Today's Dawn

Rarely am I up this early, but it happens.

Snow melted now

And it's warm again ! Had to have been 75 degrees today. That's just the kind of strange weather we get here. The photo above, I got before the snow all melted away.

We dropped by the local college today and checked out some of the facilities. The Internet connection they have definitely beats our satellite connection. It's got to be at least 3 times faster, feels like ten times faster. The good news there is that I discover that my various websites indeed load plenty fast and run smoothly if you've got good bandwidth. Not too many students there looking at books, most are huddled away the back corners where the computers are strategically placed-- you can see the librarian coming from a mile off. Hmmm. Doing school related research ? I think not.

We also picked up the college art and lit magazine, though I have barely glanced at it yet. There's a play or two there we'd like to see in a couple of days. Seems you have to be "in the loop" at the college in order to get word of these things.

Looked at the Smithsonian magazine today. Interesting article on Vincent Van Gogh's night paintings. The most famous of course being "Starry Night." Learned something interesting: that Vincent thought this painting to be a failure.

Hardly. It's just that the poor guy and his brother, Theo, had a very difficult time selling any of his work during his lifetime. Well, he was a visionary. I'm not making any direct comparisons between my work and the work of the great masters, I simply take my inspiration wherever I can find it.

First snow of the season

We really weren't ready for snow before the end of October. I mean, really weren't. Between that and some work related frustrations, got a bit bummed out. But, we took ourselves into town and could not help but notice the beautiful views along the way. It will likely warm up again before too long, and we will have the on again/ off again winter like we had last year when we arrived.

Truck and Barn

Can't very well pass up a classic view like this one now can I ? It took a lot more to get this shot than you might think. A lot of post processing, sometimes it comes easily, this time it didn't.

Controlled Burn

Controlled burn is the title of this photo. I'm pretty sure that nobody will buy this one to hang on the wall. Not that I didn't spend a lot of time and effort getting the colors and tones the way that I wanted. It's a successful piece and I'm proud of it. But I don't expect to be told how "pretty" it is. Being stuck out in the desert is something of a "controlled burn" for Sheryl and I. It hurt the counseling practice, it took me out of an "easy shooting" environment, coastal Santa Cruz, California where I could get good scenic shots every day if I half tried. But the "burn" has brought about a lot of change and positive results too. We basically live at an artist's and writer's retreat-- every day, all the time. If there is something good to come of it it comes from us. There is good to come of it.

Cleared for grazing.

I've been wanting to get a shot of this field for a long time. All the juniper trees have been cleared long ago, torn out by the roots and left lying there. It's a shame, and a practice which I think is no longer utilized out here, but the view remains. So we were driving by around sunset with the strange cloud formation above it and I stopped to set up the camera. Oh yeah, and there was a line of smoke across the whole horizon, so the lighting conditions were strange and HDR photography tends to heighten that effect.

Backyard

Shot this photo in Taylor the other day. Worked on it for quite awhile getting the tones and colors the way that I wanted them.

More photos from New Mexico

Oh but this one (above ) is local to Arizona. Just a night shot where I used a 30 second exposure. Moonless night but just after sunset so there was still some light in the sky. This is unretouched and I think I shot it at about F7. Not a serious art piece, just goofing around. The strangest part about this shot is not visible within the frame; that Sheryl asked me, just for kicks, what if she walked through the shot, real slow. She did, very slowly and even stopped over by the stairs near the middle light. Nothing, she's completely invisible.

This one is in New Mexico as is the one below. I took a previous shot of this on a different day from a different angle. I really like it. It's available for sale but we're coming to the conclusion that showcasing these photos at 600 pixels or 650 pixels across just does not cut it. Since I've been a victim of photo theft, I'm leery of showing larger works online. I hate doing watermarks.
I am not be above using the invisible kind which track the file all over the Internet, wherever it may wander. I'm also not finding Imagekind to be a successful venue for selling my work. We hear that the print quality is great.

This here symbol, it's a sun symbol, was one of few things we saw in Albuquerque with any visual appeal. It's our fault though, because we did not even see the downtown. ALBQ is big, real big, sprawls all over the place. We really prefer Santa Fe, or Taos, or Madrid, and some other smaller towns whose names I do not remember. At least if we were in Taos there are high quality and very competitive print shops there. Many options.

Mini Review of the film "Wild Things"

I think it will be interesting to see how the critics treat it. Overall I wasn't crazy about the film, and had only a vague memory of the book. The special effects/dialogue facial expressions of the creatures are amazingly well done. The voice actors are excellent. The colors are intentionally dark, drab and a bit cold. I didn't like the music at all. The "Shaky Cam" technique is employed throughout the film and gets annoying. They absolutely nailed some aspects of childhood. That being said, a lot of the kids in the theater seemed bored except during action sequences. Probably missed the theme altogether. I think it may have missed the mark in that it's neither a kid's film nor an adult's. But that's just my opinion. Parts of it were really great and very true. The main actor who played Max did a good job. I expect the critics may be really split on it and I don't think it will be a wild runaway hit either. A lot of big names put a lot into this film, and it is original amongst whatever genre that it may fit (?) and that's a rare thing.

Chance of rain

I took this photo on the way to New Mexico a while back. I love the look of these huge thunderhead clouds. Hopefully the tiny buildings underneath give a sense of scale.