Intimate Landscapes

Water Woman
©Joe Bridwell
A woman walks toward you,
Shrouded in deerskin cloak,
Providing an Anasazi woman’s care…
Carrying water home in an Olla!

Bisti Hoodoos
Many Bisti hoodoos provide an intimate landscape setting. To some, this is simply a rock statue caught near sunrise.
To others, the brief poem captures deep native feelings often written about in Tony Hillerman’s masterful Navajo mystery series.
Either way, a hoodoo is usually a sandstone cap underlain by a soft clay base. Water’s incessant drip-drip (or occasional raging desert flow) acts as God’s sculptured response, leaving creative fine art as our heritage.
I am sure when you trek the Bisti, your choice of creative fine art will differ. One of the Bisti's indelible beauties is just that ~ a timeless, almost limitless combination of intimate hoodoo landscape and variation of Enchanted Light.

Other Intimate Bisti Landscapes
You can investigate other intimate landscapes in our Bisti Chronicle series; Anasazi Drummer, Bisti Dementia, Pharaohs’ Saddle, Surreal…

Bisti Badlands
A small, yet provocative area for digital photographers to ‘catch their limit ~ off-world surreal shapes’ during Magic Hour’s enchanted light. Nature’s sculpted hoodoos provide an almost never ending panoply of intimate landscapes to titillate the most discerning eye of a fine artist!

The Bisti (Navajo for badlands) is south of Farmington, NM.

Enjoy…

Abstract Bisti

Anasazi Drummer
©Joe Bridwell
Sunset walk up a lonely canyon,
Around a far corner
Shadows create an Anasazi tom-tom.
Shadow stresses the sunlit tom-tom surface.
Another hoodoo projects as if a drumstick.
An ancient arrowhead mutes pulsating, melodic affects.

Night and Day - Cole Porter, 1932
By cleverly stressing reiterated sounds like "beat, beat, beat" of a Tom-Tom; the "tick, tick, tock" of a clock; and the "drip, drip, drip" of raindrops in the lyrics, Porter created a viable means for using a similar approach in the melody.
Thus, Porter simulated the desired pulsating effects in open verse.

The Muse's Contribution
Be you musician, songwriter, or photographer - grace of this Bisti hoodoo allows wide interpretation. I can think of it as if I were Fred Astaire, performing my last scintillating dance in a Broadway show. Or, as if I were Cole Porter, adapting a musical piece for the remarkable dancing but mediocre voice of Astaire. Or, yet again, as if I were an ancient Anasazi drummer beating repeated tunes to mystical holy chants.

Could this have been a ceremonial setting for ancient Anasazi kivas – perhaps a sand painting where they celebrated the Moon’s power? Or, was it simply a water-carved hoodoo lost amidst innumerable hoodoos until one particular sunset provided a spotlight? Either way, it’s As Shot – I did not put the red rock on the edge.

Bisti Tom-Tom
An April trek several years ago led to the surprise of this seemingly isolated vignette. In the Bisti, you never know what you'll see around the next corner. When you mix off-world shape with haunting, evocative light, there are even superb times when that weird brain mixture, shape and light, evoke a symphony of emotion.
From there, it's really not too hard to think,
"Like the beat, beat, beat of the tom-tom..."

Enjoy...

Ruby Strewn Fields

Ancient Stone Family
©Joe Bridwell
The Bisti Badlands is a hidden desert jewel to delight kids or grandkids - dinosaur bones and petrified logs from ancient rainforests add inimitable mystique.
It's the land which truly delights a child's creative imagination...

Bisti Badlands
Rolling across High Country desert in the southwestern US, this land's blandness ill prepares you for secret, perpetual delight of secluded byways and enchanting hoodoos. But you're curious - somewhere, ethereal, surreal shapes of hoodoos captivate in these Badlands. Your imagination finds it hard to conjure such delightful images in such a featureless desert.

I Like Kids
In the Bisti, we have about the same maturity level – limited only by our fertile imaginations.
"What's a hoodoo?" My granddaughter is always curious.
"It's a piece of hard sandstone sitting on top of softer clay." Keep it simple, Grandpa!
"Who made it?"
"I believe God did."

Mother and Child
"How did He make a hoodoo?"
"He created thunderstorms whose walls of rushing water cut away soft clays like a knife, leaving hard sandstone caps!"
"How old is a hoodoo?"
"They began about 10,000 years ago." At nine, her face screwed up over 10,000.
So I said, "They've been here a long, long time..."
Then I asked, "Does this hoodoo remind you of anything?"
And Pandora's box, ever present in a young creative spirit, sprang forth from her vivid child's imagination…
"I see a Mama... then I see a Baby. Their noses almost touch." She pointed to the two rocks at the top of the picture.
"I love your imagination... what else do you see?"
"I see a nearby head pointing to the right. But I can't tell what kind of animals they are."
"Nor can I." We had been to the museum, but did not think like this then.
"It's quite neat to see reddish-brown rocks which lie on the ground outlining this family - it's almost like a rug of strewn rubies. Did you notice that color?"
"Oh, yes, I did. Those red rocks make a nice backyard. I love exploring with you!"

If I think in today's terms, the animals might be otters and turtles. But if I want to go back 65 million years, I have to go to a museum to see what animals were like then.
Perhaps, in one of the displays, I'll find some animals who lived then, yet, thru hoodoos, enhance our imagination now.

I now think of the Bisti as
Time's Capsule ~ Travel's Twist™

Enjoy...

Bisti Dementia

Leaning Pagoda
©Joe Bridwell
Light and shadow weave lovely intricacies,
Strange rock shapes resemble ancient Asian buildings,
A rock looses balance, slides…
Finally, a pagoda leans
like the Tower of Pisa.

Surreal Amalgams
Some small Bisti hoodoos become delightful surprises when sharply defined by light and shadow. Their ephemeral message is just as powerful as that of a larger landscape.
The Bisti is a magical amalgam of such surreal characters – at times like a macabre stage play; at other times, like a tapestry from Mars. Walk here and find this unique character; walk there and enjoy another completely different spirit.
It’s a left-behind palette upon which lives were spent painting...!

Lady Luck
My digital photography path started in the Bisti. Coming from geology, I found this one of the most uniquely challenging series of rocks I’d ever seen. Coming to photography, I started with a point-and-shoot.
Over the next few years, my fascination returned me time after time to the Bisti. As I grew into taking ‘real’ pictures, gained a DSLR, and began a life-long fascination with light and shape, the Bisti never failed to supply an interesting new, surreal aspect of its magical challenge. As you can see from early Bisti writings…

Bisti Emotions
"High desert jewels can create a beauty, peace, and serenity utterly lacking in a city. Relatively unknown, an illustrious wilderness is a photographic jewel inset in the heart of ancient Anasazi country. Even within New Mexico, asking about the Bisti may create blank, unknowing stares.
"Imagine a hard day of God's work creating the Universe. To relax, mayhap He hid a colorful, passionate, richly-textured jewel on our planet. Top a certain hill, then see His uniquely creative handiwork. Then add to the incredible beauty and deep serenity of surreal hoodoos a sense of a unique off-world adventure …
"Yet, to the intrepid explorer, once there, it's not at all unusual to meet international travelers from many nations!"

Working the Bisti
First, decide where these surprises are. Get out in the Bisti, explore, become one with nature. Then, estimate what light and shadow might do to change the scene, adding virtually immeasurable depth and drama. Finally, make sure you can find that particular area so your photography captures the off-world beauty of this sculptors’ surreal playground.
Process your Bisti images, not once, not twice, but over time as light's mystery adds real enhancement. Let God's handiwork creep into your bones...

Enjoy...

Creative Bisti Imagination

Royal Court
©Joe Bridwell
Sunset's long shadows begin as small steps leading into the Royal Court. Perhaps, these are mere vassals of an off-world court. Suddenly, the Royal presence dominates as 2 hoodoos, King and Queen, stand tall and dominant. To the right, on their knees, Courtier's pledge fealty. The Court’s rug is a cover of small sandstone pebbles atop whitish mud swirls which hardened into clay after a rainfall.

How Does He do It?
Is this story a fantasy or is it just a picture of some remarkable rocks?
Actually, our story is a little bit of both;
As you already know, these surreal hoodoo shapes were created when water cut away soft clay, leaving sandstone caps.
And, as I've conjured, these serial shapes take on the mystical fabric of what a medieval court might have been like.

Bisti Adventures

I walked into the Albuquerque Journal one day to meet reporter Rick Nathanson. After telling him my Bisti story, he decided to come to the Bisti, let me give him a tour, and provided a photographer, Jaelyn deMaria, to commemorate the event. Rick wrote a very interesting article for the Journal. That article helped sponsor and create my first Bisti digital tours several years ago...
This image is one of many I captured that day...

Creative Art
Now, I know some people look at rocks - and they're just rocks.
But in the Bisti, because hoodoo shapes are so magically varied, so remarkably unusual, for some, seeing such rocks brings forth other creative juices. You look at a hoodoo and begin to wonder, "Where on this planet have I seen something remotely resembling such beauty?" Or, "Has an intrepid space traveler seen such fantasies on another off world planet?"
It's just such a little bump of curiosity which can transport you from 'rocks are just rocks' to a child's incredible delight. Simply tell a child 'Turn your imagination loose and describe the fantasies you see in these rocks!'

If you haven't tried a similar theme with children, it's a truly amazing what they come up with...
Now, what can you do as an adult?
Enjoy...

Is the Bisti like Mars?

Far View
©Joe Bridwell
A surreal, even sepulchral land can be found in the Bisti. It's even more interesting when you consider the origin of Red Dog Hills, the centerpiece. But, don't let the actual Bisti location dictate your imagination; perhaps you actually landed on Mars to take this dramatic off-world image...

Memories...
One of graduate school's luxuries was the opportunity to study Mars from some earliest satellite photos.
Nevertheless, 40 years ago, I would not have imagined one day trekking a land which so vibrantly reminds me of visual concepts of Mars. Naturally, I can remember TV of the first moon landing.
Now, I must admit, that was in days before they found evidence of water on Mars.

Opportunity, the Mars rover, surveyed the rim and interior of Victoria Crater on the Red Planet from September 2006 through August 2008. Originally designed for a 90 day life, in January, Mars rovers, our remote sources for knowledge of water on Mars, were five years old and still chugging. In a May 21, 2009 news release, NASA said,
"Water repeatedly came and left billions of years ago. Wind persisted much longer, heaping sand into dunes between ancient water episodes. These activities still shape the Martian landscape today."

Red Dog Hills
In Oh My, I provided an explanation of the origin of red dog hills, from memory.
"Seventy million years ago, a Cretaceous Seaway deposited peat and coal across the Bisti in nearby lagoons before dinosaurs became extinct. Thunderstorms, akin to severe monsoon conditions, created dominated lightning strikes to impact the coal - setting it afire. These coal fires smoldered underground for long periods of time, turning sediments to an orange-red."

I Stand Corrected...
Bill Pelzmann, a very knowledgeable reader, sent these remarks:
"These clinkers were formed by coal fires in relatively recent history, certainly AFTER uplift, erosion and exposure of the coal beds. There are numerous coal fires currently burning underground in the San Juan Basin."
In geological lingo, clinker is the name for orange-red sediments which make up the Red Dog Hills.
And, I didn't know we had underground coal fires currently burning in northwestern New Mexico! WOW!!!
Thanks, Bill!

Now, Bill, If You Could Just Help Again...
Far View is a very distinctive Bisti image.
Unfortunately, I've tried to find where I shot this image this image, but failed.
Bill, do you know where it was taken?

For me, Far View seems like a bridge between all today's technology and ancient, true marvels of other planets...

Enjoy...

Bisti : Small Scale

Pharaoh’s Saddle
©Joe Bridwell
Most geologists learn to look both at the land where they're walking as well as at their surroundings. This lifelong habit provides so much incredible delight in the multi-faceted Bisti.
Delicate strata of interleaved white and gold; sandstone caps; dark broken rock fragments from nearby; all seem to complement the Sun's stark shadow. Just components in water's consummate artistry as it's carved such Bisti microcosms...

Surreal, Ever-Changing Character
The Bisti is an amalgam of characters - almost like a stage play. Walk here and see this character; walk there and see a completely different character. So, just simply finding your true Bisti can be a challenge.
When you add ever changing light, you begin to have time's very slow kaleidoscope effect. All right, you ask, "What does kaleidoscope effect mean?"
Practically speaking, it's not a difficult task to see each of the Bisti's spatial characters. Just get out there, walk around, and remember where you went.
Luckily speaking, it is a rather difficult task to find the Bisti's enhanced character as light changes. Of course, this truism represents any other natural wonder.

Exploration vs. Artistry
To figure out where interesting hoodoos are, you need to trek the Bisti during daylight. Be careful; it can be incredibly hot in the summer. Beyond that, you need to imagine what each of these spectacular sights might look like under specific, yet differing lighting conditions.
To become a Bisti artist, you need to know how to get where you want to be either before sunrise or near sunset. Magic Hour, that hour around dawn and dusk, may require you to shoot after the Sun's gone down. In either case, the artistry lies in the often spectacular combination of right light and surreal hoodoo.

But... this process offers an artist's strongest hope. Such persistent choices increase your lucky odds. Such choices put you in the artistic position of images.

Bisti Treks
Click to see other Bisti Images
Oh My…!
Surreal
Sphinx
Solitude

Enjoy…

Back Country Horsemen of New Mexico

Oh My…!

©Joe Bridwell

Two members of Middle Rio Grande Chapter of BCH ride across the Bisti. Would you believe the man is in his mid-70’s?

BCH Recreational Ride

One highlight of my Bisti shoots was acting as photographer for a recreational ride by Middle Rio Grande Chapter from Back Country Horsemen of New Mexico. These guys and gals hauled their horses from Los Lunas to the Bisti for this ride.

As you can see here, the Bisti, which can be quite hot during summer, is building monsoon clouds.

Red Dog Hills

Here's a free geology lesson...

Seventy million years ago, a Cretaceous Seaway deposited peat and coal across the Bisti in nearby lagoons before dinosaurs became extinct. Thunderstorms, akin to severe monsoon conditions, created dominated lightning strikes to impact the coal - setting it afire. These coal fires smoldered underground for long periods of time, turning sediments to an orange-red.

As Paul Harvey said, "Now, the Rest of the Story..."

Much later, Bisti water erosion cut away sediments surrounding these soon-to-be prominent coals. Ruddy fragments of these coal fires could then tumble down each hill, creating a distinctively passionate carapace.

... now, you know why they're called Red Dog Hills!

Bisti Treks

Click to see other Bisti Images
Surreal
Sphinx
Solitude

Enjoy…

Sense and Sensibility

Surreal
©Joe Bridwell
Sometimes downsun photography can markedly add zest. This Bisti Hoodoo benefits from birefringence – bending of lights rays around sandstone and clay of an delicate hoodoo.

Although Bisti rocks appear static, timeless... light's variation adds subtle appeal and drama. Perhaps I should add another parameter; water.
For, it's water _the almost never present_ but powerful agent whose occasional presence created such an exquisite shape. And, you might think of imagination capable of capturing such an image.

You can't just walk out your door, capture such an image, and feel an ethereal quality in a more 'normal' setting.
Rather, you trek into a treeless, waterless, trailess place... as you go, ever changing number of varying scenes create vivid impressions in the timeless memory of your mind's eye. If you followed Moon landings and Martian explorations, as I did, you come to think of these hoodoos as spaces where God acted in the role of artist and painter.
In the strictest sense, this image is not a silhouette. Yet, light's delicate interplay on the backside of the arch delights my visual sense and sensibilities... what about you?

You may wish to obtain a CD with numerous timeless Bisti images. If so, click here...

Enjoy...

Been to the Bisti Lately?

Sphinx

©Joe Bridwell

Nope, you're not on Mars... but in the Bisti Badlands. Is this really a Sphinx? Or, you might be looking at Darth Vader on some distant planet. Maybe, you might come up with a different interpretation... numerous hoodoo shapes seem to fertilize a creative mind. You're actually looking at an ancient beach combination of sandstone and lava where dinosaurs once roamed the Bisti.

Let your creative imagination run...
If you can find such unique Hoodoos like our Sphinx, just think about other shapes, colors, and textures available to the inquisitive photographer. Although it's a land with no trails, no water, and no trees, nevertheless, the perceptive eye can also find tree stumps, as well as occasional ancient trees where dinosaurs browsed.
The Bisti Badlands, near Farmington, New Mexico, is a hidden jewel amidst what appears to be a deserted area. Hoodoos, sandstone caps standing atop slender clay bases, have been cut by water over millennia.
Just trekking through the Bisti is one of the most spontaneous adventures available to digital photographers. Of course, it's best at Magic Hour, that hour near dawn and dusk.

If you get the chance, get up to the Bisti and find your own unique hoodoo. The Bisti is best trekked in spring and fall; without adequate water, you can become dehydrated rather quickly in summer.
Enjoy...

Bisti Badlands...

Solitude
© Joe Bridwell

Four horses resting before a Red Dog Hill...
I'd walked a ridge with a small herd of Navajo horses keeping pace in the wash below.  We both stopped a moment; my eyes widened sharply at the spectacular scene they and amazing Red Dog Hill created… 
In four years of shooting the Bisti, I've never seen another scene that begins to approach this dramatic vision!

Client Tour Request
A client wrote me a recent letter about my leading another photography tour to the Bisti.  "Four years ago in July I spent a day hiking in the Bisti wilderness.  I'd learned very little about the area before I went.  I loved every minute of it, but I really didn't know where I was going or what to look for.  I doubt I saw more than 5% of the 'neat stuff'."
I searched 2004-2009 images to assemble a fascinating Bisti collage.  Beyond evoking sharply cogent memories, I collected some Best of Bisti images.  This visual Bisti history contains several fine art photography categories; Fossil Forests, Horses, Landscapes, Magic Hour, Shapes, and Textures. 

Best of Bisti Slideshow Available
On reflection, I thought, "With occasional, yet random timing, I want to include some remarkable Bisti images on the blog at Pathways of Light.  I think viewers would appreciate the incredible variability and almost incalculable opportunity for fine art digital photography the Bisti provides ..."
If you'd like to see these evocative images on your computer, simply click to order your own color slide show ~ "Best of Bisti" ! 
Or, check out Paths of Light, a photo book about Magic Hour light in the southwest US on blurb.com!

Enjoy...

Blogrolls

This morning, I saw a magnificent image of sunlit snow during a storm from Yosemite by Michael Frye…

I found myself enjoying the challenges this image required of the photographer as well as the inevitably gorgeous changes light makes with varying assistance of magnificent Yosemite foregrounds.

And I realized, once again, blogrolls are an essential element on creating a good blog. William Neill mentioned new blogs he liked. As I am want to do, I checked them out and found that superb Yosemite image. I am thinking about similar shoots involving moonrise and moonset in a regional setting of surreal, other-world dimensions like Mars (The Bisti) – adding another complication to the long list of demanding photography requirements for outstanding images.

A blogroll is simply a website which contains a list of blogs which interest the blogger. Blogger (Google’s free blog service) provides an ability to name the blogroll, sort its applicability as to when the blog was published, and just how long ago that was. In effect, it provides a quick assessment tool for surfing the ever expanging blogosphere…
We find Google’s Blogger has really facilitated this function. Simply find a blog you like, copy the browser address to the clipboard, open Blogger in Draft, select the proper gadget (Blogroll), and add that blog to an ever changing list.

Huzzah, Google, Frye, and Neill – its already a good day…

Paths of Light

Majestic Blessing
©2007, Joe Bridwell, Chopawamsic LC
A slippery race across slick rock to the edge of White Rim Trail Overlook at Canyonlands National Park netted this gorgeous rainbow image.
Sharp edges of White Rim sandstone highlight cliffs formed by the Colorado River.
Nikon D70, 24-120 @ 24, 1/60, f16, ISO 200

Mountain Light, now in 2nd edition, was first published by Galen Rowell in 1986 through Sierra Book Club.
Galen Rowell won the prestigious Ansel Adams Award “For bringing breathtaking images of high and wild places among the world’s mountain ranges to new and growing audiences who thrill at the thought that such unspoiled places still exist and for making them want to help make sure they persist” in 1984.
With his first National Geographic publication about 1972, Rowell would climb the highest mountain in order to get images of breathtaking light in spectacular natural settings.

A quarter of a century later, I became aware of Mountain Light. Beyond the breathtaking images, Galen created a panoply of emotion and technical know-how as he described the history behind each of those hallowed 80 images.
When it was time to summarize my work as a portfolio, although I did not capture them with fore knowledge of Rowell, to my great pleasure, many images were taken in Mountain Light's tradition.

Paths of Light is a portfolio with 19 of nature's images taken between dawn and dusk. Magic Hour, that special time between dawn and dusk, actually provides just the right light for most of these images. We present each image in three parts; conditions of capture (touchy-feely), technical processing (photographers), and the piece de resistance - the image as we remember capturing it (everybody). Many of these images were deemed Worthy of Merit in Single Judge Competitions and State Fair Juried Competitions.

I must say, I've probably read Mountain Light four or five times now. In Paths Of Light, I've tried to incorporate some of the wisdom Galen gained in his many treks. It is my pleasure to provide different ways of seeing light against some of the most majestic landscapes our gorgeous southwest has to offer.

Photographic setting, format, and printing processes are always in debate. The venue: the southwestern United States, the Colorado plateau. The format: raw files and Photoshop development using advanced techniques. The prints: jpegs submitted to blurb.com as 300 dpi images for each appropriate print format size.

We invite you to look at Paths of Light on blurb.com.

Bisti Badlands
©2004, Joe Bridwell, Chopawamsic LC
Lying on my side one mid day in the Bisti, northwestern New Mexico, I captured the sharp overhang of this hoodoo framing red dog hills against an autumn sky.
Imagine my surprise when it received the first award from my photography…
Nikon CoolPix 5700, 12.7 mm, 1/380, f7.6, ISO 100

Front Cover: Majestic Blessing, People’s Choice, Adult Amateur, New Mexico State Fair, 2007
Back Cover: Bisti Badlands, Cover, New Mexico Magazine, Jan., 2006

God's Hand

God’s Hand
©2006 Joe Bridwell, Chopawamsic LC
One day, the Bisti Badlands was under siege from a norther. The Bisti is northwest of Chaco Canyon in northern New Mexico.
This rather unusual cloud formation caught my eye. I felt like God was saying, "In My House, there are many mansions..."
Later, I would recognize the complement between individual hoodoo towers acting like eroded fingers pointing up towards God's Hand – with it’s own beckoning fingers.
Nikon D70, 24-120 @ 34 mm, 1/30, f22, ISO 200.

Open for Business...

Pathways of Light is now accepting e-mail subscriptions for our digital photography blog. If you choose to become a PoL reader, you'll receive an e-mail for each blog we create.
Our passion is nature photography in those magical hours surrounding dawn and dusk in some of the gorgeous, wild country from our southwestern United States. From time to time, we will highlight an image, describe circumstances surrounding its capture, indicate something about its processing, and what gear created it.
We'll also be discussing digital photography, fine art, Photoshop, gear, blog creation, blog management, marketing, books, workshops, tours, and other items which appeal to us as time goes by...

We welcome your comments as this blog grows! There's an old saying, "There's 10 different ways to do the same thing in Photoshop!" That might be followed up with, "There are many workflow procedures; may be each photographer doesn't need to reinvent the wheel." While we've learned some of these concepts, we expect you know others. We hope your comments will help us to continue to grow _ and_ that, in turn, we can help you grow...