(October, 2020) As noted in our previous post, we spent autumn in Bluff, Utah, visiting with long-time good friends Joyce and Paul M.; seeing many sights in the area; and taking photographs. Paul and I took many photo outings to interesting locations around Valley of the Gods, Comb Ridge, Montezuma Canyon, McElmo Canyon, and other sites around Bluff. I also took quite a few solo photo outings.
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(Late September, 2020) As the saying goes, “There’s gold in them thar hills!”, and we were determined to find it. Or at least, the Aspen gold of fall color high in the San Juan Mountains of southern Colorado. We had just spent a week at the Alamosa KOA, photographing around Great Sand Dunes National Park, and our plan was to move on to Durango, Colorado. Our hope was to arrive in time for the peak of fall color in the San Juans.
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(Late September, 2020) Towering waves of sand breaking on the shore of a mountain-rimmed cove. That is the impression left by the dune-field at Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve. This was our first time visiting the dunes. We were excited to see and photograph such a breathtaking land of contrasts. Great Sand Dunes did not disappoint.
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(Mid-September, 2020) If you’ve ever driven the empty spaces of the Great Plains, then you’ve seen them. That lonely farmhouse sitting abandoned in the fields. Boards weathered to grey with no hint of paint. Empty windows. Door standing agape. Roof with missing shingles – or altogether gone.
Perhaps, instead it is a forlorn and leaning barn slouching into ruin; or a solitary windmill with battered and missing vanes; or even a proud old wooden grain elevator standing silent sentinel over rusted railroad tracks. You have just seen a Prairie Ghost – sad relic of past lives and of bygone eras.
In this post we’ll pay our respects to several of these ghosts of the prairies and high plains. Join me now along lonely roads – coming away with melancholic memories …and few photographs.
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(July-August, 2020) As noted in an earlier blog post, I recently purchased an infrared-modified digital camera and am having way too much fun photographing Iowa in IR. I first shot infrared years ago during my film days and always enjoyed the look of stark black and white photos with ghostly-white foliage. Switching to digital IR opens new realms of possibility for my photography.
Like film, these digital enhanced color IR images can be processed many different ways – resulting in different moods and emotional responses to the images. Some images work equally well in color as in black and white – others do not. Here, I have chosen a somewhat stylized and dreamlike style for both the color and black and white images. I hope you enjoy the results.
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