Tag Archives: arizona

January 08, 2017 – Skull

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One of the things I love the most about photography is that the camera lens has the ability to reveal things that we would otherwise not ever notice. Infrared sensors (and infrared film) and macro lenses, much like the microscope and the telescope, reveal whole worlds that exist beyond our natural senses.

Sometimes, when I’m at a loss, I take a deep breath and put on my magnifiers. There’s a whole universe of textures, colors, insects, and fascinating patterns, all within five feet of where you are. Take the time to look, and you’ll be surprised.

This detail photograph of a cow’s skull reminds me of the grand canyon – the striated lines and the textures are reminiscent of a craggy peak. This isn’t the first time I’ve done up-close studies of skeletal remains, and it probably won’t be the last.

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January 07, 2017 – Sunset

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Landscape photography is about as old as photography itself – it has reached a level of cliche that’s hard to escape. At the same time, it isn’t the easiest art-form, either. We all have friends who have taken that ‘epic’ sunset photograph, replete with power lines and ugly houses in the foreground that completely distract from the colors, the clouds, and the experience.

I’m not a naysayer – I love that we all have cameras in our pockets, on our phones, that allow us to document majestic moments. But this doesn’t make us all artists. There’s something to be said about composition, intent, and execution. Cameras allow us all to be witnesses to nature’s majesty, but that doesn’t make us all artists. What I love about camera technology is that it hints at the possibility that we all CAN be artists – the tools to make exciting images are completely democratized, totally universal and, as I already mentioned, in each and every one of our pockets.

Get out there, guys. Keep your eyes open. Make something. Nature does all of the heavy lifting – all you have to do is recognize the beauty, pick up your camera, and give it a go.

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January 06, 2017 – The Landscape

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After living in Kansas City for over a year, it feels so good being back in the desert, where I belong. There’s nothing like an Arizona sunrise. At every hour, there are wonderful things to photograph, mountains to hike, winding roads to drive down. This, to me, is paradise.

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January 04, 2017 – Snowstorm In Arizona

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After a glorious New Years celebration in Sedona, Arizona, we decided to take the long way back to Tucson. Although it was sixty miles out of our way, Flagstaff was too close not to pass through. As we approached the mountaintop city, whiteout conditions descended from the hills, a big black mass of winter fury.

Naturally, once we passed through the maelstrom, it was necessary to stop and get our boots wet. Virgin snow is beautiful, but even more-so to the desert-rat. It’s a rare sight for Arizonans – and even though I’m from Kansas, I have to admit an affinity for a landscape draped in fresh snow.

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January 03, 2017 – Muddy Stream

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Textures – a long obsession of mine.
Without spending too much time being overwhelmingly boring, I will say that I have spent weeks – probably months – of my life with a macro lens in my hands and earbuds piping music into my brain, photographing cracks in pavement, tree bark, broken patches of clay-rich earth, rusty garbage containers, and just about anything you can find on a rusting old car or in a back alley, in order to expand my collection of texture images.

My library is extensive.

Some of these images are used to add grit and texture to other photographs I’ve taken (as overlays and double exposures). Some of them reveal themselves to be stand-alone pieces. The image above just so happens to be one of those stand alone pieces. While hiking through the rain-drenched red mud of Sedona, Arizona, there was a moment when I realized I had been paying too much attention to the mountains towering over me – that’s what always captures people’s attention – and I needed to take a moment and start looking around.

So I trained my lens on the ground, rather than the high peaks. To the streams and the insects, the animal tracks and the budding cacti, rather than the red rock spires that dominate the landscape. And this is what I got – a portrait of the tiny little stream, the stream that traveled a long distance from a large rock formation, from a mist of rain, to soak into my boots and ensure that my feet would be wet and itchy all day long.

Small price to pay to be reminded how beautiful the world is.

The details, the small little things? They really are beautiful. And they really do matter.

“The past becomes a texture, an ambience to our present.”
~Paul Scott

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January 01, 2017 – New Landscapes

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I started this project last year and I didn’t even make it to the three month mark. Well, we just said goodbye to the year 2016, and I’m going to give this another solid run. One photograph a day – or painting, or drawing, or whatever – for the full 365. I’m beginning this series with a photograph taken with my phone, New Years Day, after waking up hangover-free to a rainy Sedona, Arizona landscape.

It was a good hike, with good, loving company. The best possibly way I think I have ever welcomed the beginning of a new year.

I hope you’ll send me some support and positive thoughts, and I will try my best to keep this project on its feet.
Happy New Year!

“Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.”
~Stephen King

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January 02, 2017 – Crying Statues

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This image is an echo of a photograph I took almost seventeen years ago in Boston. I was still in high school, shooting black and white film, and I photographed an image of a statue – a weeping Native American woman, a memorial for the Trail of Tears. In the image a white, long tear can be seen dripping down the statue’s face – pigeon excrement, yes, but it photographed quite well. In today’s image, if you look close to this Sedona statue’s face, the rain is running down her face in a similar – albeit much more subtle – fashion.

Like yesterday’s photograph, this one was taken on vacation in Sedona. I was in the company of a lovely woman, swirling rain-clouds, and the unique red rocks of the region. Hiking in the rain, watching the clouds smother the red rock peaks, and the smell of the Arizona desert – a perfect start to the new year.

“Crying is all right in its way while it lasts. But you have to stop sooner or later, and then you still have to decide what to do.”
~C.S. Lewis

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February 26 – Hilltop

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02-26 Xavier Hilltop post“The only wealth which you will keep forever is the wealth you have given away.”

~Marcus Aurelius

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This is my meditation spot, and this is certainly not the only photograph I’ve made of it. Up on the hill overlooking the San Xavier Mission outside of Tucson is a shrine to the Guadalupe Virgin and a large white cross. You can hear the faint whisper of the highway off in the distance, and you can see a cluster of Downtown Tucson buildings on the horizon.

This is the place to watch the sunset. This is the place to find one’s center. Just thinking about it, looking on the pictures I’ve made there with my Yashica TLR camera, I feel a calm washing over me. I look forward to going out there again. Soon.

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Crystal Bonner

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“Riches do not exhilarate us so much with their possession as they torment us with their loss.”
~Epicurus

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Crystal passed away a year ago. She was a genuine creature. Flawed and unpredictable, honest and bright. I am so terribly sorry for her husband’s loss, for our loss. She was a friend to everybody, specifically because she always spoke her truth and spoke it without fear. She was rude as hell, too. But fearlessness is a virtue few can boast. Crystal had it. And anybody who spoke with her for more than two minutes knew that, and remembered her.

I will always remember her. And now, even those of you who didn’t have the chance, please take a look at this face. The constant rebel, the rule-breaker who never took a second’s thought to ask “why.” No, no, no. Crystal, like all good thinkers, wasn’t too sophisticated to realize that the best question is never ‘why?’ The best question is ‘why not?’

I don’t make prints of this painting available for purchase because I refuse to profit from this kind of loss.
As I did last year, I offer to send a free card to anybody who would like a print. Send a message to my Facebook page with your name and address, and I will send you a small print to remember her by.

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February 25 – San Xavier

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02-25 San Xavier post“Apply yourself both now and in the next life. Without effort, you cannot be prosperous. Though the land be good, You cannot have an abundant crop without cultivation.”

~Plato

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