Lens Artists’ Challenge #381: Black & White, Minimally

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This is a challenge by Ritva looking for minimalism in black and white.

Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.

-Lin Yutang

This simple statement is framed and on a bookshelf in my home. To me it underscores the meaning of minimalism and simplicity — the elimination of non-essentials. In photography we are conscious of simplicity and non-essentials in our images. Sometimes we have to work at it and sometimes it just happens naturally and we are lucky to see it and preserve the image.

I am mostly a landscape photographer and mostly work in color but I enjoy and I’m often surprised by the results in black and white.

Tent Rocks – Kasha Katuwe
Fairy Chimneys – NM
Sandstone Hoodoos

Two great national parks – Great Sand Dunes and White Sands – offer endless opportunities for minimalist photography in color or monochrome landscapes.

I think that people grab our attention a little more in monochrome. 

Structure, architecture, and animals reveal their message in black and white… 

Easily Distracted
Lonely Quail
Bathtub Row – Hotel Castaneda
Taking Refuge
Horse Whisper
Shadow and Light
Montmartre

There is the serenity message of a night ferry crossing of Pamlico Sound from the Outer Banks.

I will capture an image in color and then explore it in monochrome. I will only occasionally start out shooting monochrome. 

Wildfire Burn Scar
Cactus
Oklahoma Highway
Mt. Taylor and Virga Clouds
Kansas
Fork in the Road

We have an annual black and white photography show – Shades of Gray – that is now going on at the New Mexico Expo Center.  The winning images and other entries are on display on the show’s website.  

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Monochrome Madness #51 Market Mayhem

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How many kinds of potatoes do you want? How about fourteen different flavors of Ceviche?  Excuse me while I trip over the pineapples.  This is Market Mayhem  in the city market in Cusco, Peru.

You know that feeling that you get when you go into the market the day before Christmas  or Thanksgiving and you realize you have gone into a madhouse? Multiply that feeling  by maybe 4 or 5. Next imagine that you don’t speak the language. You are not in the Kroger’s anymore, Toto.

There are more different kinds of potatoes than you can imagine. If you get hungry there are food venders selling ceviche and ice cream and drinks and coca leaves and other things that you don’t recognize.

It is a riot of food and people and smells and noise. You get caught up in it. How can you get it all home in the suitcase?

You can’t take it home. You have to eat it here.

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Thanks to Sarah for this Monochrome Madness theme. Markets, especially in other countries, are fascinating places. Ours are pretty dull by comparison.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lens-Artist Challenge #380 -The Corner

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The Place Beyond

There are places beyond our usual limits
of space and time.
We go there – when the time is right
to see what is mostly unseen.

This is not a different world or universe.
You simply have to hop the fence.
Step lively if you want to catch the fleeting moment.
It is worth the effort.

Our challenge this week is a tough one from Anne about corners. That’s about finding what is around the corner — the unknown — the unseen. As it happens, I don’t live in a place with corners of that sort. I have to go pretty far to find those corners.  Mostly what I have instead are fences. I have far horizons but to see what’s really out there you have to hop a few fences.

Four corners — where New Mexico meets Utah, Arizona, and Colorado.

My immediate area might seem alien to some — the street isn’t paved and we don’t really have blocks as in a city neighborhood — we have curves and we’re cursed with round-abouts on the paved streets. I live on a loop.  It is best to take walks during dry weather — down the middle of the road. There’s not much traffic. There’s the mailman and a school bus and a guy riding a horse and leading a donkey every morning. The city sends a road grader every week and they spray water to keep the dust down, even if it is raining. Work schedules must be observed. There is an abundance of sage and four-winged saltbush on the road edges, some yucca, cactus, and wildflowers in the spring and summer.

Quail families and desert cottontails will scurry away as you walk by.  Maybe a jackrabbit. They look like short kangaroos. There might be a roadrunner up ahead searching for a lizard. They will stop and look you in the eye — holding their ground. They are reminiscent of the small (but vicious) feathered Dineobellator that roamed this region 60+ million years ago. Happily, we won’t encounter one of them on our walk. Roadrunners eat the snakes and I have only seen one (harmless) snake in 13 years.

What dominates the scene all along our walk is the view across the river valley to the Sandia Mountains — the eastern edge of the ever-widening Rio Grande Rift. We are high up on the western mesa at 5,400 ft. The Rio Grande is down below but not visible in the bosque forest that lines both sides. We have had a dusting of snow and the mountain glows red at sunset thanks in part to the high content of feldspar in the granite.

If you squint looking  way off to the south you will see the tower that carries the Sandia Tram up another 5,000 feet to the top of the the peak. The little bit of snow last night won’t last. We are very far below our average snowpack and our December was possibly the warmest in over a thousand years. It will be an awful fire season if it stays dry and warm like this.

At night the stars will dominate the view and maybe the moon rising over the mountain. 

Eleanor Roosevelt said: “Do one thing every day that scares you”. Walking at night is dark and a little scary. You might hear something rustling in the bushes or some coyotes singing not too far away. They are the landlords around here. We are only caretakers. I have a critter cam that keeps me informed of the night visitors. I haven’t seen many coyotes lately but there are some very impressive ones that pass through the yard. This guy is my favorite — an early morning visitor. He is gorgeous but I keep Archie, my tuxedo cat, indoors or with me in the front courtyard and not let him out of my sight. Archie knows the danger and won’t stay outside alone.

I have probably given the impression that I’m isolated and almost a pioneer but that is not the case. I have neighbors and the number is increasing as this neighborhood is developed. There has been a half dozen new homes built in the last year or so but I still have only one adjacent neighbor. 

I had to go back several years to find a picture of my home in the snow. With any luck we will get some in the coming weeks and a lot of it. I hope everyone enjoys their peek around the corner. I’m looking forward to reading the adventures.

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If you you are interested in participating in the Lens-Artist Challenge and would like some information, click here.

Lens-Artist Challenge #379 Favorite Images of 2025

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Well, 2025 is history and we are already deep into 2026 in only a few days time. Hoping for better times ahead, I’m following our challenge by  revisiting some of my favorite images of 2025. These may not be my best images but they are among my favorites. Sometimes things might be a little blurred or “off” in one way or another. Some have been shared before.

Rambling

I spend one or two days a week roaming northern New Mexico with my camera. As a landscape photographer, I have a lifetime supply of good subject matter.  The plains and mountains offer unending views.

Jemez in fall colors
Jemez Mountains
Ojito Wilderness

Spanish Queen
Broken Teeth
San Ysidro Anticline
Valles Caldera

As a Midwesterner used to trees and green-ness almost everywhere, I have fallen in love with the dry and colorful desert country.  This is the northern-most edge of the Chihuahuan Desert — on the margin of different ecosystems and different geologic realms.

Bear’s Mouth
Palisade
Cabezon Peak Basin
Lunch stop
Rio Puerco country

The Right Moment

I’m often surprised by a situation where things come together spontaneously. I might happen upon a scene that begs to be photographed at just the right moment.

Balloon Fiesta — we have the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta each October. The hot air balloons, hundreds of them, take off at once and head up the valley to my house. These images were all taken on my porch or front yard.

Sandia Sunrise
Puddle balloons
Glorious Morning
Defying gravity — reflection
Cloud Nine

Then there are the real surprises and the experience of taking the photo might make it special. The Elk herd was a big surprise because I was photographing a beaver in the stream when I realized there were 300 Elk grazing on the adjacent valley floor. I might drive by a place a dozen times and not see the Sandstone Man coming out of the stone. The super moon came up while I was driving and I had to pull off the road to grab the pictures. The “wave” cloud signaled the end of our summer monsoon season. I was seduced by a friendly Mantis and the shadowed trail in the forest.

The Wave
Moonrise
Valles Caldera Elk Herd
Super Moon
Sandstone Man
Shadow Trail
Friendly Mantis

I have shared some of these before and, as usual I have gone on far too long. I had it in my mind that 2025 was not a very good year for my photography since I was out of commission for a while — but it seems I can’t pick just a few favorite images.

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If you you are interested in participating in the Lens-Artist Challenge and would like some information, click here.

Lens-Artist Challenge: Last Chance

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I’m looking for something that gives me a chance to stretch. Because I have my own work, and I can do anything I want in my own work – juggle, tap dance, anything I want. — Bette Midler

Our topic this week is last chances — our year is coming to a close so we can share and stretch, tap dance and juggle in ways that we have not during the year. Our unseen photos from the year take the stage. 

Where to start? How about wildflowers?

At the desert’s edge I have sort of the best of both worlds but it all lives within the rules of an arid  and high elevation climate.

Desert Globe Mallow
Prairie Sunflower
Tansytleaf Tansyaster
Common Blanketflower
Small Palafox

I struggle with my own garden while these desert flowers are happily blooming away where few people see them. Every year some wild flower will plant itself in my garden, very secretly, and then bloom better than almost everything I have planted. It seems to be something different each year.

Pink Evening Primrose
Apache Plume

I was recruited by a friend to join a local photographers’ club this year and joined a few members on a photo walk around downtown Albuquerque. I’m mostly a color landscape photographer but I decided to do some monochrome photos or maybe some muted colors.

Part of the walk took us inside the Hotel Adaluz, one of Conrad Hilton’s first hotels built in 1939. It is a an architectural gem showcasing southwestern Pueblo/Spanish Colonial revival style.

I was a little under the weather this year and didn’t go on any major trips but I managed to get out on a few day trips. 

Northeastern New Mexico…

The desert backcountry near my home…

The nearby Jemez Mountains…

Since I always have a camera with me I could go on and on — but won’t.

That’s all, folks…

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On the Passing of the Year

Auld Lang Syne: We cheerfully sing the phrase
but shiver to recall what went before or
guess what’s yet to come.

Old Long Since — “since what?” we ask. Time only knows.
We bade Godspeed to so many and so much.
Once young and bold but now so far apart.

But, yes, we’ve wandered many a weary foot,
since auld lang syne. So may we someday raise
a glass, my friend… and may it be in better times.

But for now, in times like these, we say a prayer…
or a whispered hope… as far and near, to each his own,
we’ll raise a cup o’ kindness yet, for auld lang syne.

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Exhibit: Modern Art and Politics in Germany 1910-1945

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I don’t do this very often but I’d like to recommend an art exhibit at the Albuquerque Art Museum that will be leaving on January 4th. 2026. “Modern Art and Politics in Germany 1910-1945” offers a glimpse of what was then considered controversial or degenerate art in the years before and during WW-II in Germany. The paintings and sculptures are on loan from the Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin.

The reasons why the Nazi authorities attacked these pieces of art, and the artists in many cases, seem chaotic and irrational to us. Some artist’s work was both lauded and condemned at different times. Some of the confiscated art went on display in a Nazi exhibit of degenerate art in 1937. Of course, Jews, communists or passivists were criticized or worse. Most of the artists fled Germany or tried to. Some hid their art or went into hiding themselves. Some destroyed their own art. Some tried to ingratiate themselves by painting acceptable paintings. Sculptures were also condemned for unfathomable reasons to us.

The irrationality of all this is what makes this a particularly scary presentation — the reasons were apparently rational and normalized among the Nazi art authorities and at least in the minds of some of the the art patrons and galleries at the time. Some works by Picasso or Salvador Dali were confiscated if found in Germany.

Another aspect of the exhibit is the provenance and preservation of the art during the dangerous war years and the following period of divided Germany. A number of pieces were in East Berlin or other East German cities. Some pieces were hidden in attics. Sometimes an artist’s widow would come forward with paintings hidden during the war. A lot of German art of that period was destroyed in the bombing, and sometimes by the artists themselves or by Gestapo, so this exhibit shows some of what survived. 

The human condition and the destruction of war was one theme. At the end of the war some of these surviving German artists began producing pieces that represented the horrors and destruction of WW-II. Some of this art has been in storage and not on display because it is too disturbing for public viewing. The multi-panel work (below) just went on exhibit in the past few years.

Some paintings were considered degenerate or ethnically unacceptable for bizarre reasons. One painting was condemned because the painting subject’s stepfather was Jewish. Certain art dealers were also criticized and had their galleries ransacked and art confiscated or destroyed.

We might be familiar with the names of the art schools or trends of the time of Germany’s Weimar Republic and the 1930s: Bauhaus, Dada, Surrealism, Abstraction, or maybe even Der Blaue Reiter artists, but this exhibition shows what the Nazi government’s reaction was to the once bold and flowering art movement in pre-war Germany.

This traveling exhibit is going next to Minneapolis but you may visit it here in Albuquerque until January 4th.  .

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