Lordsburg, New Mexico is about 4.5 hours southwest of Albuquerque and was the location for my lasted multi-day rural land photo and drone shoot for Hemingway Land Company. I had never been to this area of New Mexico before so I did not know what to expect. The skies cooperated providing clouds for a spectacular sunset each night, with mountains in the background each time too. In fact, pictured above are the aptly named Pyramid Mountains. This is a very peaceful and quiet area, where nothing happens in a hurry. Lordsburg itself feels that way. This is a place to come for low-stress living, but where can you buy an iPod??
If you are a long time reader of the JCP blog, then you may recognize the person in the upper left from another headshot shoot in February 2018. That’s Arkulas Beyer of Tech Nuts in Rio Rancho, New Mexico. He hired a few new staff members and wanted headshots of them to feature on an updated Tech Nuts website. I got to visit Arkulas on his home turf right in the Tech Nuts computer shop. Thus, I got to see more of his personality as he interacted with his staff, which includes his dad (upper right)! You can notice the difference in his photo too with more of a smile than his previous one.
I had the opportunity to photograph the last ABQ Roller Derby bout of the 2018 season due to my connection with Sonja Dewing who hosts 1 Million Cups and is also the owner of Plot Duckies. She invited me to photograph an upcoming bout which I gladly agreed to as I had never photographed a roller derby before! I did not, and still do not, know a single rule or strategy about roller derby, but by the second half I was starting to figure out when the best action takes place and where on the skating rink. I could not believe the collisions and how many times people get knocked right on their butts! You can see the action up close in the gallery below.
It is not every day one gets to photography the New York City Police Commissioner, the Albuquerque Chief of Police and the Mayor of Albuquerque! However, that was exactly what I got to do in photographing my second signature event for the Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce. The NYPD commish spoke to a packed ballroom on the theme of Lessons in Crime-Fighting From One of the Safest Big Cities in the World. Before that there were roundtable discussions with Q&A sessions. I was busy covering it all at the beautiful Albuquerque Marriott Pyramid North!
The annual Aki Matsuri Japanese Fall Festival in Albuquerque, New Mexico gives me a chance to remember my 6 years living in Japan. You might think a festival cannot recall anything specific since it covers a spectrum of cultural displays from music, to dance to karate demonstrations. However, my neighborhood in the Shinjuku area of Tokyo had its very own annual festival complete with its own song with lyrics about how much we all like Shinjuku! Even though this was my second year in a row attending this festival, it still surprises me to be able to get a glimpse of live, Japanese culture here in the desert, in Albuquerque.
I have been taking my dog, Kiki, to dog parks across the country for all her 9.5 year life. Having a good dog park is a key feature of any place I choose to live. Therefore, the opening of more dog parks is always welcome, and especially ones in urban areas. Such a dog park opened right in the middle of the Cottonwood Mall parking lot in Rio Rancho, New Mexico! Before the ribbon cutting event hosted by the ABQ West Chamber of Commerce I had a hard time imagining how a dog park could be in a mall. Whoever the designers were deserve great praise for making a fantastic dog park, with obstacles, shade and easy access to water for both dog and human alike! I have never seen such a large gathering of dogs with all dogs getting along so well either! We live far from this dog park, so will not be regulars, but when on the west side I look forward to visiting again!
Me and Jessica and the dogs had some free time on a rural land shoot weekend in Navajo Dam, New Mexico, and saw that Durango, Colorado was not that far away. We took the Jeep Renegade Trailhawk up a scenic highway, and kept on going right through Durango finding first a natural hot spring, and then later a crowd gathered around this small bridge. Not until you get up on the bridge do you have any idea the amazing views of the Animas River from it, and you really get a better look at the beauty of this area from the drone’s eye view! The crowd there, however, were mostly to watch people jump off the cliff bank 30+ feet into the Animas River below! It was tricky to time out and capture with the drone, but in the video you can see two people making the plunge!
