Take a Look Around

Sunset from our porch

It's no secret: New Mexico is a photogenic place. Photographers love the early morning and the evening light; and the mountains, skies, rivers, and the desert all provide amazing scenery.

I hope you will check out New Mexico Magazine's online photo tours. They are featuring some delicious chile photos from the harvest that is taking place right now (I can see the local pickers across the road as I type this), the winners from their annual photo contest; and tours of Native American ruins and petroglyphs, historical spots like El Rancho de Las Golondrinas, and ranches that will give you a glimpse at modern-day cowboy life. The show starts here. Prepare to spend some time clicking and oohing and aahing!

Sun, silence, and adobe - that is New Mexico in three words.

~Charles F. Lummis, in The Land of Poco Tiempo, 1928

Day of Enchantment

Here is a different view of the camel who was in one of my photo entries

The New Mexico Day of Enchantment Photo Contest has come to an end and you can see all the photos here. When viewing the pictures, you can just wander around randomly, or you can pick a certain hour of the day and check out views during that time from all over the state. You can find my photos (or anyone else's) by using the search feature; mine are under "clairz."

Thank you all for taking the time to vote. It was my first time to enter a contest as a very beginning amateur. When you look around at the pictures, you will see what I mean!

All the winners, the top vote getters, and the prizes are shown on this page.

Heating Up

We're sitting under a large upper level ridge of high pressure that will be hovering over us for several days to come. This means that we will be experiencing triple-digit temperatures--104 to 107--for several days and that our nights will be in the mid-70s, rather than providing their normal cool relief.

In this kind of weather, everything gets done very early and the rest of the day is spent staying cool, away from the sun, and drinking lots of water.

Sometime during the night, irrigation water was let into the orchards surrounding our house. It gives an illusion of coolness and ensures that the trees get a nice drink of water, too.

I've just been learning to use my new little Canon PowerShot camera for the first time today. I bought it for its lightweight portability, which will come in handy when taking bike rides. I love its beautiful green color! My other camera, bigger and heavier, is getting used to some new tripod shooting experiences. Fun!

New Mexico Photo Contest

Don't miss the Day of Enchantment photo contest that is running until June 27th. The photos are amazing, and show all areas of New Mexico throughout the day, minute by minute.

I entered four photos for the fun of it. I hope you'll check them out and vote for them, if you like them. You can find them here.

Be sure to wander through the entries. There are so many I can't imagine that we can view them all, but they really give you an idea of the beauty of this place through the eyes of its amateur photographers.

One of my entries was the big lenticular sunset picture above, one of a series that has appeared elsewhere on this blog. I was sure that it was totally unique, but it looks like several other Las Cruces photographers were out there on that same amazing December evening, shooting away.

Digital Photography: Food Photos

The Digital Photography class continues to be a tiny bit overwhelming. After all, whole books have been written on just single facets of this art/science, and we are cramming an awful lot of information into three classes and a field trip.

I can tell you that one thing I have learned from the class that is already making my photos clearer is that there is a diopter/dioptric adjustment knob on the camera that will adjust the viewfinder image to suit my eyes, even without glasses. Now I have a much better chance at shooting sharp, focused photos. Who knew? Actually, it was right there in the owner's manual all along, of course!

For the "taking photos of food" assignment, I visited the Farmer's Market and shot all morning. Then just this morning when I was slicing bananas and strawberries into my bowl of Cheerios, I was struck by the wonderful colors and ended up carrying my bowl from room to room and even outside, and shooting it in a variety of settings, with a flash and with natural light. Those Cheerios photos turned out to be my favorites.

Here are the five photos I used for the assignment. All have had some slight corrections made with iPhoto (cropping, straightening, exposure and highlight adjustments), which we worked with in class.

If you click on this photo of honey jars (above), you can see the market (and the photographer!) reflected. The other colors are the reflection of the tablecloth

The class pointed out, quite rightly, that I could have shot this from another angle to make it more interesting. I was pleased with the sun shining through the honey though. Some of this very honey is poured over my breakfast bowl, below

These last two shots are much more impressive when viewed full screen in iPhoto

Digital Photography, My New Class

I just started my new class in digital photography, and my head is spinning. Macro photos! Light sources! Flash! No flash! Batteries, cables, memory cards, lenses, downloading, editing, and on and on.

I hope you'll be seeing an improvement in the quality of the photos posted here. I'm off to do some assignments.

Playing with iPhoto

I've wanted to try some sepia effects ever since seeing Linda's horse and burro photos a couple of days ago on her blog, The 7MSN Ranch. 

I've been missing our old Adobe Photoshop ever since our old laptop crashed, so I thought I'd try out iPhoto on the new Mac Notebook. Very easy, fun effects. Here are my results.

1. Church in Cerrillos, NM, along the Turquoise Trail. 

2. Building on the main street of Lincoln, NM

3. Old gate, Lincoln, NM

4. Last year's Clovis, NM Chuck Wagon Cook-Off

New Mexico Sunset for Skywatch Friday

Be sure to view the sky photos from all over the world on Skywatch Friday by clicking on the Skywatch button in the margin of the blog.

My Clovis

Ah, YouTube. When I saw a negative video posted there called Boycott Clovis, New Mexico I worked hard making a slide show of the photos that I have been taking since moving here. It took me quite a while to do because I have never put together a video using jpeg files before.

I thought that it might be a good idea to present a more positive view and to show the beauty that is here for those who look for it. I posted my little effort on YouTube, but soon found that I am far too tenderhearted to deal with the kind of negative comments that started appearing. Folks had apparently decided that they didn't like Clovis, and they resented any attempt to see it in a positive way. So I'm taking down my YouTube posting, and doing my best to obliterate my account there, which was under the name of "cloviscowgirl" because they already have enough clairz-type names on file.

P.S.: Things are looking up! See the March 28 posts on this blog.

Christmas Lights in Clovis

I've been experimenting with nighttime photography without a tripod. The pictures of our house and neighborhood so far are very out of focus, so I'll have to try again. However, these shots taken down at Jimenez Custom Harvesting came out much better. Apparently, the guys down at Jimenez spend several days setting up this display and have done an incredible job. You can enjoy the animation if you drive by 1000 W. Brady Ave..


Merry Christmas!

My Favorite Blogs

My favorite bone

You may have noticed my list of favorite blogs on the left side of this page. Here is a little additional information about each one. Go ahead, check them out--but beware of blog addiction!

Animals

-Bonobo Handshake: Vanessa is a writer and researcher with the Hominoid Psychology Research Group. Her blog is about her 2007 research trip to study endangered bonobos in the Congo.


Books
-A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy: Liz B. writes about books, movies, and TV shows, with an emphasis on books for children and teens.

-Incurable Logophilia; reflections on a love of words, of literature, of language: A wonderful resource when you’re looking for books to read next.

-A Patchwork of Books: Amanda is a bookworm and children’s library assistant who is working toward her Master’s in Library Science. She writes about children’s and young adult literature.

Fiber Arts
-Knit Lit: Kate says “I write. I knit. I write about knitting. And I like you. I really, really like you.” Great writing, terrific ideas and photographs, and a list of links that includes I May Be Knitting a Ranchhouse, Skein Cocaine, and Fondle My Sweaters . What else do you need to know?

-Yarn Harlot; Stephanie Pearl-McPhee goes on (and on) about knitting.

Food and Recipes
-Desert Candy: Mercedes does some wonderful Middle Eastern cooking, then photographs and writes about it in this beautifully designed blog.

Life in the Southwest
-greenchilesandroses: Night Lightning Woman is a retired social worker who has lived her entire life in New Mexico and Texas.

-If the Creek Don't Rise: Lin (“I figure that fantasies should be game plans”) writes about living off the grid in the remote desert Southwest.

-La Casa de Towanda: Sharon is doing some New Mexico dreaming while planning her move from Kansas to Santa Fe. She writes lovely posts on northern New Mexico, with gorgeous photographs and a stylish layout.

-Picturing New Mexico: Lots of intriguing photos.

-Santa Fe Journal: “New Mexico, past and present, with photos and text.”


Sites That Appeal to My Librarian Self
-Love the Liberry : Amy and Marian write about the weird stuff that happens in libraries; librarians won’t be surprised, but you may be!

-Planet Esme: Children’s author (Sahara Special, etc.) Esme Raji Codell writes about children’s literature.

Impossible to Classify
-Overheard Lines: I love those snippets of conversation you hear when passing through a crowd. This eavesdropping playwright captures odd bits in that most fertile of listening posts, the San Francisco Bay Area.

-Philip Greenspun's Weblog: A posting every day, an interesting idea every three months. I’ve always loved Philip G’s photographs, now we can find out what he has to say.

-PostSecret: Anonymous handmade postcards each tell a secret never before revealed about their maker; an ongoing community art project that is now featured in several books. People slip even more postcards into the books on the shelves of bookshops and libraries.

-to-do list : A collection of lists and what they reveal (“quirks, compulsions, and habits”) about the people who make them.

Picturing New Mexico

Before we ever came to New Mexico, we had vague impressions of what it might look like—red rocks and sand (me), snakes rolling down hills after people (Beez). Just in case you are wondering about our scenery, fill your eyes with these photographs of New Mexico and the Southwest.

Bob Thornburg Photography, Images of the Southwest: http://www.photowebs.com/thornburg/SouthwestGallery/index.htm

Don Bain’s Virtual Guidebook—New Mexico: http://www.virtualguidebooks.com/NewMexico/NewMexico.html

Fotofeed: http://www.fotofeed.com/index.html

Geraint Smith, Photo of the Day:
http://geraintsmith.com/potd/pages/archive.html

Gerald Brimacombe, Southwest: http://www.geraldbrimacombe.com/southwest.htm

Helmut Kuhn, Southwest Portfolio: http://www.helmutkuhn.com/portfolio/southwest/P_SW03.html

New Mexico Entertainment Photographs (indexed by town): http://www.newmexicoet.com/nm_photographs_01.html

Pam Segura, La Mesilla, NM: http://www.pbase.com/pamspics/la_mesilla_nm&page=all

Ramblin’ Cameras--Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge: http://www.ramblincameras.com/Bosqueth.htm

Ramblin’ Cameras—Organ Mountain Scenic Photography Galleries:
http://www.ramblincameras.com/Omthome.htm

Ramblin’ Cameras—White Sands Balloon Invitational.
Gallery 1: http://www.ramblincameras.com/Wbfest.htm
Gallery 2: http://www.ramblincameras.com/Wbfest2.htm

TaosWeb Snaps: http://www.taoswebb.com/snaps/