After the snow settled and the sun started shining again, Wolf Creek was sitting under 51″ of fresh, light snow. Wanting to learn how to telemark, I burned my thighs on a couple of runs with my skis, but then I just had to strap on my snowboard and start surfing in the powder. It was amazing! I can’t believe they’re expecting to get *another* 40″ of snow this weekend! Unfortunately I’m going to have to wait until the weekend of the 14th for another chance on the snow. But since I’m organizing a trip for a group of people, that weekend will be full of skiing, cooking, board games, and sitting in the hot springs in Pagosa Springs.

Oh.

Yes.

If the current weather predictions hold, Wolf Creek is expected to get 53″ of snow by Sunday.

Fifty-three inches!

Can you feel my excitement?

About a month ago, I went hiking along the Big Tesuque trail in the Sangre de Cristo (Blood of Christ) mountains around Santa Fe. It was my last chance to see the fall aspen leaves before the cold nipped them off the trees. At the lower elevations, the leaves were still looking good, but as I took the trails to the top of the ski area, the leaves were thinning out. This thinned out look combined with the filtered, harsh sun made for some eerily beautiful shots of the aspen groves. Close to the top of the trial, I found a great clearing where I could read, munch on some dried mangos, and watch the sun go down behind Santa Fe. Here are some pictures from that afternoon.

A couple days ago, I cruised across New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma to spend the Thanksgiving holidays with my ma, who had come back home from Bahrain (where my parents are temporarily living), and my little brother. Although I’ve done the trip countless times, this was the first time I stopped and fired off a couple of rounds. The first couple of shots are of the Kadallic Ranch, an art installation owned by a helium tycoon / wheat farmer.

It was also cotton picking season, so I got see some huge cotton strippers in action, massive bales of cotton, and acres upon acres of unpicked cotton fields. It was really awesome to be able to go out and pick some cotton straight from the plants.

Finally, I also passed the 2nd largest cross in the Western Hemisphere…a staggering 190 feet. Welcome to the beginning of the bible belt. This was *the* largest until some copy-caters in Illinois nudged them out by 8 feet. Large crosses seem to be in vogue these days; my hometown of Edmond, Oklahoma sports its own 147 foot cross put up by LifeChurch.tv (formerly MetroChruch). Apparently some seafood restaurant across the street from the cross petitioned to construct 157 foot giant crab as part of it’s interstate signage, but the Edmond city council shot it down because it violated city ordinances limiting signs to 35 feet. Well, I must say that I’m glad the Texas-size ridiculousness stopped someplace.

Anyways, I’m back at home, stuffing my face with lots and lots of good food and playing video games with my little brother. Hope Thanksgiving break is going well for you all.

Before I owned my Canon 20D digital SLR (single-lens reflex) camera, I actually used to shoot with a great Canon A-1 film camera that my dad bought decades ago. It was the camera that taught me all the foundations of photography (f-stops, shutter speeds, ASA/ISO selections, depth-of-field, etc.) and it was also the camera that I made my biggest mistakes on (opening the film cover half-way through a roll, setting the wrong ISO so the entire roll was over/under-exposed, not loading film, forgetting to change the battery, etc.).

Though my first passion was black and white photography (I *loved* developing my own negatives and spending hours in the dark room burning and dodging for the perfect print), I started to shoot Velvia slide film right before I switched to a digital SLR. Actually, it was the beauty and saturation of the slide film that propelled me to finally get a digital SLR; I hated having these great slides and not being able to easily share them with my friends and family. I also hated taking both my film SLR (for quality) and my point-and-shoot digital camera (for convenience) on all my trips; lugging around two (not small) cameras was the epitome of inconvenience.

The last big trip I took my film camera on was Alaska; a couple friends and I backcountried through Denali and went down to Seward for a tour of the Aialik Glacier. It was a phenomenal trip. In case you’re wondering, the third image is of the Denali summit catching the last rays of sun.

After quite a bit of prodding by some good friends and family, I’ve decided to venture down the path of trying to sell my photographs. I have a long ways to go, but the first thing I needed was a new website to show off my favorite images. Eventually I’ll add the capability to buy custom photographs online, but before I did that I want to look into all the tax issues involved with being a Sole Proprietor in the eyes of the government. It’s all sort of exciting, but I have no plans of quitting my day job. It would be nice way to pay for my hobby, though!

Jump to my photography from the main page and let me know what you think!

Yesterday, I set off for the Galisteo Studio Tour in Galisteo, NM. The tiny, liberal village has a population of about 265 (2000 census), of which half are probably artists of some sort: photographers, painters, potters, etc. I can’t say I liked too much of the art (there’s only so much weaving, jewelry-making, and pictures of horses I can take), but one artist I really liked was Sam Sloan. He’s a native Vermont photographer who shoots high-contrast, black and white images with a media format camera and develops everything himself in the darkroom. His local subject matter was stunning and the detail and dynamic range of his high-contrast images was phenomenal. It reminded me 1) how fun it was to spend time in a darkroom, and 2) how digital cameras just don’t have the dynamic range that film does; 12 bit (or now 14 bit) analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) just don’t cut it. This especially an issue in high-contrast images (the type I like) and especially noticeable when looking at the detail held in the highlights and shadows of a digital image. Usually, if you have good detail in your highlights your shadows look like black blobs (or vice-versa). Sam’s images, though, held amazing detail in both the shadows and the darks. Maybe I should look more into high dynamic range processing (HDR).

Anyways, the fall colors were in full force and the weather was perfect for some nice shots around the town. The sun shining behind the yellow cottonwood leaves totally lit them (and me) up.

Today, my boy Zach took a group of us down for a day of paintball. Damn, it was fun. No pictures…my camera wouldn’t have made it out alive; I came out with 6-7 solid welts.