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El Charco del Ingenio

Above the town of San Miguel de Allende, Mexico is the 160 acre nature preserve El Charco del Ingenio.  Over the past few years this place has become one of my main centers for creativity and inspiration.  I have had the privilege to shoot some of my best photographs in this space as well as work as an invited artist on an incredible land art project.  For this project I built four large-scale altars, one to each of the four directions, incorporating different indigenous mythologies.  When I returned to San Miguel this September, I knew I was going to have to do some new photography in the preserve.  Although you are technically not allowed to be in the park after dark, if you go to watch the sunset and stay for a few hours they are generally tolerant.  I always warn the guards that I will be there late just so we don’t scare the crap out of each other in the dark.  Surprising men with big guns isn’t exactly high on my list of priorities.

The main beauty of the Charco is that there are a plethora of different ecosystems crammed into a small space.  The area around San Miguel is a high altitude (7000ft), two-season (dry and rainy) climate.  The plants are very hardy, and include massive prickly pear cactus trees, very spiny acacias, and lots of grasses.  Water can be quite scarce at times.  In the center of the park is a large dam created wetland that regularly hosts Autobahn bird watching tours and can flood or become a dry mud flat depending on the season.  Below the dam there is a very steep rocky canyon with sheer hundred foot walls.  On hot days you can climb down very sketchy ladders to the shady floor and sit on the boulders amongst cool pools of water.  At the head of this canyon is a large natural spring or El Charco. This spring is said to be protected by a spirit, El Chan, that harms anyone who comes too close.  There are many tales of drowning in the spring and apparently scuba divers have never found the bottom, just a maze of underwater tunnels.  For some reason, depending on the season, the water changes colors and can range from white, red and orange to deep blues and greens.

Once again, my friend Nico came to assist and after watching the sunset from the cliffs over looking San Miguel, we got to work.  The location I scouted was below the dam and above the spring where there are large pools of water and lots of boulders to climb on.  Once we got started, a lovely bright half moon rose to illuminate the scene.  We had such a beautiful experience that evening I’m not even sure I was really concentrating on the work.  Behind us a small waterfall was trickling down, the air was warm and comfortable, the wind was calm, and to my absolute delight the fireflies decided to join us.  To say this was a magical and memorable evening only saddens the great poets.  At one point I think we almost decided to curl up on one of the big, flat, sun-warmed boulders to sleep under the stars.  Honestly, I probably would have done just that if I weren’t half packed and leaving at eight in the morning.

What follows are the last images taken with my old Tamron 10-24 lens.  After shooting probably 60,000 images with this lens, I am really starting to see the quality of the images degrading.  I have heard that the cheap digital lenses eventually wear out, but this is the first one I have actually used to death.  I am not unhappy with the intentions of this work, but I am not thrilled with the image quality.  There were a lot of interesting shots in this group that just didn’t turn out well and I know it has much to do with my lens.  So out with the old and in with the new, I am chomping at the bit to start using my new Nikon 10-24, yippie!

Ex-Hacienda San Gabriel de Barrera

On a sunny September day, I climbed onto a Primera Plus bus and traveled to the small city of Guanajuato.  A four-hundred-year-old Spanish mining town, Guanajuato was the center of the Mexican war of independence.  Built into a steep valley, colorful houses are terraced along tiny staircases that thread down to the valley floor.  The city is generally known for two things, its tunnels and its mummies.  The tunnels came about after the main river flooded in 1907, and almost wiped out the town.  The locals decided to divert the river, leaving empty subterranean tunnels that had funneled water under the city.  The tunnels were re-appropriated for transportation and expanded through out the area, minimizing traffic and leaving a lovely walking street that winds through downtown.  The mummies are due to the hot dry climate and the practice of interring the dead in mausoleums.  When the families of the dead could no longer afford to pay a yearly fee in order keep their dead loved ones in graves, the bodies were pulled out and kept in a museum adjacent to the graveyard.  The museum is open today, but no longer practices disinterment.

Another remarkable historical site in Guanajuato is the Ex-Hacienda San Gabriel de Barrera.  Built in the late 1600’s it was home to Captain Gabriel de Barrera who’s family were descendants of the Conde de Rul of the local Valenciana mine.  This mine, though still active, was once one of the largest silver producing mines in the world.  The old hacienda still stands, although it was heavily damaged in the war of independence. The hacienda grounds used to be a working refinery for silver oar extracted from the Valenciana mine, but now have been converted into seventeen incredible gardens.  A week before, I came to Guanajuato on a scouting mission to see whether this place was appropriate for photography.  What I found was a huge space that I would love to return to again and again, day or night, to create images.

I arrived midday at the bus station and was greeted by my old friend Nico.  Nico and I met about three years back when he was working as a barista in a coffee shop and I used to ask him for help with my Spanish homework.  Nico kindly volunteered to help me for the day as a photo assistant.  Thank goodness he did, because I could not have done it with out him.  We spent the day goofing around in the gardens taking all kinds of photographs.  Having done the image on the Brooklyn Bridge as a Shiva, I though it would be fun to take some photos as Mary and the Virgin Guadalupe.  I brought several yards of blue and red fabric with me and draped it over myself like a shroud.  The imagery is probably too kitschy and obvious to actually work, but I had fun doing it.

This location screams for my sometimes photography collaborator Aloyse Blair, as it is full of beautiful fountains and I am not nearly as capable as she at imitating Greek goddess statues.  I did my best, and looking at the images I would like to do some research on Greek goddess art and try again.  At this point, I am finally starting to get the hang of my neutral density filter, and taking images with it is getting much more predictable.  Ideally, I show up best in full sunlight with a dark shadowy background.  Knowing this, I think making daylight images will start to become far more successful.  Next time, I would really love to see if I can come back and shoot at night.

The House of One Hundred Years of Solitude

In mid August, I headed down to Cuernavaca, Mexico, to visit with my old friend Marela Zacarias.  Marela grew up around Mexico City but currently resides in New York City; she was on a trip to visit family and I was invited to tag along.  The house we stayed at has been in her family for generations.  This beautiful compound is a bit like Marquez’s House of a Hundred Years of Solitude.  It is built on a large sloping hillside that is terraced and ends in a deep barranca below.  Each level accommodates different areas including gardens, swings, walkways, and swimming pools, all in various states of repair.

There is a special magic to a place like this, a place where there are echoes of parties long since past, children grown up, and a future yet to come.  One can imagine golden era Hollywood starlets, flirting under the canopy of lush trees, limbs embracing each other like lovers. If you listen carefully you can hear the sounds of children squealing in delight as they dash down the waterslide, crashing into the grotto like swimming pool.  Here and there are the shadows of gardens being taken back by the jungle, gardens that must have grown abundant tropical flowers.  The past is present, but there is also a great deal of promise, as slowly the structures are being reinforced against a climate that loves to decay anything in its grasp.  Who knows what mysteries will unfold or what tails of love will transpire.

On a trip to the local artisans market, I purchased a small handmade, papier-mâché tiger mask.  As I have previously discussed, I am trying to incorporate some different costumes and props into my images.  One of the things I have always liked about working with long exposures is the anonymity, as my face is usually blurred and unrecognizable.  I think that this allows my viewers to place themselves into the images.  Now that I am fequently working in full daylight, using my neutral density filter, I find that I am more recognizable and a masking is a great solution.  In the past, I created a lot of images dealing with issues of masking, whether through makeup, costumes or just personal identity.  I feel like this is an interesting integration between work that is old and new.

Yellowstone National Park

After the council of The 13 Grandmothers, my friend Terra Celeste and I went to Yellowstone National Park for the first full moon in August. Upon leaving Grandmother Margaret’s home, we were asked to take an offering to the Medicine Wheel in eastern Wyoming.  This location is one of the oldest sacred spots in North America and may have been built over 10,000 years ago.  Different indigenous tribes have been coming and doing sacred ceremonies there for so long, no one is exactly sure who built it in the first place. The meeting of the Grandmothers was a very intense experience, and it was really nice to complete the ceremony at the Medicine Wheel, with an offering of tobacco and prayers.

As we continued our journey, through the park to the town of West Yellowstone, we saw an owl, a pair of coyotes, and a buffalo, all wandering in the middle of the road.  After arriving, we had quick dinner, checked into our hotel, and headed back into the park to see how geysers and thermal water look under a full moon.  August in Yellowstone is high season, and you can expect throngs of tourists unless you head out in the middle of the night.  With the exception of a few other photographers, we had the place to ourselves.  If Yellowstone is a magical place by day, it is far more amazing by full moon.  As we walked around the geysers, moist steam rolled off the thermal pools and punctuated the chilly air; intermittently enveloping us in shifting clouds of blinding, white, warmth.

Over the next two nights, we shot for several hours in the park and came up with some really nice new images.  I would love to return to Yellowstone, as I feel like there is so much more we could have done.  I love the color and texture in the park, from the vibrant blues of a full moon sky to the rainbow colors of the pools.  Although, I think they do work in most of these shots, one of the hardest things about shooting in the park are the walkways.  It was a real challenge to either incorporate them, or to hide them in the images.  Regardless, I am very happy with what happened during this shoot.  I think that a few of these photos really need to be viewed big, so please click on them to enlarge.

The Thirteen Grandmothers

This summer I was invited by my friend Terra Celeste to attend the 11th council of the Thirteen Grandmothers.  I had no idea what I was getting myself into by attending this gathering, and in a lot of ways the repercussions of this event may directly affect my life for the next several years.  The thirteen grandmothers are indigenous women from different cultures around the world.  They are on a mission to pray in their own individual and collective ceremonial ways in order to bring peace, and balance back to the universe.  Although these women are often confined to walkers and wheelchairs, make no mistake; they are possibly the most powerful group of women I have ever encountered.

The Council was held on the Lame Deer Cheyenne reservation in eastern Montana.  Cheyenne grandmother Margaret Behan hosted this gathering.  Originally, three hundred participants were expected, but over the course of the four-day encampment, over seven hundred arrived from around the world.  I, like many others, did not know what to expect but the importance of this council was quickly evident, especially in regard to the Cheyenne people.

Initially, the event was to be held at Grandmother Margaret’s house.  After a forest fire came within a few hundred feet of her property only days before the opening, the gathering was moved to the local public powwow grounds, a move that proved to be quite fateful.  Although, the grandmothers are on a peace mission, change often comes with great resistance. After only a short time on the reservation, I was given a crash course in tribal politics.  Basically, it is tradition for the elder men to speak and hold council, and although women are generally free to express their opinions, they do not make important tribal decisions or hold councils of their own.

By bringing the grandmothers to the reservation, Margaret was going against thousands of years of tradition and was met with physical and psychological opposition.  A group of militant young men came onto the powwow grounds before the event and threatened cause problems if the grandmothers did not cease and desist.  This clearly shook up everyone involved and after a meeting between the grandmothers that lasted into the wee hours of the night, they decided to proceed.  Thankfully they did, because this may have been one of the most important events held in recent Cheyenne history.

As the days progressed, the grandmothers prayed, and began telling their stores, both personal and historical.  They told of war, oppression, massacre, marginalization, and the loss of land, food, water and children, they mourned the loss of old traditions and ways of living.  Many white people also came forward with stores of their own, including the great grandniece of General Custer, who asked forgiveness for her family’s roll in oppressing and murdering the Cheyenne people.  Slowly, the men started to come around, to hear the stories, and witness the healing the grandmothers were offering.  By the end of the gathering, many of the tribal chiefs had don their feather headdresses and welcomed the grandmothers, thanking them for taking action and opening their eyes to the possibilities of a new future.

So much happened while I was at this event I cannot begin to summarize everything in this brief blog.  Suffice to say, I saw a wild wolf, ran out into a lightning storm, witnessed a crowd react to a tiny ancient Nepali woman the way one would expect from a revival church, slept in a tipi, and made a promise I intend to keep.  In our final meeting, Grandmother Margaret asked me to return to the reservation and hold a photography workshop for the local kids.  I am just starting to work out the details of this agreement which involves a lot of research, grant writing, and planning, but hopefully by next summer I will be able to fulfill my commitment to Grandmother Margaret.

Ghost Horses

Sometimes good ideas really do come like bolts of lightning.  In early June, I went to my best friend and co-collaborator, Aloyse Blair’s, bachelorette party.  We all flew out to Colorado for the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, where her sister Cecie, had rented a mansion on the ski hill serviced by private cars and a gondola.  Aloyse and I had gone to Bluegrass several times when we were in our late teens and this was such a wonderful opportunity to go back.

We spent four days dancing, drinking, and having an incredible time with thirteen of the most wonderful girls on the planet.  One day, while getting beers at the festival, it suddenly, with no warning, dawned on me that I should take photos with our horses.  Although it might seem obvious, given that my family lives on a horse ranch, it had actually never even crossed my mind.  Long exposure horses: “ghost horses.”  When I got home from the festival, I told my mom who just laughed and said that she had been wondering when I would figure it out.

A few weeks later, after getting back from Montana, while I was taking my workshop at Anderson Ranch, I decided to start experimenting.  I took my mom on a moonless night, and headed out into the field to meet my two elected models, George and Stoli.  I had to have help with this shoot because the horses were really excited to have company and would have clearly knocked the tripod over.  We used a few small lights to illuminate the horses from the front while I did my best not to get trampled.

As per my workshop, I tried to stay close to the camera and tell a story, to bring on the theater.  One of the other exercises from the workshop was to choose the title for the image before it was made.  The title of the first image below (and my favorite) is, “This Time She Came Prepared,” or as Arno nicknamed it, “George the Fire Eating Horse.”  I am really happy with this work and I can’t wait to keep experimenting with horses in the future.

Chiang Mai, Thailand

It has been a really long time since I have done any personal work. It feels so strange not to be working with Aloyse.  I really wish that she had been here tonight. There are just some things that work better when there are two people.  I had to resort to putting the camera remote trigger between my teeth, and well that really didn’t help, so I didn’t get some of the shots I had imagined.

This image is my homage, to not only the golden Buddhist temples I have been visiting here in Thailand, but also to the temple gong that wakes me up every morning at 5am.  I have never been able to sit still and meditate; I have no discipline in that area of my life whatsoever.  I often dream, even make resolutions to start meditating… but nope, it never happens.  So, when that gong starts going off, I snuggle deeper under the covers and smile to myself, thinking of all the wonderful monks on their way to enlightenment, and here I lie, completely content with my suffering, warm in bed.  It’s a silly, delicious moment that I have come to savor in the wee hours of my jet-lagged sleep.  This image is me and my monkey mind… never settling down.

Goblin Valley

Well hello there, long time no posting…

So, it has been a while since I got on here and posted some new work.  Between getting back from Burning Man, packing my whole house in storage, and moving to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, things have been a bit crazed.  Never fear though, I have been working a lot and have some exciting new work to put up over the next few days.  Aloyse came down for a week to visit during the full moon, even with the rainy hurricane Jova weather we still managed to get some terrific new images. First things first though, I still have one shoot I did on the way home from Burning Man that I never got around to posting.

One of my favorite places on the planet is this bizarre spot in the middle of the deserts of Utah.  Named Goblin Valley, for its unusual sandstone rock formations, I can truly say this place is one of the world’s most magical and psychedelic locations.  I have been coming to Goblin Valley since I was about sixteen, and my friends would be surprised to see the new pay station, on grounds ranger housing, and full campground.  The cat may be out of the bag.  Fortunately, we were still able to drive right into the park at night and “illegally” run around in the moonlight.

Getting to Goblin Valley was the end of a great adventure. We had had a long few weeks of road tripping across the American west, and when all was said and done we had traveled over 4000 miles.  Accompanied by my great friend Angelo Valenzuela, we had driven from Colorado to Las Vegas, Palm Springs, Los Angeles, and Black Rock City, now were slowly retracing our steps towards home. As we crossed the desolate strip of highway between Salina and Green River, Utah, I watched the moon traversing the mackerel sky, illuminating the vast desert emptiness.  Slowing heading for the horizon, I was concerned we would not get there in time to use the moon’s natural light.  As we pulled in to the parking lot, the moon was low, but on an angle that was reminiscent of the “golden hour” just before sunset.

The night was cold, and I was afraid that shooting naked might be miserable, but once disrobed, I adapted quickly and felt comfortable enough.  I climbed up on to the rocks and went through the usual static poses.  Then something happened.  I became a four-legged alien monster creature. Always looking for new directions and growth, this seems like a very fun interesting avenue for exploration.

Goblin Valley is a truly bizarre and amazing place.  Wherever you look there are rocks and towers that resemble everything from falaces to faces.  In the second image, if you look at the rock, you can see the profile of a face, leering at me in the dark.  After shooting in the first three locations, the clouds began to move in and the light became obscure, so I pointed the camera directly at the moon.  At this time, Angleo decided to jump in to the photo and we got a wonderful backlit image.

On the way back to the car, the moon set, the clouds really came in and we didn’t have much of a flashlight.  Suddenly, we became wildly disoriented.  Goblins reared out of the darkness, and I was irrationally terrified.  Although Goblin Valley is not large enough to really get lost, that moment of panic was an amazing experience.  After a few frightening moments, we retraced our steps, and were able to find the truck.  The campsite was full, so we parked a few miles away, and fell asleep pretzeled together in the front seat.

Temple of Transition

I am going to acknowledge another less successful attempt in my photography.  At Burning Man this year, the most impressive art piece was certainly the “Temple of Transition.”  In years past, the Temple was this really spooky place you visited, left an offering, and got the hell outta there.  Even though previous temples had been incredibly beautiful, they were certainly not the hub of action that this year’s temple turned out to be.

My first close view of the temple happened from an art car manned by the Piñata’s Revenge Camp.  We cruised around the magnificent structure at sunset as the earth harp was being played for the masses gathered below.  The great sky changed color every few minutes from pinks to purples and finally blues.  It was really something, something sacred and special, and something I wanted to come back and photograph.  I kept putting off shoots for various reasons, eventually choosing the night of The Man burn.

I arrived early and sat around for a while as the sun dropped behind the horizon and it became dark enough to do long exposures.  The problem with sunsets and sunrises is that they happen so quickly and the light changes so fast that you are constantly readjusting your camera settings to keep the same basic exposure.  It is a real pain, and if you are me, you normally go out without a specific game plan, and things don’t always go so well.   I ended up standing with the backlit temple behind me, which was beautiful but left me a dark blackness in which to work.   Without a front light source I was too dark to see, so I tried to light myself with two very bright flashlights and that was pretty much a failure.  The composition is pretty awful as well, as I am standing central and static in front of the temple and not engaging with my surroundings, sort of an alien tourist at the temple image.

I was trying to achieve this “many armed goddess” thing by dragging the light over my arms in different places; it kind of worked, and might be great in the future but not here.  By the time I started to explore, the light was gone and we were going to be late for The Man burn.  We abandoned the shoot, and I came away from the burn without any new images.  Disappointing in retrospect, but sometimes that is just the way of things. These are the results: nothing special, but as this blog is not only about success but the learning process I feel the need to post what I captured.  (No worries though, the next shoot kicks ass!)  Click on the images for a larger view.


The Suspicious August Full Moon

So, I guess is deserve a spanking.  I have had three photo shoots since the last time I posted, but no blogging.  Sometimes life (Burning Man) gets in the way, but I am back and I will try to share some insights on each shoot.

The “Make Mistakes” crew held the August full moon party, up Left Hand Canyon, just above Boulder, CO.  The party was about an hour and a half drive from my house in Denver and turned out to be quite the debacle of a night.  I arrived to a dark disorienting scene of tents, people, bonfires, and loud house music scattered though a shadowy aspen grove.  Winding through the whole area was a small, shallow stream.  I had been really sick all week and was finally starting to feel better, so I thought going out for a few hours would be harmless.

I rolled my camera bag, the quarter mile from my car, down the pavement to the entrance and stashed it under a tree.  My initial explorations led me down a well-worn footpath that followed the edge of the stream away from the party.  Moonlight was filtering through the Aspens and pooling on the forest floor in a way that made my eyes jump and have a hard time adjusting to the darkness.  I felt dizzy and light headed.  Soon, I had wandered far enough to no longer hear the music, and was mostly alone except for the occasional explorative partier like myself.  The area was strangely un-deserted and had some ax murderer hunting cabins and a 60’s geodesic dome house, complete with barking dog.  I felt all the hairs on my neck stand on end as I passed.

Eventually, I heard the sound of a small waterfall, and knew I had found the place for which I was looking.  Earlier that week, I had seen the proof sheet of new work my collaborator Aloyse Blair had just created in the Adirondacks.  She was naked in a waterfall, and had done some long exposure stuff with her pinhole camera.  I returned to the party, retrieved my equipment, and quickly found myself laying naked in a freezing mountain stream on a cool summer night.  The spot was shaded from the moon so I had to use some alternative light sources.   The flashlights I had kept flickering and slowly fading, so it was hard to get an accurate light reading.  Some of the images were ruined because the light completely went out during the shot.  After a few tries, I decided to put an orange filter on one of the lights just to add softness to the image.

Once I was thoroughly freezing, and could not take the cold any longer, I dressed in green and headed off to do some pure moon light shots.  I found a small meadow further up and created the forest nymph series.  These images were pretty much exactly what I know how to do, so they were easy to create once I decided how I wanted them to look.

After I finished shooting, I felt clear and fresh.  All of the disorientation had vanished, and I was light and focused.  I found some friends and went to dance.  Soon I was hot enough to take off my jacket and boogie down.  A few minutes later I looked over to see that my jacket had vanished.  My car keys were in the pocket.  I spent the rest of the night futilely searching in the dark for a black jacket.  I was flashing everyone who walked by, hoping someone had accidentally borrowed my nice North Face.  My night of a few hours ended with the sunrise.  As it grew light, I sat down in a fancy camping chair at the entrance to scope out the patrons as they left, hoping for a glimpse of my coat.  After a little while, I started to fidget with stuff in the built in cup holders.  I looked down and there were my car keys and my glasses.  Only in Boulder can you go to a full moon party and get your jacket stolen, but the thief is kind enough to leave you your keys and glasses behind.  Needless to say, I got sick again.