Local stuff

Since I have gone back to photography as one of my hobbies I'll be sending along images from somewhere closer to home. This time I'll be walking along the Rio Grande.

Albuquerque has several Open Space areas where the city purchased land to leave alone for people to go out and enjoy. There are several pieces along the Sandia Mountains, the Rio Grande and in the Petroglyphs on the west side. The areas have hiking or walking trails through them and most of the time I take advantage of these areas there are very few people.

I usually walk along and up into the mountains but I thought I'd see the river from a couple different spots. The river is not very exciting, mostly brown from picking up the mud all along its path through New Mexico. It is very different from the few images you saw from my trip to British Columbia where you could see the bottom even when the river is several feet deep.

The banks along the river are not developed at all which means wildlife is able freely come and go. During my times of kayaking along the river I’ve seen herons, Canadian geese, ducks of all sorts, cranes, porcupines, coyotes and I’ve heard but not seen beavers. Cottonwoods line the sides of the river along with all sorts of shrubs and salt cedar, an invasive water hog of a tree. There have been many efforts to eradicate the salt cedars, some successful, some not. The areas where I walked have some but they were not overcrowding the natives.

I was hoping to make it down for the last of the fall colors, but missed it by about a week. The cottonwoods along the river turn a bright yellow/gold but the freeze that hit the previous week turned everything to a dead brown.

Since the striking colors are gone I had to rethink the scale of my photography. No large vistas of golden leaves, I have to refocus to a smaller scale and incorporate a leaf or two for accent. I took a macro photography workshop back in October with Mike Moats who has several blogs related to different types of macro photography (http://www.tinylandscapes.com/). He discussed his technique at length and I like his work. It’s easier from the standpoint of when you photograph a smaller area you are able to control what’s in the image along with the quantity and quality of light. Plus I am able to do it in my backyard when the urge hits.

These images texture driven. You may enjoy them, if nothing else you will see the forest from a different point of view.

Thank you for stopping by,

Mark