I have previously shown images from almost all of the locations in which the pictures below were made. Despite that fact, none of the actual images have been shared before.

All of the pictures below were made with a Pentax 6×7 cm  medium format film camera, while using Velvia 50 film.

I love to work at or towards the edge of light.  I also have a love affair with shadows.  Many of the  pictures in this selection were created purposely in contrasty and shadowy light.

Both the light and the color in the images below are provided by nature.  No color filters were used and no colors were added with Photoshop. I have written (and illustrated) many times about how warm light affects our subjects. I’ve written and illustrated how shadows can enhance or detract from the quality of a photo.  I have spent too little time talking about cool light.  Not only the light of dusk or dawn when any warmth from the sun is absent, but the cool blue atmosphere of shadows.

If you are making pictures of say….a flower in a heavy forest on a sunny day, some of the light in that forest will be image changing blue light.  It will come from the blue sky reflecting into shadow areas of the forest.  Because this is a thick forest, only small amounts of blue light will penetrate and the cool cast will be minimal. Now suppose you are on a prairie.  You are kneeling under the only tree on the prairie and photographing a warm yellow flower on a sunny day.  All of that enormous blue sky, will be reflecting into that shadow and coating your flower with a cool blue tone. You can use warming filters to correct that effect, or you can trust your auto white balance to compensate.  Even better would be to set the white balance manually to shade or warm.  All that being said, why can’t we use light color of light that nature has provided?

You will find that blue effect in some of the White Sands pictures in this post.  On blue sky days, when the full sun hits the gypsum sands, those sands will be white.  Hence forth….white sands.  I have previously shown you afternoon, late afternoon and dusk photos of White Sands.  Brown, gold and pink.  Well on blue sky days if a cloud covers the sun, that blue shadow will affect White Sands too. Even if the cloud is thin enough to allow for plant shadows on the sand, the color of the gypsum will cool down.  The final WS photo is an image made in the warm glow of dusk.

Once again none of the photos below have ever been shown before.

Guadalupe Mountains N.P. Texas

Big Bend N.P. Texas

Remote West Texas

White Sands National Monument, New Mexico. There is nothing like the simplicity and elegance of White Sands

It’s funny how many times putting my feet to the earth in locations like you see above, has uplifted me, and even saved me.  Interpreting that earth with my camera, made the experience even more powerful.  In fact a day communicating with the birds (with camera) of Horicon Marsh, or crawling around the dewy meadow (with camera) two miles from my house, has done much the same thing.

In the mid 1980s a very difficult and tiring work schedule had my photographic life cut back to a few car races. I was dating a woman, and struggling to find time for her and her kids. I wasn’t about to suggest that I wanted time for nature, my camera and myself. That schedule and other things ended that relationship, and it is amazing how quickly I was searching for something to help fill a life that now seemed empty.  As you might have guessed, my cameras and the natural world filled that hole.  Of course as you might also expect, within a few weeks I began to look towards returning to the world of getting published, by more than just auto racing magazines/newspapers.

My point is that exploring nature, and interpreting it with a camera, and sharing it with others, is pure magic!  It is at the very least, a great resting place for a mind that is tired and bruised.

Grab that camera and go out and explore

God bless