New Mexico

Oct

2012

Sketches: Dancing Cowboys

A couple of Catron County cowboys horse around during the annual Pie Town Festival in Pie Town, New Mexico

Sep

2012

I went to Pie Town, New Mexico this past weekend along with Dan Milnor from Smogranch, Charlene Winfred from Perth, Australia, and Flemming Bo Jensen from Denmark for the Pie Festival. The town is a stone’s throw from my late father-in-laws ranch and I’d been there many times before, to have pie and to have lunch. This time the annual Pie Town Festival was going on complete with pie eating contest, pie queen, horseshoe competition and all sorts of good family fun.

I also briefly met Arthur Drooker through Dan, who has been remaking the Farm Security Administration portfolio that Russell Lee made back in the depression. He calls it Pie Town Revisited. Really cool stuff. If you happen to be driving through Pie Town (!) the photographs are on display in the Pie-O-Neer cafe on the north side of the road. Worth a visit.

Personally, I prefer the Good Pie Cafe on the south side of the road where I found the fellows in the picture. I especially like their chocolate pie. My son likes the milkshakes.

Aug

2012

Sketches: Pitch

May

2012

It’s not for me to know…

“It’s not for me to know; it’s for me to find out (discover).” This thought is what came to me as I browsed through some William Albert Allard images on the National Geographic site online. Allard, a 50 year contributor to the Geographic, is known for his incredible use of color as a compositional tool as well as his intimate stories in light other photographers wouldn’t choose to use.

What struck me as I looked at his images is how close he gets to his subjects. I’m not talking about positional distance, although he does that too. I mean how intimate the images become. It is as if he captures that essence of a moment that shows the subjects in all their three dimensional human depth. It is as if he manages to make an image from inside the subject’s defenses, from beyond the mask.

And even more, what Allard manages to capture in these images is not only the subject, but a piece of himself. And in doing so he captures a piece of me. Repeatedly I’ve found myself looking at an image thinking, “I know that feeling!” There is a piece of me in those images, and I imagine there is a piece of Allard, and of you too. That is good photography!

So why do I share all this? Well, I try to be better and better at photographing. I’m trying to learn what makes a good image and I’m trying to learn how to do it myself. A friend of mine suggested not too subtly that I not collect my own work but rather collect the good works of others. He suggested this mostly to spur along my artistic efforts, I know. And he has succeeded. So, I’ve been perusing the works of others including Allard, Steve McCurry, Larry Towell, Martin Parr, Yousuf Karsh and others. and I keep asking myself, “how did/do they do that?”

That question is not about the technical aspect of an image; I can figure that part out. It’s about the access; it’s about the edit; it’s about the moment; it’s about the intimacy; it’s about recognizing what matters out of all the uncontrollable chaos that exists in the world swirling around us all the time. And I realize, it is not for me to know by looking at others’ work; it is for me to discover – in the world, in front of my camera, in my images. These photographers managed to capture the images they did because they went seeking that intimacy. They let themselves become known and they let themselves discover others.

They got close, really close, and found that reflection of themselves in others and made an image of that. So, the question then arises, is how do I find that reflection of myself in my subjects, in the world? And show it?

Mar

2012

Bosque del Apache, Part 2

In my previous post I showed a quick series about the Geese and Sand Hill cranes at Bosque del Apache, a National Wildlife Refuge about an hour south of Albuquerque, New Mexico. It’s a photographer magnet.

We had found a field full of birds, out of which came the images in the previous post, but soon they decided to move on to their nighttime location.

We decided jump ahead of the birds to go to an area known as “The Flight Deck.”

The “Flight Deck” is an observation station placed in the flooded fields at a favorite resting spot for the birds. Word has it that thousand of birds usually spend the night here…as well as several zealous photographers. This time the birds landed at a neighboring field without a deck. They tend to do that if there are predators nearby. So all that was left was a gaggle of photographers with impossibly large lenses, the water, and the sunset.

Jan

2012

Forward and Backward

The other day I mentioned my wild idea to plunge headlong into a photographic project depicting my current home, the State of New Mexico. You can read about it here if interested. Some of the feedback I received was that people are pretty excited to see some or all of the work I’m doing here, even using it for research into their own photographic journeys (yikes!)

So I thought it might be fun to look back at some images that seem to fit the project that I took before the idea even crystallized in my being. So, just for fun, here are a few:

Jan

2012

Close to Home And The Birth Of A Project

Recently I posted a review of my goals from 2011 and found that I had ticked off most of them. Great. I got to feel a momentary sense of pride of accomplishment. But something was lacking a bit. At first I couldn’t recognize what it was but eventually, as I thought about it more, I came to realize that my checklist of accomplished goals for the last year failed to tell the fuller story of my photographic year. You see, I accomplished more than just my checklist. I learned a lot by surprise along the way.

Yes, I was focused on my goals, but not so much that I failed to pay attention to other opportunities which presented themselves along the way. Not only did my skills as a photographer grow, but my focus, intention, and attention all grew as well.

You see, for a long time my focus in photography was what is “out there”, outside of me and outside of my community. I wanted to photograph what was exotic, foreign, new, distant. My focus was on distant lands, distant ideas. But then I read Close to Home by Stuart Sipahigil (listed here on the Craft & Vision website.)

Close to Home has become a highly regarded and highly quoted book in the past year. In it Stuart turns his attention to a challenge many-if not most-amateur photographers have: making compelling images out of their “ordinary lives”-close to home. People loved it! From what I understand it is one of the bestselling titles from Craft and Vision this past year, and rightly so.

But Stuart’s book influenced me in a slightly different way. I wasn’t just looking for a way to make compelling images close to home, I was looking for a direction for my photography as a whole. I was searching for meaning in my photography. I was becoming less content making singular images of pretty stuff. I was wanting my photography to mean something more-if not to others, then to myself. And as I sat and thought about what I wanted to do with my photography I realized I was limited by my current life situation.

My young family and job prevent me from traveling to distant lands (Mexico, Vietnam, Thailand, Peru) to photograph exotic people in exotic locales. I am pretty firmly planted in New Mexico-a land I’ve inhabited for 16 years and feel pretty familiar with. But then, as I thought more about what Stuart was encouraging in his book I started to ask myself what I could photograph-what I would be excited to photograph-near home? And suddenly I realized, “holy cow, I live in NEW MEXICO!!!” This land is filled with the exotic, the new, the interesting, the fascinating, the joyful, the sorrowful, the pain, the hardship, the beauty, the sky, the sun, the mountains, the dust, the tumbleweeds, the cacti, the outdoors, the drugs, the mix of cultures…..well, you get it, right? This land is fascinating and enchanting and filled with wondrous stories of people and cultures and art and music and life!

And out of this was born the idea of my Tierra Encantada Project as well as my direction, purpose, meaning, and excitement-to try to tell the story of New Mexico as I know it. To try to show you, the viewer and reader, what this land is like and about. To try to point you toward why this is an enchanting place.

So, if you haven’t read Stuart’s book, Close to Home, do so! If you have read it, make a point to read it again. It is not a long book, but its depth is palpable. And I have heard from a small bird that he is working on another book due out possibly this Spring; I can’t wait!

Note: Those of you involved in the photography scene may be aware that my new friend and Blurb photographer at large Daniel Milnor (aka Smogranch) is also working on a very similar project. His work is absolutely fantastic and if you haven’t seen it go follow his tumblr blog where he is being completely transparent about the project’s process and progress for the sake of his subjects-people who would not otherwise see the results of their portraits. Also check out this video of him at work here in NM. He and I met recently and shared ideas on our projects. It is great fun to watch how he approaches the same subjects and what he comes away with. At first I was concerned I would be repeating what he’s already doing, but he comes from outside the state and sees things in a much different way than I do. That combined with his mega years of experience, his photography education, his outgoing nature, and the fact that he tends to shoot with a Leica means his work is going to look wayyyyyy different from mine. Can you tell I’m a fan? Still, I hesitated when he began to make his project public until I realized I could not deny the push inside that drives me to work on this project.

All of these images were made after meeting with Daniel in Santa Fe with my manual film camera, a Pentax K1000. All except the second-that was shot in my driveway. Talk about close to home!

Nov

2011

Lest We Forget

It is Veteran’s Day here in the United States and there is an outpouring of support and remembrance for U.S. soldiers that sacrificed their lives, in part or in whole, to serve in our military. So I thought I might post this image I took earlier this fall. It seems to fit in with the theme of the day.

The title I chose is one I feel the need to actually explain. It could, I suppose, be understood as recognizing this day of remembrance but I did not choose this title specifically for this day. I chose it more out of a sense of bemusement.

You see, I spotted this garage as I was driving down the street at the end of an early fall day while the sun was shining beautifully. I hesitated for a second or two, and then I spun the car around, parked across the street, and got out of the car with my camera and took a few images of this scene as well as the house next door.

I remember not knowing why this scene felt so fascinating to me. I just remember that it felt that way. I felt curious, bemused, wondering. Mostly, as I think upon it now, I wonder what it must be like to pull up to this garage after each day’s labor. I wonder what inspired this person to paint the U.S. flag on their garage door.

I imagine it was done with a sense of pride and patriotism but I wonder what compels a person to throw it up in their-and others’-faces repeatedly. Did they think they would forget who they were, where they were from, and what they believed in? Did they need a daily reminder? Did the rest of us passing by need one? I both understand it and it strikes me as funny all at once.

I suppose that is what bemuses me. When I look at this scene I get two simultaneous and conflicting reactions. One is “yes” (it is an act of urban, contemporary, cultural art-making, after all) and “for heaven’s sake, why?”

I’m curious, what is your response to this image or to similar scenes where you are from?

Nov

2011

Dia de los Muertos 2011 (Part 2)

Read Part 1 here.

I went to this year’s Muertos Y Marigolds Dia de los Muertos Parade with a better understanding of what I would encounter. After all, I’d been each of the past three years. It is a really fun and fascinating event with photo opportunities in nearly every direction. This year was no different; more so even!

My goal was to photograph images that could support previous efforts to create the feeling of being at the parade, so I started looking for more images of the spectators interacting with the participants. I found this really challenging though because so many of the spectators are dressed up, painted, and generally taking part in the entire spectacle. It is fabulous, and distracting!

It became quite challenging to tell the participants and spectators apart.

Eventually the sun dipped below the horizon and I broke out my flash. Using it off camera I began to play with some exposures of the tail end of the parade-those folks that hung in there, did the length of the parade route in the dark…and the cold.