I loved the four rocks above. I know enough geology to deduce how they got on top of this barren ridge of Navajo sandstone but I thought it was fun to tilt it as if they would slide off.

River Rocks

Rocks are one of my favorite things. Anyone want to give me a surprise gift just drop off a truck load of round river rocks. But I admit to taking this picture because of the patterns on the big rock. I think it looks like a cliff face in one of my canyon paintings yet to be painted.

But I also like things people do with rocks. Like the Anasazi at Aztec Ruins. No, the Aztec were never there that we know of. Though there are some indications the Chacoan cultures traded with the Aztecs.

Passage

There has to be a painting in the photograph above too. Though it just may end up being a mere detail in a larger work. What, however, gets conjured up in my mind involves a snake slithering through the hole in the back. Hey, us artists are known for strange minds. There is also mentally a woven rug hanging from the cross pole and blowing in a breeze.

Passage Over

No I do not think I am going to paint a bridge from underneath but I love architectural elements, and the new aluminum panels just were very reflective and cool.

Running horse mural

It is probably, for those familiar with my work, pretty obvious as to why I took this picture. And yes in my folders there is a version of it far more representative. I had a debate while sketching out my most recent mustang painting and it was because we read left to right the horses should run that way. These clearly do not. I find it very interesting. Also the landscape dominates this painting where with my horse paintings the horses dominate. I have also toyed with pintos in my horse herds, and rejected them. Next horse painting will have pintos in it.

Clouds in my coffee

I have my painting style and most likely I am sticking with it but I toy at times with a more abstract approach. Photography allows me to do that without spending lots of time and energy and money with paints and a canvas.

On Golden Pond

I admit to a certain enticement to the surrealist movement. I have any number of photography friends looking for the tripod achieved knife edge clarity which would have allowed you to count the scales on the gold fish in this pond. I, on the other hand, toy with the question of how much of a photograph has to be in focus.

Pools over Pools

I think not a lot. As I work myself through the last few days of photographs from my trip there will be the "serious" photos as well as more like this no doubt. Stay in touch with this blog and Binford-Bell Studio as well as Binford's Back Country Photography. Yes, there are some mountains with streams and puffy white clouds and gold aspens.