out of chaos...

...come the most beautiful things.  My assignment this week was to sit or lay flat on the ground without encountering a rattlesnake or being stung by any number of creatures living in the sagebrush, to photograph the paintbrush.  Due to a late and very wet snowfall, these members of the figwort family (genus Castilleja) are appearing in abundance out of the chaos of sagebrush skeletons and still-dormant grasses, as if a painter carrying a bucket of red paint tripped and caught himself just in the nick.

I think of paintbrush as being a very deep red, but in actuality, most of the species here are a red orange. Occasionally, I will see one that is almost a blue red in its depth, but those are unusual, and are most common in the high mountain terrain.

As chaos theorists know, some of the most fascinating things emerge from the stew that is life.

until next Monday,

DB

a passion for the image

Environmental portraiture...of a different sort

Most of you know that I published a book in 2002 titled A Place Like No Other:  people of an enchanted land (Sunstone Press, Santa Fe).

I am about to embark on another environmental portraiture project, and I did a shoot on Wednesday that, in an odd way, might be considered environmental portraiture.  The subject this time was chickens (and a rooster named Big Daddy).  The place - Casa Gallina - a wonderful set of holiday rental properties in Taos.  This is not a bed and breakfast inn, but guests can have as many eggs from owner Richard Spera's chickens as they can eat.  You cannot find fresher eggs than those found in the nests.  Richard encourages his guests to visit with the chickens and reconnect with how real food is produced.  The chickens and rooster Big Daddy have an incredible vocabulary and I had a great time on the grass, following them around, and trying to make their "portraits".  Strange, yes, but the patina, patterns, and colors of the feathers are quite incredible.

What a collar!

Try to put these puzzles together!

stained glass?

Big Daddy in all his finery

until next Monday (and the rooster crows)

DB

a passion for the image

Mural art

Humans probably began painting walls as soon as their need for food and survival had been met.  The need to create and paint is in our DNA, and that need is perhaps even more apparent today.

Here are two wonderful pieces at Warehouse 21 in Santa Fe.

I have always admired muralists and their work, whether the medium is mosaic, some sort of applied paper or fabric, or spray paint. I wanted to quickly create my own, and here is an immediate result using a camera.  It is a reflection created by the glass garage doors of the Farmers' Market and the building across the railroad tracks from it at the Rail Yard in Santa Fe.

My thanks to all who make the world a more beautiful place.

until next Monday,

DB

a passion for the image

The Copyist

In 1969, I was given what is now an out-of-print, cult volume published by the Sierra Club and Ballantine Books (1967) titled On the Loose, by Terry and Renny Russell.  These brothers took the ultimate trip of self-discovery around the Sierras and western United States in 1964.  Despite the fact the resulting book looks very 60s and "peace, love, dove" in nature, it remains a treasure and an environmental treatise of its time.  Terry died as a result of a rafting accident in June 1965, shortly after bringing the manuscript to the Sierra Club offices.

One of the wonderful features of the book is the use of quotations from a wide variety of sources, and the one bit that has resonated with me throughout the years is "After the first Artist, only the copyist."  This may well be paraphrased from a number of sources (the Bible included) but like the spontaneously generated flatbread, the quote is universally infinite in its interpretation.

I admit it.  As a photographer, I am a copyist.  In response to a comment and request (thank you, TTT), I am including several of my most recent "copies" in today's blog.  I absolutely love the way sculptor Craig Dan Goseyun has created action in his Apache Mountain Spirit Dancer.

On the verso of the On the Loose title page is the statement "The photographs in this book are of the lowest fidelity obtainable.  They are as far from the photographer's vision as cheap cameras, mediocre film, and drugstore processing could make them."  

until next Monday,

DB

a passion for the image