Intersections, Albuquerque, New Mexico, November 2007

Intersections, Albuquerque, New Mexico, November 2007

I am primarily a landscape photographer with a portrait here and there. I rarely photograph textures or geometric patterns for their own sake since I like stories. This photograph, however, really captured my imagination.

During the late fall in Albuquerque, you can see hundreds of geese each day migrating to their wintering grounds. Some of the more enterprising, or perhaps lazier, geese stop at Bosque del Apache just 2 hours south of Albuquerque where you can find a congregation of up to 20,000 snow geese and similar numbers of Canadian geese.

I was walking along the Rio Grande river with my wife and spotted this typical flight formation of geese overhead. At the time I was upset that the contrails disrupted this particular frame. It is only months later that I realized the beautiful overlay of angles of flight at two levels. There is the intersection of the contrails which in turn intersect with with the V of the geese formation. But there is another intersection, between two very different kinds of flying objects. The natural world is intersecting the mechanical world created by humans.

I think there is a story here; maybe even a bit of poetry.

Enjoy!
Radzfoto

Accidental Portraits, July 12, 2008

I was sick with a really bad flu. The night before, a terrific windstorm shook the trees and the house all night. That morning the heavy rain started to come down in sheets blown almost horizontally by the wind.

We put on waterproof rain gear and headed up a gravel and dirt road to take some photographs to document an agricultural land survey. The heavy rain and the strong wind seemed to mock our waterproof garments and proceeded to drench us in the cold, winter rain (July is winter in the southern hemisphere where these photographs were taken). As I hurriedly shot a couple of 360 degree panoramas, I trembled with fever and exhaustion from the climb, and my lens was sprayed with the rain that blew against it.

I had insisted on this particular venture, and, as you can see from the hasty portraits that I took of my companions, they thoroughly enjoyed every wet minute of it. I call these "accidental portraits" because, quite honestly, my fevered brain does not remember how I captured these brooding moments. I thank my brother, who knows much more about photography than I do, for the confidence to post these images. He liked the emotions on the faces combined with the sullen weather.

Radzfoto