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…

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...