Almost Time

It's almost here.

Fall.

Autumn.

When the colors are so different people don't belive the picture is real.

And My Version of Someone Elses

In my last blog, I compared one of my images to one of Ansel Adams. It is exciting to see the same things he saw and compare them to how I viewed them, but these two images shown here give me an even greater excitement.

The small black and white one was how I saw this place, while the larger color version is someone elses. I'm proud to say that I like the color one better than mine; a lot better.

Proud because it's my daughter Sloans'.

I gave her an old camera of mine about a year ago and she never ceases to amaze me with the vision she has with it. She sees things with it that I never could. It seems like she has a magic touch with it. I was there at this same exact time as her, but I missed the cross in the front, and it's those little things that mean a picture is an image, not just a picture.

Maybe someday I'll see what she does.

My Version of Ansel's

The New Church at Taos Pueblo

One of the things I like doing when we go to places in the West is to visit the same places that Ansel Adams did many years ago.

There might be changes to the locations, like a parking lot added or a couple of extra crosses on top of a church, but essentially you can still find many of the same iconic places that Ansel found first.

I purposefully don't study his images so I won't copy them, but then after I make my pictures it's always exciting to look at the way he saw things and compare them to the way I saw that same place. Not that I'm even thinking of comparing my skills to his, but just to know that he thought this place special enough to set up his camera makes it special for me.

(By-the-way...mine's on the bottom and his is on the top, but if you didn't know that then maybe I'm getting better at this.)

Just one I like

No reason for this one. It's just one I like from our last trip. Sometimes an image doesn't have to mean anything, or show anything special, or follow any rules.

Sometimes you just have to like it as it is.

Corner of St. Francis Church
Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico

San Geronimo Cemetery

One of the first things we did in Sante Fe, and I think the best, was to drive to Taos and visit the Taos Pueblo.

The Pueblo is considered to be the oldest continuously inhabited community in the country, with the two main structures dating back well over 1,000 years.

This image is taken in the cemetery of the Pueblo, near the OLD church of San Geronimo. The church was built around 1619 and had an interesting end.

In 1847 the people of the Pueblo tried to overthrow the U.S. government and killed the governor of New Mexico who lived at that time in Taos. In retaliation the U.S. Army took the responsible parties to the plaza at the Church; hung them; and destroyed the San Geronimo Church. The plaza was turned into a cemetery and is still used today. The church was rebuilt nearby in 1850 and is considered the NEW church.

The thoughts of 1,000 years ago; built in 1619; new in 1847 make our short history around here seem trivial. The first house in Benton Harbor was built two years after the new church was built at the Pueblo and it's now a museum and we talk about it as "history".

The people of the Taos Pueblo are still living in and worshipping in those same buildings. They live with the real history every day.

A Sante Fe evening

Denise, Sloan and I were in Sante Fe a couple of weeks ago and one evening the skys came together for a magical moment.

As we were riding down the Turquoise Trail just before sunset the clouds over the high desert started to show signs that something special was going to happen. Within just a brief time span of only about five minutes, the white fluffy clouds started to change color and continued to change from pink to orange to purple and everything in between.

Sloan and I grabbed our cameras and ran around outside the car trying to keep up with the colors as Denise did her best to keep up with her thoughts on paper (I'm sure you'll see something from her on this before long).

The colors didn't last long but I'll always remember that evening. Not just for what I was seeing, but for who I was with and how they were there to share it with me.

It'll be OK

The Trillium

Warren Woods State Park

I woke up yesterday morning to a sunny, cold, spring morning and talked myself into forgetting all of the yard work and all of the office paper work I should be doing and instead I went for a ride to the woods.

A couple of years ago I came across a hillside in that same woods that was covered with spring flowers. Those images I took that day didn't work out so well, and it's been bothering me since. I decided to look for that same hillside again and see if it was time to try again.

There weren't as many flowers this time as last, but as I looked around and climbed the sides of the hills, it just seemed like this was the place to be at this particular time. It just seemed right to be there.

Our family is going through a tough time right now and it's been difficult for the ones I love the past few weeks. A simple little walk in the woods looking for a second chance at a spring flower kept making me think of one thing.

It'll be OK.

Following Leroy

In my last blog I told of going on a workshop to northern Arizona with a group. One of the reasons I chose that workshop was the photographer who led it, Leroy DeJolie. I had seen his work in magazines and always admired the look and feel of them, but other than that I didn't know much about him at all except for one thing. Leroy is Navajo and we were going to spend all of our time on Navajo tribal land.



It's been a couple of years since then but I can still hear Leroy yelling at me as he ran off over the dunes in this image to "follow me and put your tripod where I mark the sand".
He didn't speak a whole lot, maybe because of his heritage, but when he did, you paid attention. He had a way about him.

The Yebachai and the Totem Pole

Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Land

Leroy's knowledge of photograpy and the locations we visited was only surpassed by his love of his native people and it turned a photo workshop into something more. It gave me just a brief look into what a person's family history could mean and I thank him for sharing that.

My first look into a special place

The Mittens at Sunrise
Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park

I'm not one to join a group or be around a lot of people, but a couple of years ago I decided to take a chance and went on a photo workshop in northern Arizona. We spent our time in a place I had heard about, but didn't know much about.

This is a simple image of the "Mittens" and it's the first image I ever took in that special place called Monument Valley.

It's a vista seen by almost everyone before. It's a place that's difficult to make special and different. But this one is special because it's mine. I was there; I waited for the sun to come up; I felt the chill of the cold valley morning; I cleaned the red rock dust from my lens; and every time I look at it, even though the image might not be that different from others, I'll never forget the feeling I had at that one moment in time.

Since that trip, I've gone back. I had to. Not just to take more pictures, but to try and share that feeling with my two favorite travelers. Hope they got it.

Let's try something...

Let's make this clear right off the start.

A blog seems to scream WRITER to me, and that isn't what this is all about.

I live with a writer but I'm not one.

I don't pretend to be one. I don't even like to read.

I'm not doing this thinking that I can write, but instead doing it to share images of places, people, and things I've had the chance to come across.

I'm a picture person. Someone who would rather try to relay a feeling through an image than through words.

I'll post an image now and again and put together a little description of what it is; where it was; and maybe try to give my feelings of what I was thinking at that moment in time.

Just remember, I'm not a writer!

Blackfeet Dancer

North American Indian Days Festival

Browining, Montana