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June 15,
2008
Rare, new photographs
Winter in southern Utah’s North Coyote Buttes lends
a new dimension to making pictures in this most
stunning of all slick-rock locations. Take a clear,
slightly crisp January morning add a deep-blue sky,
low sun angel for long gentle shadows and winter
moisture and making stunning pictures becomes almost
automatic.
Then there is Lower Corkscrew
Canyon. This sensuously sculpted slot canyon offers
challenging light and shadow play on undulating
sandstone slick-rock deep in narrow passages. Here
light dramatically, gently almost sensuously graces
the stone with ever-changing color shifts, bright
and dark, warm and cool.
A completely different take on winter, yet with the
whiteness of winter lightens the stark desert of
south-central New Mexico at White Sands National
Monument. Here pure whiteness reflects from gypsum
sand blown constantly into dunes of blinding white.
Just as snow and ice demand special attention to
exposure when making pictures, this sensuous
landscape begs for gentle sensitivity to render in
photography.
 White
Sands has a chameleon character changing from stark
white to warm, pail gray after rain. The gypsum sand
absorbs moisture making the transition. In the dry
wind, the transition reverses in a few days,
returning to blinding starkness punctuated by drifts
of dune grasses, picturesque yucca and seasonal
sunflowers. This abbreviated vegetation rises to be
consumed by the advancing dunes in ephemeral fashion
just as the plants themselves. Simple survival here
requires persistence through reproduction and
adaptation.
The open sky over the White Sands lends a cool
quality to the desert light as opposed to the warm
glow created by the reflected light within the red
sandstone chambers of the slot canyons or the bare
slick rock of the Coyote Buttes. The challenge in
photographing each location rises from the quality
of natural light graced by each day and season.
Cheers!
Let me know what you think.
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