Sandia Mountains from Ojito Wilderness Area

In March of 2007 I went to the Ojito BLM Wilderness Area, about 50 miles northwest of Albuquerque, New Mexico.  This was my last New Mexico hike before moving to the dread plains of Illinois.  It was gloomy and overcast all day, which put an unfortunate damper on my photography plans.  However, just before sunset the sun came out under the clouds for a few minutes, which is when I took this photo.  The sun has already set in the foreground, however, the Sandia Mountains, on the other (east) side of Albuquerque, lived up to their name (Sandia is watermelon in Spanish).  The red here is the sunset reflected off of snow.  I edited this photo two years ago, using my then primitive methods, and so it took some time to correct this back to presentable form!  Do not edit your original!  This was taken from the eastern boarder of the Wilderness Area, where we camped.  There are some cool unexcavated Anasazi (or ancient Pueblo) ruins near by.  If you didn’t know what unexcavated ruins looked like you would probably walk right by with out seeing them.

Cottonwood Madonna

I happened across this carving in an old cottonwood tree while photographing in Albuquerque’s Old Town in October of 2006.  As it is behind the church and facing away from the road (alley) I was quite surprised to find it – I was photographing the rear of the church, turned around and there she was!  The following is what I could find out about her online:

healing from inside
the heart of a cottonwood
nuestra señora

The story goes that in 1970 a parishioner of the 300-year-old San Felipe de Neri, Albuquerque’s oldest Catholic parish, carved the image of the Virgin de Guadalupe into the open wound of an ancient dying cottonwood. The Virgin saved the tree’s life.  (Haiku and text from Red Ravine, “Virgin Cottonwood Haiku“)

Behind the San Felipe de Neri Church, there is a treasure that very few locals even know about. Some call her the Lady of the Tree, others the Cottonwood Madonna. In the parking lot behind the church, a tall cottonwood stands near the wall. Embedded in the tree’s trunk, along its natural indentations, someone carved the figure of a Madonna. (from About.com, “A Walk Through Old Town“)

Mimbres I

The photos included in this post are of Mimbres and Anasazi pottery, in the collection of a friend of mine in Albuquerque, New Mexico. 

Mimbres Pottery (top photo)(from Wikipedia):

 The pottery produced in the Mimbres region, often finely painted bowls, is distinct in style and is decorated with geometric designs and figurative paintings of animals, people and cultural icons in black paint on a white background. Some of these images suggest familiarity and relationships with cultures in northern and central Mexico. The elaborate decoration indicates that these people enjoyed a rich ceremonial life. Early Mimbres Black and White, called Boldface Black-on-White (now called Mimbres Style I), is primarily characterized by bold geometic designs, although there are also a few early examples of human and animal figures. Over time, both geometric and figurative designs became increasingly sophisticated and diverse. Classic Mimbres Black-on-White pottery (Style III) is characterized by elaborate geometric designs, refined brushwork, including very fine linework, and may include figures of one or more animals, humans, or other images bounded either by simple rim bands or by geometric decoration. Birds figure prominently on Mimbres pots, including images such as turkeys feeding on insects and a man trapping birds in a garden; fish are also common.

Mimbres bowls are often found associated with burials, typically with a hole punched out of the center. Most commonly Mimbres bowls have been found covering the face of the interred person. Wear marks on the insides of bowls show they were actually used, not just produced as burial items.

Mimbres pottery is so distinctive that until fairly recently, the end of its production around A.D. 1130-1150 was equated with the “disappearance” of the people who made it. More recent research indicates that substantial depopulation did occur in the Mimbres Valley, but some remnant populations persisted there. Both there and in surrounding areas, people changed their pottery styles to more closely resemble those of neighboring culture areas, and dispersed into other residential sites with different types of architecture.

Note:  When a pot was no longer used and was ready to be discarded, a hole was punched in the bottom, ritually “killing” the pot, as can be seen here (patched).  (Tom)

Anasazi I

New Mexico - 2006

This is one of the first photographs I took when I bought my Nikon D50 in the spring of 2006.  My friend Bryan and I were driving from Albuquerque to the Zuni Mountains to do some camping, and made a pit stop in Grants, New Mexico on the way.  I walked behind the convenience store and took this shot of the train (and the back of a 7-11 or whatever).  A perfect example of the “lines of force” rule of composition, although I didn’t know it at the time.  This was originally a JPEG image (since converted to TIFF) – and as I’ve played with it several times in the last three+ years the resolution of the original has deteriorated, but I still like it!  I didn’t know that JPEG was lossy compression at the time!