memories

While exploring a natural or human-made landscape, I often wonder how it looked years, decades, or centuries in the past.  What was there?  Was it appreciably different than it is today?  Frequently, one comes upon objects or buildings from the human past and they make me wonder what memories are instilled therein.  It is fairly easy to create your own script but what really happened?  Adventures, love, broken dreams, or lives vigorously lived?  Below are more shots from the recent photo fellow photographer, Steve Immel (some of his work appears in a group show at the Taos Inn as part of a group show "Photographs of Light Landscape and Legend" running from 1 September and throughout October) and I took in northern New Mexico.

Jeep near Tres Piedras

Adobe house near Mogote, Colorado

Church facade after fire, Las Mesitas Catholic Cemetery, Colorado

until next Monday,

DB

a passion for the image

at the rail yard

There is nothing quite like the massive black, thunderous steam engines that used to move America.  In New Mexico, we are lucky to have the narrow gauge Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad back in service after the Lobato trestle fire last year.

The rail yard itself is fascinating.  Fellow photographer Steve Immel and I took a day to photograph parts of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado this week and spent a bit of time poking around the tracks, both in Antonito and Chama.

Thoroughly photographing the trains would take years, but the support materials that are in and around the tracks make some pretty fascinating studies.  Where the grid of metal shown below fits into the scheme of things, I do not know, but I love the complexity and rhythm of the design.

What a system!  Metal on metal

Coal hopper at the Chama yard

until next  Monday,

DB

a passion for the image

Heavy metal or all in a day's work

I admit it.  I am a bit shy when it comes to new equipment.  Computers, cameras, electronics in general.  Part of this comes from the early 1980s when personal computers crashed - I mean really crashed - on a regular basis.  Another part comes from so-called owners' manuals or guides which frequently are confusing and sometimes totally useless.  Now, there is the added fun of manufacturers expecting the user to go online to obtain answers to a majority of questions.

Because electronic circuitry is in everything, and companies are more and more profit driven, manuals seem to have less and less useful information.  Fewer pages, less paper, less cost.  So when a person who likes to work on cars goes to the manual to determine how to remove a part, and the manual or online help site says "undo two screws and remove the faulty part", it is laughable.  

Today's blog began when Fred was changing out the "output shaft speed sensor on the rear differential" of the truck.  It was only one bolt that took a mirror and contortionist-like effort to remove.  For me, the quick job morphed into a photographic study of metal.

until next Monday,

DB

a passion for the image

    

Fierce Puppies: the next generation

Over the years, my husband and I have discovered that gifts of nature may happen frequently but we are not always in the right place at the right time to receive them.  During this exceptionally dry year in much of the Southwest, we have noticed that many things are a bit askew.  The forest fires near Santa Fe, Los Alamos, and El Rito, and the smoke from them that drifted hundreds of miles effected every animal in ways we may never know.  Firefighters said that the fire behavior was unprecedented.

Around our place, the hummingbirds aren't quite as many in number, and the rough and tumble Rufous hummingbirds arrived earlier than normal.  Sheep grazing in the national forest have felt the need to drift with the wind beyond their diligent herders' eyes, through the fences.  And there has been a steady stream of coyotes at the water basins.  Two have been visiting regularly.  We suspected they were litter mates but discovered differently when they first brought one puppy with them and the following day brought three puppies.  It was quite thrilling!  The coats young coyotes sport is short and spiky, giving them a roly-poly look.  Being canines, they have to grow into their big feet and seem to do so very quickly, which makes their little stocky legs become lanky.

Of course, this presented me with a new challenge.  Every time we saw any of them poking around, I would grab my camera, generally to no avail.  But one of the more independent of the litter is a female.  Just for fun, we'll call her Gigi.  The second time she showed up nosing around on our porch, I knew I would be able to photograph her.  So, in all her furry glory, here she is.

 until next Monday

DB

a passion for the image