Test Pattern

This is a test. My efforts to use the so-called Short email announcing Monday’s post have been lackluster. The Short email cannot include an image and includes the erstwhile image’s title in the snippet of text. It’s not pretty.

Today I’m trying a workaround that may solve part of the problem.

Thanks for listening.

Sangre de Cristo Chapel, Cuartalez, New Mexico.

What's your story?

Luis Ocejo in Llano San Juan.

I’ve seen that when you first meet a kindred spirit, they’ll share the most important things in their life in the first five minutes. Standing In front of the Catholic Church in Llano San Juan, New Mexico Luis Ocejo blurted, “You don’t mess with a Viet Nam veteran.  We’re tough.”

Rudy Mauldin, Cline's Corner, New Mexico.

Rudy Mauldin, who managed a cattle ranch on US 285 near Cline’s Corner told me he’d been a cowboy his entire life. He’d cowboyed in New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona and Texas. So had his father. He’d gone to high school on the Pojoaque Pueblo and had been beaten up so many times he couldn’t count that high. The experience gave him ulcers. The highlight of his working life, he told me, was being an undercover agent for the Bureau of Land Management in Utah. He was part of a team that caught a Mormon rancher looting Native American artifacts on Federal land. It was the first conviction of its kind using DNA evidence.

Clarence Vigil. Cundiyo, New Mexico.

Right off the bat Clarence Vigil told me that he was a Jehovah’s Witness. “We’re very strict but it’s worked for me. You know I built Mother Ship in Brooklyn.” Then he said he hadn’t wanted to fight in Viet Nam. Instead, he served two years in a Federal Penitentiary near Safford, Arizona. He became a wildland firefighter there, a common assignment for inmates even now. “It wasn’t that bad” he said. “Then I became a carpenter and a contractor. My wife and I have been everywhere even China. We’ve had a good life”

“I can tell you’re a good guy. You want a dozen eggs? These are so fresh they’ll last three months.” Then he pitched me on joining his church. I told him that  “I’m not a believer, Clarence.” He smiled, “We all have doubts.”

Ken Tingsley, Arroyo Hondo, New Mexico.

As I was photographing the roaring Rio Hondo, a scruffy gent yelled, “Take my picture. I’m getting married today.” I took several shots at the overlook and followed Ken Tingsley back to his 1970s trailer. He stepped into the cabin, poured himself two inches of bourbon, lit a cigarette and pointed at a shrine with a picture of a young man in a tied died tee shirt. “That’s my son. He died 20 years ago. I miss him so much. I’m wearing his tee shirt right now.”

Amy French, Mary Coulter's Watchtower, Grand Canyon.

The first words out of Amy French’s mouth as I photographed her behind Mary Colter’s Desert View Watchtower at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon was, “I’m a breast cancer survivor. I’ve just finished treatment.” She and her partner Dave who had been campground hosts throughout the west before she became the manager of the Watchtower. She gave me the world’s best tour of iconic tower and its sweeping view. We shared stories of endurance sports. She and Dave were competitive distance runners. She told me, “My sweet spot is the moderate distances like 40-50 miles.” I shared that I had been a triathlete in the mid-80s. “That may have been the best time in my life, to be so fit in your mid-forties and at the peak of your powers, mentally and physically. I miss that feeling.”

John Bustos, Heart Mountain Internment Camp.

John Bustos was an impressive man. Only 5’8” Master Sargent Bustos carried 210 pounds and was all chest and neck. Bustos who had served in Viet Nam was commanding the honor guard at the Heart Mountain Reunion in Powell, Wyoming. Heart Mountain is a monument to the infamous Japanese American Internment camp in Powell. He led the honor guard through their salutes. When the volleys were finished, he whispered, “You know we always keep an extra round in the chamber. Mine’s for Obama.”

In the interest of science

Mormon Row at Sundown.

I’ve been experimenting with the format of the email that announces my weekly blog post. For 1,000 posts over 19 years you have received the entire blog in your Monday email. And for those 1,000 posts you’ve been spared the need to click on the post title to reach the actual website where you can Subscribe or Comment. In the interest of transparency, both of those functions serve my interests. I want more readers (Subscribers) and I crave feedback.

In this test post I have chosen Short (an excerpt from the post) not the Full post you’ve received all these years. Let's see what happens.

The image at the top of the post has nothing to do with this message. I simply want to see if the image and representative text appears in tomorrow’s experiment. My digits are crossed.

Good Luck to us all.

Please use the handy blue Post a Comment link at the bottom of the post to tell me how this process works for you. I appreciate it.

The Road to Divine Light

 

A glorious glow bathes San Francisco de Asis in Ranchos de Taos, a scant four miles from where I write these words.

In northern New Mexico referred to locally as El Norte we’re surrounded by reminders of the Franciscan Catholics who arrived in the late 16^th  century, conquered the Pueblo Indians and built adobe churches throughout this part of the world. Miraculously the Church did the same throughout the Americas at the same time. Within a century they built churches from South America to Central America, the Caribbean and what is now the United States of America. They got as far north as Taos. The mind boggles at what the Church accomplished under the Banner of Heaven. How they did it is another story.

20 miles south on the High Road to Taos is the rectory of the Spanish Mission Church in Truchas, NM.

On a hard to find back road lies the picture perfect church in Cundiyo, New Mexico.

And finally the Sangre de Cristo Chapel in the barely there village of Cuartalez. The chapel is a clapboard anomaly in the adobe world that is El Norte.

In Taos, our home, we’re half a mile away from the northern most Grand Hacienda in New Mexico and four miles from the most famous Franciscan church in New Mexico, San Francisco de Asis in Ranchos de Taos. On the High Road that begins and ends in Ranchos are mission churches in the smallest villages where faith prevails, and time seems to have stood still. In my portfolio Divine Light are many examples of timeless Pueblo style architecture. Here are three adobes and the clapboard jewel in Cuartalez.

This is a truncated effort while I contemplate how to create a post that celebrates 1,000 over the last 19 years. I have a couple of weeks to figure out how to pull that off. That's 4,000 or more pages, even more photographs and eclectic content ranging from few photographs and descriptive text to full on magazine articles that publish every Monday. It's been a wild ride but is one I'll take till I can't ride the beast.

Please click on the blue Post a Comment link at the bottom of the post to tell me what you think. I'm hungry for your feedback.

Down the Road Tested

Climbing guide and sailor Alain Comeau at Schartner's Farm.

Renaissance man John Snyder at Schartner's the same day.

As to Still Lifes, my early efforts in the digital age skewed to those and to portraits. I called the still life category Alignment because I believed that the core of what I was doing was composition or as I prefer design. I even said so in my artist statement in my website as early as 2002. The importance of design or framing is true of headshots, too. And that framing is done entirely in the viewfinder. That's a discipline I've lived by for six decades. Another is to shoot at f5.6 about ten inches from the subject. Only the face is in focus as seen here.

The title Monumental Heads is one Edward Weston gave to his portraits of notable members of the ex-pat community in Mexico in 1920s. Those were heady times when one’s coterie included Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, Weston's partner Tina Modotti and Leon Trotsky among others. 

Today the words led me to my subject. I fully intended to continue with Still Lifes (Alignment) but once I typed the words Monumental Heads I was propelled in that direction.

A pensive John Snyder.

An equally thoughtful Comeau.

Weston is said to have believed that a featureless sky was the world’s best light for a Monumental Head. So, I marched John and Alain into the strawberry fields at Schartner’s Farm in North Conway, New Hampshire to riff on Weston’s contention. I couldn't have chosen more willing and charismatic characters for that first foray with man beneath the sky. Both of these guys loved the camera and the camera loved them. The camera in question was the $7,700 Canon1Ds I'd just bought and the images are courtesy of my beginning Photoshop class at North Conway High in 2002. 

This post qualifies for the Road Tested category by the narrowest of margins. Schartner's Farm was half a mile south on Westside Road from our cabin in the woods. A road's is a road.  

Road Tested : Close Ups

Found Art, Rinconada, NM.

In Road Tested the article that will be featured in the upcoming issue of Shadow and Light magazine I ask the question “Can a still life or an environmental portrait be part of a show titled Roadside Attractions?” I contend, “Yes.” As the dueling titles suggest, there’s considerable overlap between the show and the article. There wouldn't have been any of these images without a vehicle, petrol and wanderlust. And although the show and the article will be weighted toward the traditional landscape and especially the landscape of New Mexico  intimate landscapes will be included, as well.

In the vein of tighter shots and still lifes are four that could be part of the show, at least the two from the Land of Enchantment.

Found Art up top was taken on a counter-clockwise drive from Taos to Dixon, Peñasco, Placita and back to Taos on the High Road. In Rinconada I spied a scruffy corrugated building that claimed to be a gallery. It was chock full of car parts assembled and welded into artworks. The south facing wall was plywood painted flat white. On the wall was a bedspring tacked to the plywood with obvious artistic intent. The simplicity spoke to me. Later, the photograph was featured in Black and White Magazine’s Single Image issue. That led to the sale of a 24”x30” framed print to a professor at Butler University in Indianapolis. And Found Art launched a portfolio of the same name. All four of these images are part of that portfolio.

Butternut Squash, Fryeburg, Maine.

Driving home to North Conway, New Hampshire from the Fryeburg Fair in Maine we stopped at farm stand selling pumpkins and all manner of squash. It was raining lightly so the Butternut Squash in this image glistened in the soft light. It remains one of my favorite photographs of the last 20 years. Might even be a classic.

Faded Roses, Bethlehem, New Hampshire.

West of North Conway my friend John Snyder and I photographed in the quintessential New England town of Bethlehem, New Hampshire. Bethlehem is the home of a robust Orthodox Jewish population and several synagogues. John and I were photographing a clutch of abandoned dwellings on the north side of US 302 when we saw fabric roses behind a window. In the low light the roses disappeared into the dark background as had the Butternut Squash.

Turn Signal, El Prado, NM

In El Prado just north of Taos is a shopping and dining complex that boasts a terrific view of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Abandoned vehicles have been artfully placed around the grassy property. I know one Santa Fe photographer who launched her career with images of the relics. Turn Signal is my take on a weathered Dodge grill.

As always click below to visit the actual blog.

www.immelphoto.com 

Road Tested Again

White Mesa with Walking Rain. Teec Nos Pos, Arizona.

Approaching Teec Nos Pos on the Navajo Nation I looked northwest and was rivetted by a glowing white mesa and shards of walking rain. Three images of the magic light stood out. One emphasized the mesa. Another favored the walking rain. One gave them equal billing. Here is White Mesa with Walking Rain.

Frontier Drive In. Center, Colorado.

Sangre View. Center, Colorado.

On one of many visits to the vast San Luis Valley over the years I drove to the village of Center, Colorado. The impetus was a photograph of the Frontier Drive-In that I’d seen in a Denver Post years before. I Googled it and found it was nearby.  So, I drove north from Alamosa on Highway 17. The short drive to Center rewarded me with two great subjects. First, the drive-in was an iconic and charged subject for a kid of the Fifties. The birth of rock and roll, Molly Potter, and drag racing on 56^th Street between Tempe and Phoenix are memories as vivid as Technicolor. The bonus of the visit to Center was a graveyard of trailers that glistening against the snowcapped Sangre de Cristos beyond.

Presbyterian Church. Taiban, New Mexico.

As to Presbyterian Church, Taiban, New Mexico,  a decade ago as I drove east on US 60 the sky was monumental above the plains of eastern New Mexico. Standing tall beneath the sky was the proud clapboard church, circa 1908. This is from 2017. As pleased as I am by my efforts eight years ago, I crave a reshoot especially of the graffiti inside. After all Edward Weston photographed Point Lobos hundreds of times as has my Carmel friend, Rupert Chambers, who shoots Point Lobos, Big Sur and environs every day of his life. He never tires of his slice of paradise. Who am I not to follow in their footsteps. Familiarity breeds, I contend, not contempt but intimate knowledge of a place, its moods, its light and points of view at all times of day and in all manner of weather. That’s the intimacy I feel for El Norte and the desert Southwest.

Click below to visit the actual blog. Thanks.

www.immelphoto.com