After two days in the Desert Sun my skin turned red or I never did find that horse…
With some encouragement I shot a few photographs of the desert in south Texas that are a little different than the photos I usually take.
I have been following a blog written by Andrew Slaton for a couple of years. https://andrewslatonblog.com/ Andrew and his partner, Ellen, are nomads traveling around the country. He is a professional photographer shooting for both commercial and private clients. Part of what he offers are workshops in some of the most beautiful areas of the country and internationally. I was able to attend his workshop in Big Bend National Park this spring just as the wild flowers were in bloom. The group was small enough for Andrew to provide a lot of personal attention. It was his attention that encouraged me to see things a little differently.
As I travel, the photographs I tend to see are more often than not broad vistas of miles and miles of open parries, trees and mountains. I have spent very little time in the desert prior to this visit. What I hoped to get out of the workshop was a different perspective on landscapes.
After shooting in Big Bend with Andrew’s suggestions, I will try to pull in a more interesting foreground and to frame the subject with interesting detail. A challenge for me because I am always looking into the distance.
The Park is on the border of Texas and Mexico. I knew that that going in but actually standing in the Rio Grande shooting sunrise photos was a little unreal to me. The canyon wall on the left is Mexico, the wall on the right is the United States.
I’m told that park visitors sometimes just walk over to a small town in Mexico, about a half mile away, to buy beer. One evening while shooting the sunset, we watched a vaquero (cowboy) ride thru the river to collect his cattle that didn’t respect the border.
As I mentioned in the last post, this was strictly a tent camping trip. We camped as a group in the Chisos Basin. The campsites were small and very close together. It didn’t matter much anyway because we were on the move by six o’clock each morning and not finishing up the day till around 9:30 or so. The evening of the night sky shoot kept us out till about midnight. I could have slept just about anywhere by the third day.
Dennis
