With all the storms across the midwest, it made me recall the storms that would strike Florida, some of which allowed me to still take my camera out and capture how they transform the sky into, in this case, a palette of electric pink. This is the view along the seawall of the apartment complex I lived at in St. Petersburg, Florida. On calm days manatees and dolphins could be seen from this spot, but this evening a powerful and beautiful thunderstorm dominated the horizon.
If you love any of these New Mexico True views, you can either get a fine art print for your home or office, or actually own the land by contacting Hemingway Land Company. Rural northwest Rio Rancho is a different world, just about 30 minutes from Albuquerque proper. Your neighbors are cactus, jack rabbits, beetles, and birds!
From a summer western trip, I present in these photos the less famous bendy rivercanyon wonder of the southwest, Goosenecks State Park in southern Utah. The size and scope of this natural feature is tremendous, yet it is not apparent at all until you walk to the very edge of it. There is a tiny cabin booth to collect your entry fee, then that’s it. You walk yourself to the edge and behold the expanse of Goosenecks on your own. What must have it been like 200 years ago to be riding your horse and all of a sudden this is in front of you?
On a recent return to Rio Rancho, New Mexico for a rural land real estate shoot for Hemingway Land, I found the property to be rather sand dune like in places. New Mexico is a high desert environment, not the typical sandy desert many may picture when hearing the word desert. There are places that are kind of sandy, like this one where you can leave prints, or paw prints, like the ones you can see in the above photo from my dog Kiki who joined me on this desert real estate shoot.
While out on a rural land real estate assignment in northwest New Mexico near the town of Aztec, the client wanted to include some drone video of the nearby Animas River. I have flown over the Animas River before in an area north of Durango, Colorado even catching some people jumping high off the cliffs into the river! The river there had a beautiful matte emerald green color to it. In this area of New Mexico, the river was an unattractive brown, but nonetheless the surrounding mesas still made for a stunning scene. This drone video shows a small, hidden area of New Mexico True.
Traveling all over the state of New Mexico for rural land photography work allows me to explore some off the beaten path places in between shoots. The latest was Spring Canyon State Park, which is really part of Rockhound State Park, and this particular canyon is Lover’s Leap Canyon. That’s complicated! All without mentioning these parks are made up of the Florida Mountains! The trail up Lover’s Leap Canyon is allegedly only 0.9 miles, but it takes over 30 minutes due to how steep and rocky it is. The view just keeps getting better and better as the trail gets higher. Once at the top, take off your backpack, get out a snack, and enjoy the fruit of one’s hiking labors! This is another hidden gem in New Mexico.
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.
