Buford was my dad’s dog. I think he was a stray or perhaps a dog that someone my dad knew didn’t want anymore. In any case Buford was a German shorthair-looking dog. Tall, lanky with big ears, brown and white coat and soft brown eyes. He was
If you watched the movie Nomad, then you know something of this place. We were passing through coming from Blythe California across the dwindling Colorado River into Arizona. A quick stop in Quartzite for gas and a little food. The next five days would be blessed desert solitude with good
It is in perhaps New Mexico where the intensity of Catholic belief beats strongest in America. I am not a believer, but it is hard not to be moved by the passion of the faith exhibited here. I have always sense some of the Spanish darkness lurking beneath a more
If we don’t get stabbed to death tonight, we will meet you at Kofa tomorrow. I texted this to my friend Jerry as we arrived at our Motel 6 in Blythe California after sunset. (The problem with winter travel is the days are so damn short.) For those who
So many meanings possible…I will explain… Here on the transition from the Sonoran to the Chihuahua deserts on the eastern side of the Dos Cabezas Mountains is a little area called Indian Bread Rocks. Our home for one night, it is tucked up against rounded granite boulder not unlike
Here in the Anza-Borrego desert we have arrived after unusually heavy rains. The first clue was the pinkish-magenta Desert Sand Verbena coloring the margins of the dunes. Tracks in the dunes were damp where the dry surface sand had been turned up. The hills have been transformed; from
Creosote When you first drop into the Sonoran desert and it has been raining the previous day or two there is, on the air, the unmistakable smell of the creosote bush. Being as smell is the most potent invokers of memory it strikes me powerfully. To start with the smell
Preface: This is not an explicitly political piece though some may take it as so. It is an expression of what I saw and what I know and some contemplation as well. The sky is a cold blue but here it could never be cold enough. Here where the sun
Today we drove up over the mountains and upon spying the white dome on the distant mountain decided to visit Palomar Observatory. It is something of a mecca to anyone who appreciates science especially astronomy or the cosmos. I confess to being such a person having nerded out on books
Imagination is perhaps the quintessential human quality. It appears to be a uniquely human capability and when exercised enables us change our view of ourselves, others and the world around us. The Philosopher Owen Barfield called it ‘an ultimate mental activity’ and ‘the power of creating within forms which themselves
I have written before that I am drawn to longer lenses in my photography. Traditional landscape photography especially in the vast expanses of the American West relies on wide angle, short focal length lenses. 50mm can seem quite constrained and so you see 35mm, 28, down to 10mm or 12mm
I’ve been revisiting photographs from earlier this year, taken as we drove through Zion. The trip wasn’t planned, we had been recalled home unexpectedly, but on the way, we paused briefly in Zion and Bryce. It was late winter, and we were fortunate to catch a light snowfall.