Angel Fire moves to favorite place status
Angel Fire, New Mexico is famous for being a winter destination. However, even at the end of April snow still dusts the mountain peaks adding to the drama of dusk. Staying at an Airbnb (Covid-19 safe) condo with amazing views right off the back patio, even though I had already been shooting for hours that day for a rural land real estate client, I got my camera back out to capture the last twilight light of this spectacular spring sky. Here at Jason Collin Photography, after this spring sky show, Angel Fire became my favorite place in New Mexico.
Read MorePhoto Tip: take just one lens with you to focus on one type of shot
When I go out with my camera for personal photography, I like to take just one lens with me so that I am really focused on making one type of photo. For a hike along the Tunnel Canyon trail in Tijeras, New Mexico, on my Sony a7 iii was the Sony 90mm f/2.8 G Macro lens. Before I left the house i was thinking what type of photos did I feel like taking that day, and despite possible being out in wide open space, having distant views, I was feeling getting close up, so I chose the macro lens. That said, there were not that many great macro subjects on the trail, but there were some large boulders with moss on them that caught my eye. The lighting was not the greatest, but the macro lens is about showing small details anyway and getting really shallow DoF.
Read MoreOld Human Old Geological in Taos
The ski resort town of Taos, New Mexico is a place one would expect to find sweeping views of mountain landscapes. For my photograph of such a well known view, I wanted to make it standout by using in the foreground and old, relic of a pickup truck to juxtapose with the natural features of the background. Both the foreground and background contain old things, with the former old in terms of human years, and the latter in terms of geological millennia.
Read MoreA whiptail lizard friend among lava
I met this new friend in the Valley of Fires. It was hanging out on a metal grill by a picnic table (see photo below). I only now learned it is a New Mexico whiptail lizard. Let's just say the lizard was female for convenience sake. She was on the aforementioned metal grill first, which is not the best backdrop to photograph a wild creature on. I got a few quick shots though because I wanted to fly my drone over the lava fields. When I was done flying, the lizard had moved onto to some twigs -- a much better background! I was using my new Tamron 90mm f/2.8 SP Macro lens for the latter shots, which can focus less than a foot away from a subject. I just kept getting closer and closer to the lizard, and she did not move at all! Thank you friendly whiptail for hanging out and letting me make your portrait!
Read MoreLast week I invested in getting a macro lens, the new Tamron 90mm f/2.8 Macro SP. For those of you with really good memories, you will have realized this is my third Tamron lens in the past 9 months. Tamron is just simply producing the best lenses available for Nikon right now. I had the Nikon 105mm VR Micro (they use micro not macro in the name) lens from 2009 until about 2013 and loved it. It was such a fun lens to shoot with, as making macro shots always had a sense of wonder at showing a hidden world the naked eye cannot see. It had very creamy bokeh and was very, very sharp. I also loved it for portraits and just as my walking around lens.
Read MoreOn the way to Las Cruces, New Mexico for a rural land photography shoot, I got to make my second visit to Elephant Butte Lake. This was actually the very first non-Albuquerque place I visited when I first moved to New Mexico in February 2017. Therefore, this is my only "old memory" of New Mexico (technically, in 2000 I visited Roswell and Carlsbad Caverns and Bandelier National Monument too, but that's a whole other lifetime).
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