BOSQUE DEL APACHE

Snow Geese, Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, NM

Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, a wetland in the New Mexico high desert, is known as a wintering place for ten-thousands of Sandhill Cranes, Snow and Ross’s Geese. More than 370 species of birds have been observed since 1981, making it a favorite destination for nature lovers and photographers year-round. We stopped there exactly a month ago, which was a little early. Large numbers of cranes and geese arrive late November and stay until the end of February according to several websites. However, a few hundred birds were present during our visit. Bosque del Apache NWR remains on my list of places to visit for a longer period of time. Now, since we scouted the area, I have a better idea what to expect and how to plan a trip back to these floodplains of the Rio Grande River.

Shooting with 600 mm at the height of the day and no clouds in the sky makes heat shimmer inevitable. Nothing is really sharp in this photo but it still tells a story.

WILDLIFE IN THE VALLES CALDERA

Valles Caldera, National Preserve, New Mexico

About 1.25 million years ago, a spectacular volcanic eruption created the 13-mile wide circular depression now known as the Valles Caldera. This National Preserve is known for its huge mountain meadows, abundant wildlife, and meandering streams. The area also preserves the homeland of ancestral native peoples and embraces a rich ranching history. (source: park website) 

The Valles Caldera is not far from Bandelier National Monument and we spent a couple evenings in the area, hoping to see some wildlife. A herd of grazing elk was in the distance, but too far away for any decent photo. Near the visitor center we were lucky to see this coyote roaming around. With its wonderful fur the animal blent well in between grass and sage brush. A prairie dog colony was not very far and the coyote knew probably where to find them.

A day earlier these two Common Ravens enjoyed the rays of the last sun on top of a metal structure. I always think it is the most difficult bird to photograph. Although they sat pretty still, finding the right exposure and a point to focus on their black feathers seems always to be a challenge. Well, they gave me plenty of time to try out different settings in the camera…

COLORFUL SANTA FE

Santa Fe Plaza - Fall colors right at downtown

Santa Fe, New Mexico is a wonderful city, with history, culture, and art everywhere you go. It is not difficult to find interesting subjects to photograph. As so often, there wasn’t enough time to explore everything but we had a very nice day, fully packed with sightseeing, looking at art, and of course, good food and drinks.

With more than 250 galleries to explore in Santa Fe you have a lot of choices. There is one I had on my list to visit since a long time. The Monroe Gallery of Photography specializes in 20th- and 21st-century photojournalism and humanist imagery and even if this is not your field in your own photography, it is a very inspiring place. Highly recommended!

Synonymous with New Mexican cuisine, chile peppers are part of New Mexican identity. These decorative clusters were hooked to each lamp post at the plaza.

This wedding wasn’t the only one we saw in town. The traditional march by the newlyweds and their guests through the streets to their venue is led by a Mariachi band.

New Mexico Museum of Art - The style of the building, called Pueblo Revival, uses modern construction materials made to look like the historic adobe churches found throughout the state's Pueblos.

Some souvenirs need a little more space in your luggage than others…

NATURAL CARVINGS

Bandelier National Monument, New Mexico protects Ancestral Pueblo archeological sites and a diverse and scenic landscape. Much of the area was covered with volcanic ash (the Bandelier Tuff) from an eruption of the Valles Caldera volcano 1.14 million years ago. Ancestral Puebloans broke up the firmer materials to use as bricks, while they carved out dwellings from the softer material. (source: Wikipedia) I was also intrigued by the natural carvings from wind and weather and with a little fantasy you can find interesting sculptures, like this tree shape, in the walls of Cañon de los Frijoles.

GUADALUPITA MESA

Guadalupita Mesa, Jemez Mountains, New Mexico

From our camp at Bandelier National Monument we explored other areas nearby. One of them was Jemez National Recreation Area in the Jemez Mountains with its valleys and canyons. As we drove back from Gilman Tunnels through the box canyon and along the Guadalupe River, the canyon suddenly widened and we had a grandios view at Guadalupita Mesa. I saw the swirling cloud above the mesa and knew immediately that this would work for a black and white photo. Sure, the colors in my RAW file are brilliant too, but the deep shadows and bright vertical rock bands made for a nice contrasting image.

BANDELIER NATIONAL MONUMENT

The village of Tyuonyi on the floor of Frijoles Canyon.

Bandelier National Monument protects over 33,000 acres of rugged but beautiful canyon and mesa country as well as evidence of a human presence here going back over 11,000 years.  Petroglyphs, dwellings carved into the soft rock cliffs, and standing masonry walls pay tribute to the early days of a culture that still survives in the surrounding communities. (source: park website).

We camped in the park for three nights but trails are open only from dawn to dusk. Beside history and culture the park offers also much for any nature lover. As we wanted to see as much as possible we couldn’t be choosy about the times and some of the photography had to be done, well, at the height of the day. I hope these five photos give you still an idea about the beauty of this place.

COLORS IN THE CANYON

Cimarron Canyon, New Mexico

While traveling in the fall the eyes are always open for some fall colors. One of the places we found them was Cimarron Canyon in the northern part of New Mexico. The light has a different quality in high altitude environments and although we have experienced it before, I’m still amazed about how deep the blue in the sky is rendered in certain situations.

These cliffs are cut by the Cimarron River and are formed from fine-grained porphyritic dacite sill, called Palisades Sill. A spectacular canyon!

LONG TIME ON MY LIST

San Francisco de Asís Mission Church, Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico, 2021

Years ago, when I saw for the first time Ansel Adam’s photo Saint Francis Church, Ranchos de Taos, from circa 1929, in one of his books, I put this great architectural monument on my mental list of things I wanted to photograph sometime in the future.

Construction of this church began in 1772 and it is an example of a New Mexico Spanish Colonial Church. The San Francisco de Asís Mission Church is a large Adobe structure with a cruciform plan and it has attracted many painters and photographers in the past. It is the rear side of the church with its massive buttress and its adobe plaster surface that inspired many artists, like Georgia O’Keeffe, Ansel Adams, or Paul Strand.

We visited the church on two different days and at different times and each provided its own challenges with lighting and keeping unwanted elements out of the frame. In fact I zoomed with my feet a lot and went relatively close to the structure and with the 16-35 mm lens on camera.

The photo above was made at our second visit during late afternoon. The side light gives the structure depth and the adobe plaster surface reveals its texture.

Ansel Adams describes the front aspects of the church in his book Examples: The Making of 40 photographs as being “moderately impressive” and points out that “the rear elevation defines the building as one of the great monuments of America”. I only can agree and also realized that the surrounding of the church on either side is probably a lot busier than it was more than 90 years ago when he created his famous photograph.

Photographed during late morning on our first visit. The only way to work from the rear side was to keep the powerful sun behind the building and use it as a backlight. I darkened the sky a bit and used the sun to outline the structure at the top. The Saint Francis Church is a wonderful subject to photograph, but as so often, back at home and in front of the computer I find out what I missed and want to go back again…

BRIDGES ACROSS THE RIO GRANDE

Taos Junction Bridge, Rio Grande del Norte National Monument, New Mexico

Our first campground in New Mexico was right next to the river in the Rio Grande Gorge, which is part of the Rio Grande del Norte National Monument. The Monument includes 245,00 acres (991 km2 ) of public land, and was designated by Presidential Proclamation in 2013. The Rio Grande Gorge Bridge, northwest of Taos, NM, is the fifth highest bridge in the US (650 ft / 198 m). The design of this truss bridge is by far more impressive than the much smaller Taos Junction Bridge near our campground, but one evening the light on bridge and trees was just gorgeous and much better than what we had at the more famous one.

Rio Grande Gorge Bridge, near Taos, New Mexico

At this point the National Monument is very small and includes only the Rio Grande Gorge

SENSE OF SCALE

Great Sand Dunes National Park, Colorado

One of the reasons I wanted to go back to Great Sand Dunes National Park was the desire to create more photos with shapes, curves, and different light on the dunefield. Pretty soon I learned that including something that gives the viewer a sense of scale has a much bigger impact. A curve in the sand might be strong graphically spoken, but including an element we can relate to in size will tell the better story about the vastness of these dunes. In the first image the grass and bushes play this role while in the second picture the people climbing to the top give you the sense of size, distance, and altitude.

A few days before our arrival the sand dunes had obviously a little snow. The dark bands at some of the edges are from melted water. Overall the sand was very firm in most places and much easier to climb than seven years ago. At an altitude of 8900 feet (2700 m) we and our little dog Cooper were happy about every step we didn’t have to make twice on the way up…😉

All images: Nikon D750, Nikkor 70-200mm / f4,

TURNING THE HEAD

Mount Herard from Piñion Flat Campground, Great Sand Dunes National Park, Colorado

When you take your eyes away from the dune field of Great Sand Dunes National Park in the west and turn your head north towards Mount Herard (13279 ft / 4,053 m) you have another stunning vista without moving a bit. There was some snow already the evening before but a little more had accumulated by the next morning. All what it took for this image was getting out of the sleeping bag and watch the fast development of the clouds that hugged the mountain. These mountains are not in the national park but are part of the Great Sand Dunes National Preserve. 

Nikon D750, Nikkor 70-200mm / f4,   @ 112 mm, 1/500 s, f/8, ISO100

BACK IN THE GREAT SAND DUNES

Dunefield at Great Sand Dunes National Park, Colorado

Hard to believe it has been seven years ago that we visited Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado. We always wanted to go back there and made the Piñon Flat Campground at the foot hills of the Sangre de Christo Mountains our base camp again this year. It is at an altitude of about 8200 ft (2500 m) and the dune field to the west is about 700 ft (215 m) higher. It is a fascinating place where wind and water move sand to continually form North America’s tallest dunes. The times around sunrise and sunset are the best to create photos of the sand dunes with shapes that are sharp and rich in contrast. Wild fires somewhere in the west gave the sky what I call a “dirty look” but the clouds over the horizon are priceless.

Nikon D750, Nikkor 24-120mm / f4,   @38 mm, 1/160 s, f/10, ISO100

COLORFUL COTTONWOODS

Cottonwoods at Lake Mc Conaughy, Nebraska

Traveling in autumn includes always the search for fall colors. I didn’t expect too much down in the desert areas we were heading to, but the cotton woods we saw during the trip surprised us several times. Most of them don’t become this pretty here in eastern Iowa. I waited until the wind slowed down during sunset at Lake McConaughy in Nebraska for a brief moment to capture the colors and shapes of the cottonwoods along the original lake shore.

Nikon D750, Nikkor 70-200mm / f4,   @70 mm, 1/400 s, f/8, ISO400

EXPOSED TO THE WIND

Stormy Lake McConaughy, Nebraska

We just returned from a road trip that led us through eight states, with most of the time spent in New Mexico. This wonderful part of the country has many national and state parks, national monuments, forests, and wildlife refuges and we visited numerous of these places in the course of this trip. As I work through all the images during the next weeks, I will share some of the photos with you as always.

We started the trip into a heavy thunderstorm here in Iowa but that was the last rain we saw for the next eighteen days. Driven by very strong winds the storm clouds moved out as we drove across Nebraska. Finally our tent was pitched at Ogallala Lake in western Nebraska. This lake is separated from the much bigger Lake McConaughy by a dam, that gave us a little bit protection from the howling wind. Lake McConaughy is Nebraska’s largest reservoir on the North Platte River. Due to a very low water level much of the lake bottom was exposed to sun and wind. The drifting sand, touched by the light of the setting sun, made for an interesting, desert-like appearance.

Nikon D750, Nikkor 70-200mm / f4,   @70 mm, 1/400 s, f/8, ISO200

TAKING A BREAK

Great Sand Dunes, Colorado, 2014

As every year I will take a break from posting here in my blog for a little while but you can be sure new photo adventures are just around the corner. We have never started our fall trip so late in the season but we are excited to see how this will play out. One of our first stops will be a location we have visited before, Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado. A fascinating place on earth but some other great locations further south are on our radar as well. Please stay tuned…