Week 24 - 2016 in Photographs

Day 162
Skunk Cabbage

This week almost became all about clouds and then it stopped raining in the afternoon. It did make all the flowers bloom so next week will be all about flowers. And all flowers. And in a few days it is going to start the afternoon thunderstorms back up so I expect there will be more clouds.

Day 163

Never totally understood why it is Montana is the Big Sky state and we aren't. Though Land of Enchantment fits. People who live here seem to be under some sort of spell. We don't want to leave. It is one way you can tell a true resident from those with summer homes here. We stay and they move back to Texas.

Day 164

 My father used to maintain you only had to drive ten miles to have the scenery change or wait ten minutes before the weather changed. Dad could have been a stand up comic. And he was prone to exaggeration. It is really more like 30 miles and 30 minutes on an average. But if you are talking skies in the spring and summer ten minutes is stretching it. You can literally sit on your stoop and watch the thunderheads bloom over the mountains and change shapes and sizes and colors.

 And if you are bored must look north instead of south or east instead of west. Recently I heard the rain on my metal roof and when I looked out of the studio window there was not a cloud. I stood in the rain and looked overhead and it was a huge black cloud. I usually photograph them when there is more color involved.

And that is not difficult to find.

Just wait ten minutes.

Day 165

Day 166

Day 167

Day 168

Hope you enjoyed the clouds without commercial interruption.

Week 23 - 2016 in Photographs

Day 155

 Spring time in the Rockies again. We do spring/winter until suddenly it is summer. But I am not complaining. There are the awesome clouds over snow capped mountains or greening up forests to make it all worth while.

Day 156

 When I lived in the south I noticed the world was all the same shade of green. My friends in North Carolina thought I would be happy to be away from the arid southwest and all the browns. Not. I really missed those reds and ochres and browns and oranges. But I also missed our greens. There are just so many hues of green in a New Mexico landscape. Southerners will never understand.

Day 157

And clouds. The south gets storm fronts. We manufacture them here in the southwest. We blend the moisture up from the Gulf of Baja with our currents over the tall mountains and produce afternoon thunderstorms. They are awesome. The moisture helps the wildflowers bloom.

Day 158

Speaking of greens there are several shades of it in the photos above and below.

Day 159

And again the snow capped mountains with clouds.

Day 160

And the cloudless sky of a New Mexico morning. No, I did not photoshop that blue in. That is the color of the skies here.

Day 161

The La Cuerva mission church is destined to be a painting.

Week 22 - 2016 in Photographs

Day 148

Last days of May moving into the first couple days of June. Artificial demarcations in time which us humans seem to require, but the land and the vegetation doesn't. More important separations are rain or no rain, morning or noon, full sun or cloudy.

Day 149

Each day and sometimes each photograph is so different from the one before during the spring.

Day 150

Some days there is just too much green and I have to reduce a photograph to blacks and whites to see past the green.

Day 151

But the blues. I wish I could keep all the blues. The blues are different in every photo of the sky of the ponds but they are more my colors than greens.

Day 152

So black and white to get past the green of spring. Even the water can be green with the growth of algae. 

Day 153

And black and white can be so seductive. 

Day 154

Shapes and textures take the center stage in a black and white. Shapes and textures that colors hide.

Week 21 - 2016 in Photographs

Day 141

 Three photographs in color and four in black and white. I used to do no black and white processing. I am a color person. My paintings are full of color and my photography followed suit. But I had a whole period of art in which I did pen and ink in black and white and added just one accent color.


Black and white is also a good way of reducing a painting to the bare essentials so I can produce a drawing from it to use as a basis for sketch for a painting. And I used to do photography just as a way to research paintings.

Day 142

 The photograph below is in color for this week but I have it in the folder for next week as a black and white.

Day 144

 It is a difficult leap to take a photograph with deep blues and desaturate it black and white but the whites of the aspen barks are stark elements in the photograph below.

Day 145

And the old building in Ocate was almost over-powdered by the colors. I tried it in black and white just to see what I would get and also to make it an easier subject to draw.

Day 143

Day 146

 And the old building with the three wash tubs was so fractured with discordant colors I wanted to see it in black and white. Again to draw it and then to paint it with my own choice of colors.

Day 147

Another look at the building in Day 143. Generally I do not do back and white of a photograph with a quiet sky but there isn't much sky.

Week 20 - 2016 in Photographs

Day 135

A week of landscapes and flowers. Mixed weather and mixed moods. I am so ready for summer or at least spring.

Day 136

 Taking care of greenhouses as helped with ennui about the never, never land between winter and summer. Here in the mountain west spring is a sometimes thing. And it is not unheard of to have winter one day and summer the next. And the absence of spring may be why so many of us have greenhouses or sun porches or studios which are crowded with plants both ornamental and vegetable.

Day 137

 An orchid or hibiscus in bloom keeps your attention away from the wintery mix (NOAA's term) just outside the windows.

Day 138

But when you do look outside there are those treasured skies filled with clouds and lit by the rising sun.

Day 134

Day 139

 I am still looking for the dawn photograph to end all dawn photographs. Or the photograph of the Sangre de Cristos to totally define them as a mountain range. The one below I translated into a painting in my style. What I took from the photograph was the basic elements, and then added my feeling of color. My yearning for spring.

Day 140

Week 19 - 2016 in Photographs

Day 127

 It was a wintery mix week as NOAA has come to term it. Definitely spring time in the Rockies. And mating turkey season. I managed to get my first ever photo of a strutting gobler.

Day 128

 And in my opinion deer can be a little boring without something to add to the photo like huge snow flakes.

Day 129

Day 130

Day 131

 And snow capped mountains with storm clouds are also a great photographic theme. The next two photos are "assignments" from a photographic group I belong to.

Day 132

Day 133

Week 18 - 2016 in Photographs

Day 120

Rather a mixed bag of tricks this week at the end of April and beginning of May. And it was rather a mixed bag as far as weather too. And things going on. I would like to say I earn enough to be able to do photography full time but no. Not yet. So I do some odd jobs and pet sitting and property care. And this week I had to throw in garden prep. If that last does not get done I don't get to eat organic green things all summer long.

Day 121

 The camera always goes with me. Except for yesterday. I left it home. I do that every once in a while and always find at least one reason I should have taken it. It was new goslings. But if you have a camera you see the world a bit differently and not bringing it is like hitting reset on an electronic devise. It clears the clutter.

Day 122

 One of the things I wished I had the camera for yesterday was this Hibiscus with a flower in full bloom. Hoping it or another bud is still there today. 

Day 123

This large ceramic piece is in the same greenhouse. And looks like it will be a fountain in the near future. I love taking care of greenhouses. It gives me a break from spring as represented in the next three photographs. But I do like what snow and frost can do to the landscape and objects. Especially spring snow because it falls gently and is wet enough to stick to things so even a fence has charm.

Day 124

But aspens are the best pallet for spring snow. And they never seem to get old. I must have hundreds of snowy bare branches photographs. 

Day 125

 And even lawn chairs left out can look fantastic. Their simple lines make them wonderful to play around with in any photo editing program. I liked this because of the Easter egg colors in contrast with the winter white.

Day 126