2015 - Best of the Urban Images

The Plaza Hotel in Las Vegas, New Mexico

I went through 52 weeks of photographic blogs from 2015 to pick out some of my best photos. Best, at least in my humble opinion, so maybe favorite is a better term. This year I tried to sort them into categories more for me than anyone else. The categories were based on 2014 actually. That year had a lot of still life photographs but in 2015 it was a smaller segment. While there are enough urban photographs for a couple blogs. And way more landscapes.

Urban photography requires a field trip because I do not live in an urban area. In the past years Trinidad, Colorado and Raton, New Mexico have figured high in my field trips. This year it was Las Vegas, New Mexico mainly. And largely because they were filming Longmire there. But it is a great old town which is reviving itself.

But I even made one trip into Taos for something other than groceries. I get rather jaundiced about Taos. Most of the "old buildings" in the tourist town date only as far back as the 1930's but pretend to be far older.

On Bent Street in Taos, New Mexico

And as I looked back at my Taos photographs they were not so much pictures of a town as they were photographs of shadows. Stucco walls do make a perfect canvas for strong morning shadows.

While my photographs of Las Vegas are more architectural in nature. And in addition to those featured in this blog Las Vegas buildings will make an appearance in the best of black and white images for 2015. Las Vegas also has some great churches which will be featured in another best of 2015 blog.

Door on Highland University Campus, Las Vegas, New Mexico

The challenge for me with the urban landscape is coming up with a unique way to capture it. There is concentrating on the details like the beautiful door way above with the highly reflective glass giving back detail of the building across from it and behind me. Or there is picking an unique angle.

Architectural lines will bend if you are up close with a wide angle lens. And you can use that to your benefit by putting the whole building on a tilt as in the photograph below. The opening photograph was done from a distance with a long lens and cropped to minimize the curvature of the parallel lines. 

On the Plaza in Las Vegas, New Mexico

I belong to a photography group where the assignment has been shapes. There are a lot of shapes in Las Vegas architecture but have not found a kite shape yet. Rectangles, triangles, rhombus, trapezoid but no kites.

Highland University Campus, Las Vegas, New Mexico.

It is also a lot of fun to play with post processing and the urban landscape. And of course the shadows on the walls from trees. Modern architecture does not have as many interesting architectural elements as the old. And ergo not as many shadows.

I did feel obligated to put at least one photograph from my nearest town, Angel Fire. It is of the strip mall era and few buildings which are not condos go above one floor. But I managed to snap this umbrella shot of Angel Fired Pizza's balcony  with colorful umbrellas.

Balcony detail in Angel Fire, New Mexico

Need to schedule more field trips for 2016.

Week 33 - 2015 in Photographs

Day 225
Hummingbirds waiting their turn

The first two photographs were actually taken this week. The remainder are finds during my culling of photographs. I found during this process that especially in large folders from treks that yielded a lot of photographs that I would just post process the highlights and move on with a mental promise to return for a second pass at some time in the future. Hypothetically the next very windy and cold day when I did not want to go outside.

There were so many of these gems lying undiscovered in folders next week will be totally from that resource. All photographers must have treasure troves of unrealized brilliance. It was true in film days. And in digital era it remains true. To save developing and printing costs during film era I used to have a contact sheet or a box of slides. I would look at them through a magnifying viewing scope for contact sheets or a small manual projector for slides. Uploading from scan disc to computer is probably the equivalent. There is even a function in your photo editing software called slide show. You rate with stars or scribble a list on scrap paper beside your keyboard. And then post process those.

I have begun a notebook where I scribbled down dates or file numbers which have gems to go back too. And I have gotten better in rating current photos because it is a gold mine of 4 and 5 stars cached away to post process on a blizzard day.

Or a rainy day like days 225 and 226. But I took the first from inside my studio with door open. And the second rushing just outside in bare feet with raincoat over head.

Day 226
Hollyhocks after the rain

A day trip to Las Vegas, NM yielded a lot of photographs already heralded in these blogs. But even in this well mined open pit, to continue the mining analogies, I found others of merit like the antique store front of an antiques store.

Day 227
Antique shop in Las Vegas, New Mexico

 I bypassed it the first time because I did not like the closed sign. So I tried a filter to make it less prominent. A friend says she doesn't notice it but I know it is there. Yes, I could clone it out but given its location it would be less than successful. I find cloning is less detectable on edges of photographs, definitely off center or in a background.

I figured it might just be the color, so I tried a black and white treatment. Closed is more insistence but so is other lettering like on the marque reflection across the street. All this raised another issue in the order in which I process new uploads of photographs (or is it downloads). Yes, I go for the spectacular in my mind, but I will also go for the easiest.

There much to be gained by fiddling with the less than perfect image. It can be a huge learning experience.

Day 228
Same shop in black and white

I have taken lots of photographs of this old tractor. But I am always sure I can take a better one. And as I have access to it I can always come back in better light and try again. Besides it is there in the photo files to go back to. Ergo I deduce that in addition to being lazy I am also rather jaded at times. I will treasure the images I captured on a day trip or vacation over those of a walk about in the hood.

But Ansel Adams proved the merit of photographing the same thing like the Ranchos Mission or the National parks. Familiarity with your subject can give you valuable clues as to how to get a better shot of it.

Day 229
Neighbor's tractor

The crumbling hamburger joint below comes from a huge file of photographs taken on a trek with a photography buddy, Terry Atkins Rowe. I admit to coming back exhausted and euphoric from these treks with an impossible number of photos. More photos to mine from this Trek with Terry folder.

Day 230
Specials at the Crossroad

Next week more of Las Vegas and the three day trips there. And a couple from the Zuni Mountains with my sister, another great photo trek companion.

Travels with Charley - Part III

Hoover Dam before 2010 and the bridge

I had never been further west on Route 66 than Flagstaff, Arizona the summer I graduated from high school. Dad took the family on the grand tour of National parks in the four corners area. All other vacations had been to visit family in Missouri at Christmas, or fishing trips in Colorado. Now I was hitch hiking with a Playboy bunny from Chicago and three other class mates who had been rewarded with summers in Europe after prep school graduation. I grabbed shotgun. And they climbed in the back to get some sleep.

Riding shotgun, my pilot father used to explain, is a lot like being co-pilot and navigator; duties I was more than willing to fill because I could see the entire panorama of the scenery before us. It also meant keeping the driver awake and engaged. So I knew more about Charley, our host, than the others by the time we got to Hoover Dam. Charley was the first man I had met outside my high school English teacher who did not look at me sexually. He didn't even look at Bunny that way.

I did not know about homosexuality. It was the 60's. We didn't talk about such things. I was riding in a just off the assembly line car which did not come with factory installed seat belts. Seat belts were only used in drag racers. Air bags were not yet invented. And the convertible did not have a row bar. The term serial killer was not coined until 1974. None of us were concerned about dying let alone rape and murder. It was a time of innocence. But I just knew my parents would not approve.

Charley was the only person besides my roommate from Clovis, New Mexico whose existence was more sheltered than mine. He was in his thirties and this was his first time ever out of Michigan. He didn't live with his mother but his mother lived with him. It was not my first time lying to my parents but this was probably the biggest lie. I technically was still a ward of my parents but I did not think I was ever going home. I considered calling my mother when we got somewhere with a phone, and elaborating on the lie to keep her from finding out I was riding west across the desert at 80 mph in a convertible with leather bucket seats.

Mother had fostered in me what I term the headline mentality. When I slipped off to Juarez with some college friends the year before the headline in my mind was "Coed thrown in Juarez Jail for Sex Trade in Mexico." This one would be "Four Coeds and Pimp Apprehended Crossing State Lines." There was always a sub-headline where my mother would swear I had always been a good girl. Frankly, that line always bothered me the most. In spite of always being a good girl the major headlines in my head always sounded sort of fun. But this time I was not going to let anything get in the way of the fun I was having. I drunk in the western badlands while chatting with Charlie about the process of designing car interiors. He had designed the one we were riding in. Who knew someone got paid to do padded dash panels?

I was enthralled with Hoover Dam. I was sent off to college to get my MRS degree. I returned my sophomore year because I wanted to be an engineer, or architect, or now car interior designer, or anything but a wife and mother. I was seriously, but unconsciously, looking for other female role models. While on the dam tour I watched Bunny work Charley and our guide. She was the only woman I knew in my brief history who was not afraid to be her sexual self. I also watched Penny be jealous over the attention Bunny gave all the men in the tour. Barb-from-Santa-Barbara saw nothing because she was irritated with everything and everyone one it seemed. She was expected home already, and we hours yet. She had a call with a lie to make for herself. Though hers was less a lie than mine because we did have car trouble. It just wasn't fixed.

Making our telephone calls would not happen until Las Vegas, Nevada. No calling cards then. Coins. Or collect in which case you got your first dime back. Collect was out because the operator would say, "Collect call from Jacqui in Las Vegas, Nevada." Yes, a real operator. Not voice activated machine. I gave Barb my change so she could make her call. I decided the less my parents knew the better. I had learned as a military brat, lies were easiest to keep, if they were very simple. And Dad always said it was easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. We were long past permission. I knew the bigger a lie got the more distance it put between you and those you lied too. But after the summer there was already a chasm between my family and myself.

Las Vegas Strip in the 1960's

As Barb and I left the phone booth, Charley handed us each two rolls of nickels for the slot machines. Yes, they took real coins in those days. I wanted to just pocket my $10 because I knew we were all short of funds to get home if the Buick wasn't fixed. Charley wanted to make us happy so we played. I loved the bells and whistles. The sounds of coins when someone won. I won a small jackpot on nickels. Cashed in for quarters and went quietly to the more expensive slots. Ultimately I cashed out with $250. Worries of how to get back to college were over. Barb's parents had believed her lie. Charley had won at Black Jack and wanted to buy us dinner. He was indeed thrilled to have company. We started with oysters on the half shell. Everything, in the words of e.e.cummings, was "puddle wonderful." Except the General Motors was still on strike.

To be continued

Side note: 96 workers died building Hoover Dam. None are buried in it. It was built by a consortium called Six Companies, Inc. And decades later I would work for one of those six, Morrison-Knudsen, as a cost engineer.

Seat belts would not be mandatory until January 1, 1968.

Legal age to gamble is 21. None of us but Charley were.

Week 14 - 365 in Photographs

Day 92

More structures. Always a good default when the landscape seems to be the same - not winter and not spring yet. Lots to practice with structures like getting the camera level or failing that adjusting the tilt correctly in post processing. Then because of angle between you and the subject there is which line to adjust too. In the photo above I picked the purple bike rack. It was the subject of my interest and by making it the one object the most square for the viewer it draws their eyes there.

Day 93

In this photo it is the flag poles because they frame the statute. I learned this principle placing and hanging light fixtures at my day job - electrician. The measured middle of the room does not always look like the middle of the room. The center of the statue would often be picked as the center of the photograph. It is in reality her leading foot. The heel is in the center of the flag poles which trisect the composition. Ergo it is the poles which must be true vertical.

Day 94

Lots of vertical lines in this photograph including the subject - the boy in blue. I took this with my long lens at a distance so no curve of the lines like with my wide angle. I tend to want to take structures with my wide angle lens and distortion, even if it is not a fish eye lens, can happen. On this particular day in Las Vegas, New Mexico I was trying to catch candid shots of the filming of Longmire television series. I had my 70-300 zoom lens on which required me to back away from my subjects.

Day 95

This resulted in not getting the whole building but also not getting a lot of trash like poles around the buildings. It is like a pre-crop - what we used to do in the film days. We called it framing your shot. And the best benefit was all the lines are straight. The vertical ones at least. And those are the ones we get our balance from. As humans we are used to slanting sidewalks and receding lines of perspective.

Day 96

But we want what is right in front of us to be vertical. The columns were fun. Only editing besides making it black and white was cloning out a no smoking sign. I debated the 800 but decided I like it.

Day 97

Obviously I like this church. And I like the shadows on the church walls. What I like most about the church are its lines. As a car dealer would say, "It has classic lines." And even if the photograph is about the shadows the lines have to be straight. At least the vertical ones at the may point of focus for the viewer. Not necessarily in the center of the picture. In the one below it is the like from the top of the arch on the biggest window of the transept to the bottom. Yeah, not actual like there to follow.

And it isn't always easy to get this right in the field. And even in the film world we made adjustments in the darkroom. Yes, even Ansel Adams. BTW adobe buildings are a real lot of fun because they have no verticals really.

Day 98

As I went to post the first photograph of the new week - Day 99 - on my FaceBook Page Binford-Bell Studio I realized the cupboard is now bare. I have to get actively out with the camera and take pictures.

Week 12 - 2015 in Photographs

Day 78

Another week dominated by buildings. And there are three black and whites. Once both were a rarity in my photography but they have become far more frequent. Buildings were harder to find than mountains in my day to day photographic jaunts. And black and white I really had to work at. My sister is the mistress of that and I stuck with color. Often outlandish color. I have had to work at the black and white.

What I would call noisy or busy subjects work very well with black and white. The church above was perfect for it. The absence of color allows the viewer to focus on the shapes and the shadows and textures. I also tried out black and white on the church below. I liked it better, however, with just a reduction of the saturation. There is too much flat, empty sky for black and white in my opinion. By reducing the saturation I essentially ended up with a sepia building against a pale blue sky.

When I was learning to do black and white I used to sneak up on it by playing with saturation in photo editing. I would try every photo I took to see if I liked it in black and white better than color.

Day 79

A book I read said noisy skies were best in black and white so the storm moving in photograph below was a natural. And I tried it out. However, I like the hint of blue in the opposing corners of this stormy sky. Trying photographs out in black and white made me appreciate color.

Day 80

Color is no long the default option. Also how to treat a photo in B&W has helped in enhancement of photographic subjects which are almost monochromatic like ranges of mountains.

Day 81

And some subjects just cry to be colorless if you will. Another article I read on black and white photography said the photographer needed to go out to specifically photograph black and white. And in film days you had to. I can remember loading up two camera - one with black and white film and one with color.

Aspens in winter and snow scenes are two subjects I have found where I set out to "see" them in black and white. Course with digital cameras and post processing on our computers the options are open forever.

Day 82

I took the photograph of the old barn thinking it would be a great black and white because of the tones on the rusting metal of the building. But color won out. The purple on the mountain picked up the purple in the shadows to well to delete it. A cloud filled sky with cloud shadows on the mountain might have totally changed the equation.

Day 83

This last photograph shows the "tin" roof and the texture the black and white treat brings out in it and the crumbling adobe. This old territorial building works very well in B&W even without a cloud in the sky. In fact in my humble opinion the clear sky enhances the foreground textures. And in color the sky's intense blue is echoed no where else in the photograph.

Day 84

Week 7 - 2015 in Images

Day 43
A winter spring like day in Las Vegas, NM

I did not set out to make this week about structures - fixed and rolling - but that is the way it happened. All my photographic field trips were to cities with grand old buildings and great railroad cars. Straight lines and shapes were fun but also all the reflections in windows.

Day 44
Train yard in Santa Fe

Would have loved to traipse to my heart's content around the train yard but it was fenced on the side I approached it. Obviously another trip is in order.

Day 45
Rolling stock

It often takes more than one outing to become familiar with the photographic opportunities available. I took my second trip to Las Vegas, NM plaza. Still want to be down there on a cloudy day. Keep getting awesome blue skies.

Day 46
Reflections of the Plaza

If you are down on the first floor and photographing the second the lines will not be squared up. You can live with that like above or minimize that like the first photo or go for broke and accent the tilt like in the photo below.

Day 47
Looking up

Or just settle for photographing the bottom story of buildings. The photo below is the ground floor but the ground is below that really. I photographed it off center (note the little purple me in the bottom left window). I was quite a distance from the building.

Day 48
Off Plaza in Taos

Standing really close to a building and focusing up is fun. Did that with the building I tilted and this column. Obviously I want to explore strange angles for architectural shots more. So another trip to Las Vegas, Raton on Trinidad is in the offing. Taos does not have any tall structures.

Day 49
Standing Tall

Buildings and Walls 2014

Las Vegas, New Mexico

I love photographing buildings and walls. They are the urban cliff walls. And in places such as off the plaza in Las Vegas, New Mexico they tell stories of not just the era in which they were built but the lives they sheltered after that, the hopes of the people who loved then and began the process of restoration.

In towns such as Las Vegas, New Mexico and Trinidad, Colorado they tell of richer days and crafts and skills lost. I see my recording of these buildings as preservation of their memories. I often joke that the bulldozer is under appreciated as a remodeling tool in northern, New Mexico, but it is also true we often torn down our history to make way for the "new and improved."

Trinidad, Colorado

The buildings pictured above are often those people want to raze to put in the new. And the one below which is an adobe building in Cimarron the new folk in town want to save. But these three all come from roughly the same time. They were all built and loved when the Santa Fe trail was new and the railroads were moving into town. Sadly for all three renovation often means just a new coat of paint.

Cimarron, New Mexico

Belfry of San Francisco de Assi in Ranchos de Taos

Adobe churches are, however, lovingly restored by the parishioners, and since the advent of National Historic Landmarks overseeing the process, in keeping with the original structure. But every once in a while pipes or tie bars have to be added to preserve the structure. Adobe is mud and mud melts in the rain. This picture of the church often photographed by Ansel Adams was taken in the rain. The adobe walls with the straw are wet and reveal a texture the tourist does not see on a sunny New Mexico Day.

Entrance San Francisco de Assi Mission

I began studying church architecture of New Mexico when in the Fine Arts program at University of New Mexico. I did not begin photographing them until about ten years ago when I would use the photographs as a basis for paintings. I am to introverted to set up an easel in a public plaza to paint. Besides Water colors dry to fast and the light can be too fleeting. This photograph of the reflection of the bell towers in a puddle caught a brief moment. The desert drinks the water from a chance rain very quickly.

Ansel Adams photographed this church a lot. It and he are partly known because of those photographs. His favorite angle was from the rear and I have believed he like that angle because it reminded him of the sheer canyon faces of Yosemite and other western parks like Arches and Canyonlands. In that way be are both a like. And it is why I photographed a modern building in Santa Fe when taking a friend to Eye Associates of New Mexico for cataract surgery. Later I would go myself. But the first time there I had three hours to kill which meant, of course, I had my camera.

Santa Fe, New Mexico

I took dozens of pictures of this building because its walls were a canvas for the light which played on them. These are just two of my favorite. And not just favorite building pictures but maybe favorites of the 365 photographs I took in 2014. They were included in the top 32 after all.

Santa Fe, New Mexico

So why does a photographer pick one picture over another? Good question. For me it is seldom tied up with technical perfection. Nor is it the magic of digital manipulation on the computer. In the photographs on this blog the most manipulation was color or saturation. Black and white is reducing saturation. And except for this last photograph I just tweaked the saturation a bit. Yes, people painting those buildings that color.  The first photograph has a polarizing filter and the second a enamel layer.

This last photograph really had the saturation played with. Adobe walls are amazing to play with in post processing. But heightened color was all. The outline of light on edges, the cracks in the stucco, and the orb were all there in the original digital record from the camera. Yes, sunspot from the sun striking the lens and filter of the camera, but those are usually hexagons.

So to answer the original question: why does a photographer pick one photograph over another? Combination of things would be the easy answer. The difficult one to get people to believe is, "when the magic happens." And you know you could go back to the same spot at the same time and not get the same picture.

Week 46 - 2014 in Images

Day 316

I am not sure just exactly why Big Blue does reflections so well. It is not a new truck and I do not run it through the car wash hardly ever. I have taken more pictures of this vehicle than any of my others and it is basically because it poses so well with awesome reflections not merely on the windows but the car body as well. It is a great digital canvas.

Day 317 - Memories of a Glorious Fall

Fall this year seemed to go on forever. We had lots of moisture before it began and no big storms to ruin the leaves once they began to turn. And I traveled enough and at just the right times that I got to catch it again and again. This picture got lost among the many others I took on an outing to Las Vegas. It was taken in La Cuevo where I pick raspberries in season.

Day 318 - Plaza Hotel in Las Vegas

The trip to Las Vegas, New Mexico generated lots of interesting photographs which got forgotten in their folder due to life. It has been a really busy fall and I find myself looking forward to a slower paced winter. Though that may be wishful thinking. I want to do another day trip to Las Vegas. A cloudy day would be nice. Only photographers can complain about a beautiful fall day with clear blue skies. I like, however how the blue of the windows and the details on the restored Plaza Hotel are a perfect match to the sky in this photograph.

Day 319

Down below was an antique shop. Up above was obviously not restored. I often dream of living above the shop as it were. It would have a building such as this built before shop owners moved to the suburbs. This one was on National Street in Las Vegas, NM.

Day 320 - the Cafe

Buildings on both sides were restored and occupied. Obviously much more to do with this gem but first the temporary political headquarters has to go. Martinez was re-elected to the horror of a lot of New Mexico women who clearly did not vote. BTW she would be totally against the renewal going on in downtown Las Vegas. Hopefully that does not stop progress.

Day 321 - Big Blue posing again

The building reflected in the windows is in Las Vegas and just next door to the fabulously restored Plaza Hotel. Somehow I cannot imagine progress allowing this building to not be repurposed. At one time the downtown plaza area was quite derelict but the number of occupied and restored buildings is going up.

Day 322

This old building on National was occupied bottom and top. The plants loved it. But restoring it is obviously a work in progress. The building to its right was under restoration. I was down for an artists studio and gallery tour and several of the participants were in this area. I would love to go back with some money and purchase a few things to encourage those resettling these old buildings.

For Sale - Bonus photo

I stood in front of this building for some time. It is almost directly across from the Plaza which is partially reflected in its windows. Someone has done a lot of work on it. And it is for sale. If only I was younger and rich.