Sky Watch: Arizona Evening

I've pretty much finished going through and editing down my catalog, selecting and annotating images, to get it all organized and presentable for my rebuilt website.  It's finally up and running here at: www.AspectStudioPhotography.net.  The nice thing about it (and the main reason for the rebuild) is the integrated shopping cart and ordering system, which works really smoothly and easily on the front end (what visitors see) AND the back end, where I can manage and update everything so easily behind the scenes.
I looked around for quite a long time to find a hosting service that met my needs for professional quality design; easy to manage, self-fulfilled e-commerce (I do all my own printing); and slick, Flash-free presentation. PhotoShelter was the only one I found that has it all... short of a prohibitively expensive scratch-built site. I think it has a really clean, organized and interactive presentation that invites exploration and that's what I wanted.  Looking ahead, I will continue to add, subtract and reorganize, I'm sure... but I think it's pretty presentable from this point. Please check it out if you get a few minutes.
Since I've been spending so much time going through my archives and adjusting past work, this week's Sky Watch was actually done a couple of years back, at Monument Valley in NE Arizona. Only at sunrise and sunset do you get these beautiful deep desert colors of blue, purple and salmon. This is one of the iconic "Mitten" formations, seen in the setting sun's low angle light. Check out the Sky Watch page every weekend for interesting skies from all around the world.

Back to Work... (soon)

I know, I know, it's been quite a while since my last post. Moving is an all-consuming thing, but finally we are resettled and getting organized again.  Hopefully I can get back to doing some creative work in the next few weeks, although I still have lots of work to do around our new house.  Looking ahead, a big plus of living here, besides how beautiful it is, is going to be that I am now 2 hours closer to my favorite shooting locations in Arizona, Utah and the Sierras.  We're real close.. less that 1 hour.. from Joshua Tree N.P. too, which is going to be great.  Although I've been coming to the mountains where we now live for many years, I've had very little chance to get many good images locally, due to not being here all that much...  but now that we are full time I expect that I can get some interesting results.
My Skywatch scene for today is from last year's trip to Monument Valley in NE Arizona.   Another one of those that I almost passed up because I was dog tired and on my way back to the car to call it a day, but just had to set up one more time to get this gorgeous sky over the red-rock butte.  Never put your camera back in the bag until you're actually at home and it's pitch black dark outside:)
You can view more beautiful skies from all over the world each week here at the SkyWatch home page.  

At the root of creativity is an impulse to understand, to make sense of random and often unrelated details. For me, photography provides an intersection of time, space, light, and emotional stance. One needs to be still enough, observant enough, and aware enough to recognize the life of the materials, to be able to 'hear through the eyes. - Paul Caponigro

Skywatch - A Painted Desert

This shot is an early favorite of mine from a new crop of images taken around NE Arizona, this one obviously at Monument Valley. Kind of a surprise that I caught so many successful images here, because to be honest, I was in a very bad mood the whole day... after the relative peacefulness of Canyon de Chelly, the heat was brutal and it was totally over run with tourists buzzing about in their rented cars, spewing up dust on the deliberately horrible road that winds through the park... and which you are not allowed to leave, so I was nearly at the point to give up and leave. I planned to camp in the area, but it was just too hot and crowded with zero shade to be had anywhere... and all the services belong to one company with no competition, so it's just a total rip-off until you get 20 miles down the road to Kayenta, which is where I ended up staying.
Every time I wanted to set up at an interesting spot, I had to deal not only with the 105° temperature, but the dust clouds kicked up by passing cars and all the jokers jumping out to strike silly poses against the landscape as their friends or family took snaps. Everyone has the right to enjoy as they see fit, but it just kills the aura of the location if you know what I mean. Maybe I'm spoiled or a bit selfish, but I often manage to find myself alone and at peace with the environment in places like this, and I definitely picked the wrong season this time. I thought I was totally wasting my time, but as is often the case, surprising things happen if you just stick it out to the end.
I often say that I like photographs that resemble a painting.. I think this one qualifies. As the sun gets low, the rich colors of the red earth come to life in a way that you just will never experience at mid-day here in the desert. The crowds thin out, heading off for drinks and dinner, the temperature cools a bit and maybe even the sky which was mostly clear blue for much of the day starts to cooperate.
Check out the SkyWatch homepage for more great sky oriented scenery from all over the world.

You could not guess in what a fantastic place I am. I sit in the shade of an ancient, dying juniper tree, cushioned on my Navajo saddle blankets. On all sides, the burning sun beats down on silent, empty desert. To right and left, long walls of sandstone mesas reach away into the distance, the shadows in their fluted clefts the color of claret. Before me, the desert drops sheer away into a vast valley, in which strangely eroded buttes of all delicate shadings of vermilion, orange and purple, tower into a cloudless turquoise sky.

-Everett Ruess, June, 1934 (age 20) writing from Monument Valley.