Joshua Tree: Infrared 2

images from Joshua Tree National Park

Mid-afternoon and towards evening. Infrared photos of some of my favorite parts of the park.


Ocotillo grove






Chollo cactus fields




sunset at Hidden Valley

Joshua Tree: Infrared

Images from Joshua Tree National Park, CA, February 2012



Early morning, a hot day in mid-February in the California desert. Strong shadows with sharp edges in the morning light. Infrared brings out the high contrast between light and dark, creating abstract shapes. The rocks and plant forms are almost alien in this strange light.

Circle of Elders

I camped for two nights at Joshua Tree National Park. I spent the days roaming the Park, making photographs and video, and just stopping in isolated areas to listen to the desert silence. It was recharging. Sleeping was difficult, because the campgrounds are basically dirt over granite, so any padding you need has to come from your bedding. But the night skies were beautiful.

One evening I set up the camera on its tripod at my campfire, and made a series of self-portraits. I assembled these later into a Photoshopped collage, using myself as a model for a Circle of Elders.



The wool poncho I bought in Albuquerque kept the night chill off. Although it wasn't that cold at night. The fire didn't last long, because the wood was very dry, but it was merry.

Sheltered Circles

Walking the land, making circles under the shelters of pinon pines, using curved branches from the trees themselves. Desert spirit calls to me, inspires me to make these sheltered circles. Every time I visit ZMS, I make some kind of land art. The pulse of power, fierce and pure, that runs through the land, heightens the senses, heightens the sense of power running through all things. New Mexico inspires so many artists because its pure power running in the ground makes everything more vivid. Emotions as well as inspiration are more vivid, more flowing, more potent. For some, that can become too dramatic, and draining. For many artists, it feeds the life in their work, makes their work come more alive. Myself no exception.





Sheltered Circle I, II, and III, Zuni Mountain Sanctuary, NM

Guadalupe Mountains 2: Infrared

Further photos of the Guadalupe Mountains, TX, in infrared.







stark etchings of light
stamp hard walls against shadow—
sunset rising cliffs

Guadalupe Mountains, TX

(Photos from Guadalupe Mountains National Park, January 2012.)







On the TX/NM border, the Guadalupe Mountains, which are the same ancient reef formation that is the home of Carlsbad Caverns. You can see El Capitan, the end of the Guadalupes, from the entrance to Carlsbad Caverns; they are connected at the root.







What the Guadalupes have is abundant biological diversity, some amazing views and hikes, and scenery that changes mood and tone as the sun moves across the sky, and the light evolves throughout the day. I spent my time in the Guadalupes this trip mostly near the end of the day, before driving on to Las Cruces, when the light was moving up the walls of Pine Spring Canyon like a curtain raising.





I hiked into the evening, until the shadows turned as cold as the day's sunlight had been warm. I followed trails partway up the canyon, then back down.







I stopped at the foot of El Capitan as the sun bronzed and ambered the hills and rocks, making layers of gold and grey hills fade off into time.

Carlsbad Desert Landscapes

The land over Carlsbad Caverns has its own austere beauty: desert, severe, astounding. Rather than spending time in the gorgeous caves, I spent my time out in the warm sunlight, on the top of the plateau, high above the plains.



I made several photos in infrared while visiting this time, as the sun and land seemed to starkly call to it. Pure simplicity of forms and light.



ocotillo spines
whiskering mesa clifftops—
high desert stillness

Overcome

it was a good day, mostly. A satisfying day, if cold.
I wrote something, then wrote something more. I went
out with the cameras to the river and stood with the light
for a long time, the way an artist is supposed to. Sometimes
I wonder what the neighbors think, seeing me walk around
the block to the bend in the river, cameras hung from me,
tripod like a giant microscope over my shoulder. I made
something of the day. I made something.

Suddenly, dusk hovering at the eaves,
a mood comes over like the end of the world.
I catch myself dropping the brush to weep.
This infinity that never quite goes away.
It's what artists do: make themselves open, attentive,
to see everything that's there, that no one else
bothers to look at.

This morning, reading, sitting on the porch,
a ruby-throated hummingbird hovered long
at the pink-and-white morning-glories,
hovering a long time probing each blossom's heart,
at the flower trellis inches from my knee,
on the other side of the window. Motionless,
I wait, watch, dare not breathe. Then whoever
paints the day moves his palette on, and the flicker
of solid light that is this fiery tiny bird, disappears
in a flash and whir. A long lingering followed,
as I had put down my book and had nothing
better to do, to look at, then the sun-patient flowers.
This year I thought the morning-glories would not survive.
Instead, they are a profligate marvel, a riot, a band of gems.

Night brings on silent desolation. I am mourning for
something lost, I don't even know what. How can a painter
ever trust words? Words turn into ashes. But you can
grind ash into pigment, and apply it to the day. Words
leave less than ash, behind, in their wake. They dissolve
in a flash and whir. Wind up the world, watch it run down,
again. I know what's missing. I just don't know why.
When and where have their own mysterious alignment.

Moods come over you like cold weather. I shiver when
I should be sunning. Cold useless reptile blood stirs slow.
The third anteroom is full of useless reptiles, waiting
to be swept out. As soon as the sun strikes the adobe,
back in Taos, back where I can see the sun, back
at Joshua Tree, where the sun was anvil-struck brass
and blood and heart-filled sacred sinew. Drum in veins,
blood and feet shuffling, nod head towards sleepless dawn,
copal in the firepit, magnificent strands of blessing link
up in parasols of solar haloes. Moods are like that:
the sun comes out, the sun goes away, behind cliff or cloud.
It's not up to you. You just weather it, like monsoon season.

Now there are crickets on the porch and in the basement.
It's too cold for them to want to sing. But a cricket in the house
is the gods' blessing. At last a trade blanket, a pillow for making love,
even if your belly can't fold that way anymore. Some
movements are restricted. It started out such a good day.
How did it end up here, in something like dying mesquite embers?
I need to get back to the desert. I need to be behind the wheel.
I need a white scarf, a barnstorming white-and-pink biplane,
and nowhere to be but the next farm field to land in
when you run out of gas. Free afternoons by the lake. I missed
all that, again, another summer missed. Now it's night frost
under a silver moon one day past full. Nothing resembles
forgiveness like a waning moon.

I'll sit on the porch awhile. The morning-glories are closed
in the dark. Maybe tomorrow I'll wake at dawn and bundle up
in love-made blankets and stare at clouds from the porch.
If there are any. You have to do some time in blankets,
a necessary hour. If you spend too long ignoring the vines,
they start to come inside, invading hours and lovers
like bird-beaks and pine-cones, flowers and snow.
Do you think I can't see that? I'm trying to talk myself
into something better. It takes everything I have to fall asleep.
Once you wake up, there's no hope of returning to the dream.
That's not the loss that matters, though. What matters
is the end of endless suffrage.

Death Valley: Day's End

Images from Death Valley National Park, CA, February 2010



long shadows at day's end
crawl from root of mesquite
to crest of dune wanderer,
a single traveler's memory



sun mountains up the valley tiers
making walls of mist and stone
becoming a nest for stars to inhabit,
a traveler pushed above earth's lip



ladled trace of sky bowled in amber
to web up knitted troughs of sun's gear
march blown down plain pebbled with tigereye,
a walker moves among distaff walkers



cloud anvils crash against steel rims
made of stone-scattered rip hills
licking tongue of last light groaning,
a traveler lost under desert stars