Tag Archives: southwest

A million views and a thousand balloons

Early this morning, my Flickr page crossed over the one million views threshold. Which is pretty exciting! I started my Flickr page almost exactly eight years ago, just after I got my first DSLR. Since then, I’ve taken a lot of pictures and learned a ton, and had a blast doing it.

And early yesterday morning, I biked to the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta, one of the biggest hot air balloon gatherings in the world. It. Was. Amazing. The bike ride, the balloons, the launches, EVERYTHING. It was one of the most fun things I’ve done, and easily one of most exciting things to photograph. I took about 1500 photos (though a lot of them were duplicates to hedge my exposure bets). It’s been a wonderful weekend!

Exploring Albuquerque

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Albuquerque’s a great place to explore with a camera. The weather’s cooperative, mostly, with consistent lighting and low humidity. There’s a great balance of industry and nature, gaudy and dilapidated, geometric and organic. There aren’t many trees, so there are more opportunities for sweeping vistas, often punctuated by mountains or volcanoes. There’s even a great chance you’ll catch something awesome in the sky, be it a flyover from the air force base or a hot air balloon. So this weekend I explored Albuquerque–not the surrounding area– on a photo tour.

Playful editing on Route 66. A vintage car in from the Pueblo Deco style Kimo Theater.

Abandoned buildings in the Albuquerque railyards, which once employed 40% of the city. Part of it now hosts a Sunday market.

A look inside an abandoned building in the ABQ railyards. 5 exposures merged via HDR process.

Cruising on Route 66 in downtown ABQ. A vintage car in from the Pueblo Deco style Kimo Theater. The vintage car drivers are very cooperative and slow down a little when they see the lens. ABQ has a lot of great vintage cars.

HDR sunset in downtown ABQ on Route 66.

Cruising on Route 66 in downtown Albuquerque at sunset.

The Kimo Theater marquis and the neon lights emerging at sunset in downtown Albuquerque on Route 66.

The Deco Pueblo style Kimo Theater

The Launchpad concert venue in downtown Albuquerque.

Labor Day fireworks. Photomerge of 8-ish images, because why not?

Old stuff out west: The Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe

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From Wikimedia Commons.

When we think of old buildings in the United States, we think of the east: Boston, Philadelphia, Jamestown. Instead, we should think of the Southwest. Taos and Acoma Pueblos are pre-Columbian and still occupied today. And the New Mexico Governor’s Palace in Santa Fe was built in 1610 and housed local leaders until 1909. By contrast, Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello was built in 1772. The Palace of the Governors has a century and a half on it. New Mexico is the fourth youngest state, gaining statehood in 1912. I’ve always thought of the southwest as a new area, barring poorly recorded native activity, a region discovered in the era of Cowboys and Ranches and the Indian wars of the 1800s. Visiting the Palace of the Governors reminded me what a rich history our southwest has.

The Spanish came to New Mexico in 1598. They established the capitol in Santa Fe in 1609, building the Governor’s Palace in 1610. New Mexico was a part of Spain until 1821. It was then part of Mexico until 1848, when it became a part of the United States following the Mexican-American War. So New Mexico was a part of Spain for half a century longer than it’s been a part of the US.

Much of this tumultuous history revolves around the Governor’s Palace. In 1680, the Pueblo Indians’ revolted against Spanish Rule and took the Palace for 12 years. Governor Lew Wallace wrote Ben Hur as the sitting governor of New Mexico Territory in the Palace. This video tells the tale of Bernardo López de Mendizábal, territorial governor from 1659-1660, and his wife, Teresa de Aguilera y Roche. After criticizing the Spanish government, the Inquisition arrested them on suspicion of being crypto-Jews (this term is another wild piece of history all by itself). He died quickly in custody in Mexico City, Teresa wrote about her life in New Mexico.

Today, the palace is a history museum. You can see the various ways the palace has been modified over the years. You can look at the exhaustive list of governors that ruled from the palace. It’s impossible not to feel the immensity of the history in that list. New Mexico was the frontier for a long time, not just in the United States. And living in New Mexico today one feels that spirit.

Writing prompt: “I think my house is haunted”

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Time: 7 minutes. Click here to go to my list of prompts.

“I think my house is haunted”

I leaned into the corner of the room, huddling over the phone. “I think my house is haunted,” I whispered.

Gale laughed. “Haunted? I’ve seen pictures, it looks like a slice of the southwest straight from the route 66 days.”

“Yea…” I said, not following.

“Well, you know. Haunted houses are like… Victorian houses. Or Cape Cod houses with a dark past. Not adobe houses.” She sighed. “Well, maybe that’s just where I live. Why do you think it’s haunted?”

“There’s a soft spot in the floor. And sometimes it squeaks when I’m not over there.”

“Houses settle.”

“And twice now, Miss Kitty has reared up and hissed at absolutely nothing.”

“Mm hmm,” Gale murmured. She thought Miss Kitty was a psychotic cat already so I could imagine now what she was thinking.

“And…” I inhaled and looked around the room. “The other morning I think I saw the ghost of a Spanish conquistador in the garden hacking at plants.”

“Whoa.”

“After he left, I went and checked the plants and they were damaged where he’d swung his sword.”

“Why’d you lead with the first two?”

“They wouldn’t have sounded like much if I said them after. I tried to call the previous owner. He was very helpful with directions on the irrigation system and how to get the oven to light. But when I mentioned the conquistador he stuttered and hung up.”

“That’s got to be some kind of real estate faux pas,” Gale said.

Merging photographs

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Lately I’ve been improving my Photoshop skills with courses from Lynda.com. If you want to learn a design program, I strongly recommend them. In a year, I’ve learned so much about Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Lightroom, JavaScript, CSS, photography, and more. In Photoshop alone, I learned way more than I figured out in 15 years of experimentation.

With my new learning, I’ve been able to breathe new life into old photos. Over the past several years, I took numerous sets of photos that I intended to turn into panoramas and HDRs, but then I could never get them to look right. With newfound skills come newfound confidence. Check out these beautiful images!

American Southwest near Moab, Utah at sunset. Assembled from 40 24-megapixel images captured with a Sony Alpha 100. When it was assembling, it tied up over 100 gigs of space. This version is 1500×557 pixels; the full size is 19,000 x 7,000!

Detail from above photo, center-left at horizon.

Mount Saint Helen’s in Washington state. Assembled from 6 24-megapixel images from a Sony Alpha 100.

Detail from above photo, center left.

Waterfall in Central Virginia along the Blue Ridge Parkway. High dynamic range image assembled from five slow-exposures. Smart sharpen and high pass filters to add sharpness and clarity.

Rainforest in Olympic National Park. Before assembly, I reduced noise and applied lens corrections. High dynamic range image assembled from five exposures. Smart sharpen and high pass filters to add sharpness and clarity.

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Vironevaeh

Sci-fi, art, science, and writing

Tag Archives: southwest

A million views and a thousand balloons

Exploring Albuquerque

Old stuff out west: The Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe

Writing prompt: “I think my house is haunted”

Merging photographs

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