Churches - 2015 in Review

Church tower in Las Vegas, New Mexico

 I love the lines of complex architecture. And the best examples of that are in old churches. To me one of the worst things the fundamentalists did was turn the church into a plain box. In the wonderful cathedral days of the middle ages the church was suppose to raise you up from your humble existence and lead you to aspire to heaven. Flying buttresses, fan vaults, bell towers and Gothic windows of stained glass was the language they used.

Las Vegas, New Mexico has some grand old churches with complex roof lines, towers and windows. But even the simple churches of the old settlement days aspired to a loftier goal. On Johnson Mesa near Raton, New Mexico is a simple rock church. I had the privilege of going inside this building and finding the Gothic arch windows of plain glass captured an amazing sense of spiritual light. The photos below have inspired two paintings. Once future paintings were the only reason I took photographs.

Piano in Church at Johnson Mesa, New Mexico

I am currently working on a painting inspired by the photograph above. And I recently sold the painting below which was inspired by the photograph below it. Paintings allow the artist to take a certain license with the photographic image. To me the light and sense of light was the key to both the photographs and the paintings.

Empty Pew

Empty Pew, Johnson Mesa, New Mexico

I do not know if I ever take a photograph of a church without thinking I may once day render it in paint. But thus far it is only the simplest of religious buildings I have attempted. I wanted at one time to be an architect but when I was in college women were not allowed in architecture. Did not stop me from doing complex drawings of buildings. Now I just do photographs of them. Hoping to transcend the engineer rendering aspects. 

Bell Tower of the Methodist church, Las Vegas, NM

The Methodist Church in Las Vegas lures me back with its complex lines. I began by cursing the trees and buildings around it which prevent unobstructed views and ended up being enthralled with the bare branches and shadows against the brick. I tell myself I want to go back and take pictures when their are leaves on the trees but I would probably hate it. One of those trips where you look through the view finder a lot and never snap a picture.

Transept Window, Methodist Church 

And it is to be noted the photograph above is not about the window but the shadows of the trees. I may paint this one. It tickles the back of my creative mind a lot. And the black and white view of the back of the bell tower also lingers in my mind as a possible painting. But it would be done in wild colors.

Wild colors like those I brought out in the photograph below. I took this photograph in 2014 bit revisited it this year because it had been neglected in a huge upload to my computer.

Door to Ranchos Mission, Taos, NM

Need to visit more churches in 2016. And paint more of them.

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 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 43 - 2014 in Images

Day 295

Last week was a busy week for the camera and the dry darkroom. The photography trek with Terry Rowe produced over 600 photographs which had to be sorted and processed. Then like a person addicted I grabbed the camera and went to Las Vegas, New Mexico to take more photos. 

The Plaza at Ranchos de Taos and the church of San Francisco de Assi dominates this week's photos, and yet of all the photographs they were the ones taken closest to home. But it is also an area normally dominated by tourists and thus prevents clear and uncluttered access to the perfect angle. And on this particular day it had rained all night and was still misting a bit. The water and wet and clouds added another dimension. 

Day 296

Of the ones I took that morning this is one of my favorites. I love the starkness of the bell tower in black and white. Thank you pigeons for your participation.  And in the photo below I even got one pigeon in flight.

Day 297

The rain added dark streaks to the sides of the adobe walls and highlighted the straw used in the mix. Modern adobes often used stucco for exterior finish because it is more maintenance free. But if you stucco both inside and outside you end up with what is called an eggshell adobe where between the two stucco layers the adobe bricks degrade and crumble. Sometimes mud is just better.

Day 298

Could not resist the picture of hollyhocks against the adobe wall. These seemed to be trying to grow as high as the wall. But the reason we had stopped was to get a photo of the church reflected in puddles. Geraint Smith of Taos had done a very stunning photograph of it recently. We had to stop and give it a try.

San Francisco de Assi of  Ranchos de Taos
Bonus photo for the week

Some weeks you end of with more pictures than you need. And this certainly was one. The folder for week 43 had eight photos in it. I could have shuffled it over to week 44 but that folder is filled too. It has been a fantastic fall season with rich images to record. So a bonus photograph for the week for those who came to read the weekly blog for the 365 Day Photography Challenge.

Day 299
Truck at Ojo Caliente

This week's photo selections seemed to be almost all vertical. Horizontal can be so much more restful for the viewer. And the photographer. You have no idea of some of the contortions you have to get into for a vertical image. With the red truck it was just a matter of where to take the picture from. I wanted the building and the dog and the pumpkins in there too. Sidestepping back and forth while holding the camera up to your eye begins to look like a dance, and feel like an aerobic exercise when you do it in a partial squat.

While taking pictures of buildings from the side walk in front of them means you have to lean backwards and twist for the right angle. Yes, one could cross the street but then you have all the cars in front. Besides where is the exercise in that.

Day 300
Building in Las Vegas, New Mexico

By comparison the below vista of the Chama River in Abiquiu was a piece of cake. Terry and I had just finished lunch and were wrapping up fixings and trash to move on when clouds and light conspired to illuminate the golden cottonwoods on the other side of the river.

Day 301
Along the Chama River