Exploring the wealth of photography in White Sands National Park
The best place to make photographs in New Mexico is unquestionably White Sands National Park. It is the Grand Canyon of New Mexico in that you could go to the park every day for a month, and still makes hours of photos without running out of subject matter. The topography of the park actually changes day to day with the wind! This is at least my fifth visit to the park. I brought just one lens, the Sony 24mm f/1.4 GM. I focused on finding angles. I wanted to include the flora of the park in each shot too. This was also the real world debut of using my new mirrorless camera. The results of the photo above are unlike any photo I made at White Sands before. That is the amazing thing about the park, visit after visit, there is no end to the photos one can make.
Spending sunset time in the desert of New Mexico for real estate photography
Lately I’ve been to both Valencia County and Torrence County in New Mexico several times on rural land real estate photography shoots. This is an opportunity to go to an area that is usually pretty remote and quiet and just listen to the desert as the daytime shift gives way to the nighttime shift. Plus, if the clouds are right, the big sky sunsets make for great views.
A recent visit to Colorado did not go exactly as planned, but we were still able to take in some views on the famed Million Dollar Highway that is north of Silverton. What a fantastic driving road with views that go on for miles. At least in the summer, there are no lack of amazing mountain towns to visit in a sports car to take advantage of all the sweepers, hairpins, and twisties on the roads in between all nestled in stunning setting after stunning setting.
Wanting to escape the heat of the city yet again, going to over 7,200 feet in elevation to the forest surrounding the San Antonio Campground in the Jemez Valley area of New Mexico, brief relief was found walking among the tall trees and the moss covered rocks. Naturally I had my camera with me, and wanted to look for secrets and textures of the forest. I recently learned a new term for fallen trees, dead fall. How the tree in the above photo came to rest like that in a dead fall of horizontal symmetry is such a secret I was looking for. Large rocks sat in isolation with moss growing on them, and being mostly in desert areas of New Mexico, these were not often seen textures with life clinging and growing to the rocks. I imagine to the moss and such on these rocks, each rock feels like its own planet in a galaxy of trees.
Summer along the San Juan River is still freezing in the water!
Navajo Lake and Navajo Dam is one of my favorite areas of New Mexico, and having just made my tenth visit to the area, this was the first time to be there in the heart of summertime. I thought this, finally, was my chance to go for a swim in the San Juan River. The air temperature was in the low 80s. This made me totally unprepared for just how cold the river was. You could not ease your way into the water, which is not my custom anyway, so I made the plunge completely under water, only to have to immediately bounce back up and make my way out. The cold was so intense I felt something like frost bite! After warming back up, I took out my brand new lens, the Sony 24-70mm f/2.8 GM II, and made a few photos of the river mostly from a low angle. Doesn’t the water look inviting on a hot summer day??
Though relatively nearby to Albuquerque, Cochiti Lake is not a place I have often visited, but almost on a whim made a return visit to recently. It was to the less used Tetilla Peak area where most of the time there, it felt like having the lake to oneself. This area did only just open up for the season the day before so that probably helped too! Is this a beautiful lake? No, not at all, especially since it only exists because of a dam. However, there are not many bodies of water in New Mexico, and if you go at the right time and to the right spot, it can feel like a small escape from the desert.
On a recent trip to Arizona for rural land real estate work, it turned out for one part of it I was only about 1 hour away from the Grand Canyon, so if one can do such a thing, I swung by the Grand Canyon for an afternoon stroll and made these panorama photos of the canyon in less than ideal light, but at least a few clouds swooped in to help add some drama.
