In bookend visits to Monument Valley in Utah, I made a lot of photos being there for sunset one evening, then sunrise the next morning. I had time during these two forays into this stunning environment to look for other shots besides sweeping landscape photos, like this one with a twisted tree. There was so much movement and texture in this gnarled tree that I wanted to find a way to photograph it that really made it come through the frame. I set my camera on my tripod at its lowest leg extension for a below standing eye level perspective. This eerie tree composed this way as to obscure the beauty of the mesas creating a contrast in visuals.
While out on a rural land real estate photo shoot in Belen, New Mexico, I made some new friends. My dog, Kiki, was with me on this desert shoot as she often is. I noticed that she was noticing something in the distance to the east. I was focused on the west getting ready to make my signature HDRsunset shots. In the far distance I saw two animals moving. I thought they were cows as those are the most common large animal sighting in that area. One was really white though and I thought that is an odd coloring for a cow. Looking closer I saw they were in fact horses. I had already been to that area of the property and knew there was a barbed wire fence. I wondered if they would jump over it?
While visiting San Diego between Christmas and New Year’s, to my surprise touring on the waterfront among aircraft carriers and other ships, stands a statue representation of the famous sailor kissing woman photo. It stands 25 feet tall and attracts quite a crowd, even on a weekday morning. Recently the man in the photo/statue passed away. The woman passed away in 2016. One’s feelings about the action captured in the photo, and the statue itself, can no doubt vary widely. One thing for sure though, it delights a lot of people visiting San Diego’s downtown waterfront.
Right on time to the weather forecast, snow began falling at 5pm on a Friday. By midnight it was a frozen landscape like I have never seen in Albuquerque, New Mexico before. There was not just snow cover, it was as if the trees and ground themselves had become snow leaving only dark ponds to contrast with all that white. I went out with my tripod to make these long exposure (5, 15, 30 second exposures) in black & white around my own apartment complex grounds.
Over the course of seven days staying in the Ocean Beach community in San Diego, California I went to visit the Ocean Beach Pier several times. It looked and felt different each time. I was there for a brilliant sunset. I was there as a storm approached. I was there when the pier was nearly completely empty, and when it was filled with people. I met a pelican. I walked it, and I rode a Bird (electric scooter) down it. I listened to the stories the ocean whispered as it passed under and around the pier.
My rural land photography work often takes me out into the desert were very few signs of life exist. Sometimes I scare a jack rabbit from behind a bush. Sometimes black beetles back their way over the sand. Birds may soar overhead looking aimlessly for food or greener perches. Plants seem to be in abundance in some areas of the desert, like the one pictured above, but how much life is there? What does desert life mean? Is the desert as alive as the jungle?
Slab City. It was a mysterious place floating in my mind for decades, ever since seeing Easy Rider. In my memory the movie showed Slab City as a place in California you can just setup and live, on empty slabs of concrete out in the desert. In preparing to go to Slab City recently, I read up some about it. It was supposedly still a lawless place where the police did not go, and were not wanted. I was actually concerned about safety issues trying to just drive through Slab City. I expected to be met with very unwelcome looks, as an outsider. Slab City, I thought, is not a place for casual visitors.
