Catching up

My vacation started this week.  I traveled to Texas to visit family.  Driving always gives me time to think.  My big discovery on this drive was that I have become one of the old people in hotels.  You know the old people that are up in the room next door, taking a shower while you are trying to sleep in?

Well, I was wide awake,taking a shower, and watching Sportscenter at 3:30 in the morning.  Luckily the rooms on each side of me were filled with high school age kids that were celebrating graduation.  Teens could sleep through Armageddon, so I didn't disturb anyone when I left at 4 to finally get my photos of the Cadillac ranch.  

 

 

Especially in the dark, the Cadillacs are barely recognizeable as Cadillacs.  The grafitti is the only interesting feature left.  It does make photography for a challenge, when they are for a family audience.  The ranch was originally in a site a couple of miles further east.  They were buried at an angle matching that of the great pyramids in Egypt.  The cars look like they were hurriedly re-planted in their new location, with no regard for what they originally were intended to represent.

Like so much in our me-first society, they are now just a venue the new Me generation to deface.  Maybe I am getting old.  Just another episode of old-timer's syndrome.

Photographs, No Politics

I'm going to take a break from current events and politics for a couple of days.  It's getting too frustrating.  

I'm being a bachelor this week, so I spent some time going through my old photo files.  One of my biggest problems in photography is that I take the photograph with the final result already visualized.  If the photo doesn't come out like I expected, I discard it without considering whether it is good, even if it isn't what I planned.

I've always liked this quote, but for some reason, not the photo.  I don't remember what I was trying for, but I kind of like this one now.  I read a biography of Ansel Adams when I first started getting serious about photography.  In the book, there was a story about his first trip to the Grand Canyon.  A lesser known photographer said the canyon was his favorite subject.  He said he had taken hundreds of exposures on his first trip to the canyon.  Adams said he took two.  He visualized the shot and then created it, first on location, then in the darkroom.  I'm not talented or patient enough to spend time necessary on Photoshop to create art, so I need to look more seriously at creating photographs.

Mount Crested Butte

I took this one a few weeks ago.  I never looked twice at it, but Cathy and a couple of other people that saw it on Facebook, liked it.  Now, looking at it, I like it a lot.  I think I will spend some time this week going through my files and see if there others that I have overlooked.  Might need a couple of days.  I think I have somewhere around 5,000 photographs on file.  Not counting the ones with people in them, Mom.

Potato Processing Plant and Reflection 

Monte Vista, Colorado

Old Brazos River Bridge

Near Newcastle, TX