Ship Rock
2nd Place, Scenic Class, Professional Category, 2009 New Mexico State Fair
Winner, Landscape Category, Ninth Annual Photo Contest, 2009, New Mexico Magazine
Juried Entry, 1st Annual New Mexico Photographic Art Show, 2009
Places that really strike me have features in common. Harsh powerful grandeur, graduations of colors, tortured eroded shapes…
All are empty and lonely. They invoke a sense of both space and strangeness. All have a fierce inhospitality, an infinite variety of desolate beauty…
Ship Rock was formed as the throat to an ancient volcano 30 million years ago. A volcanic ray - thirty or forty feet high but only about three feet thick - wanders like the Great Wall of China southward from Ship Rock. Molten magma squeezed up through the cracked earth. Up the wall to the north, the core of old Ship Rock volcano rose a thousand feet against the sky, like a free-form version of a Gothic cathedral. Gothic, too, was the color — the stone reflecting soft sunset umbers. Balanced on the wind just over the wall, a red-tailed hawk hunted a rodent to kill. A million years of frost and heat cracked this dike as chunks have fallen out.
From 700 AD to ~ 1300 AD, the Anasazi lived all over this land. Their time honored legacy of remarkable stone dwellings is legendary!
The Navajo call Ship Rock Tse’ bit’ a’i – Rock with Wings. What about deeds done by Monster Slayer here in the time of Navajo myth? Monster Slayer, climbing the vertical stone of Ship Rock toward the nest of the Winged Monsters to kill them and make this landscape safe for the Navajos. Monster Slayer, at the nest, taught the Monsters' chicks to become the eagle and the owl. Monster Slayer rescued from his impossible perch by the sacred Spider Woman.
"I love the place," Tony Hillerman wrote of vast tribal lands that span the northeast corner of Arizona and straddle the borders of New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado. "I need only drive west from Shiprock into that great emptiness to feel my spirit lift."
I penned these feelings 2 days after returning from shooting Ship Rock in 2008
On a day I most like to remember, gusting wind pressed me against the dike’s west wall. This wind was advance guard of a front sweeping eastward out of Arizona and Utah. It bombarded Ship Rock with long tendrils of cirrus clouds against blue sky, sending dust devils skittering across the prairie. Ship Rock, the dike, and sunset’s pastel hues provide a truly evocative memory of the West.
The tripod was precariously perched on angular basaltic chunks which fell from the dike many years past. Chirp of a squirrel, swish of feathers from a crow flying nearby - small events to break a profound silence where ancient Anasazi lived more than a thousand years ago.
Three quick high dynamic range (HDR) shots, timed just as the sun dropped behind Lukachukai’s western mountains, preceded a very careful descent down the dark, dangerous backside of the dike. I had absolutely no desire to damage either self or camera. Trailing through long shadows cast at the distant car, I thought, "This is an iconic moment....!" Little was I to really know...
As strong as this very special moment's memory remains, it's the next few months which also brand an everlasting memory. Ship Rock was to become an extended laboratory for digital darkroom development in HDR and oh so careful tone mapping.
Ship Rock was to become an image which has garnered remarks from world-class photographers such as,
"Congratulations on 'Ship Rock.' The light, detail, and composition are stunning. It's one of my favorites in ANMPAS/2009."
"I have been wanting to shoot it and you have chosen the best shot I have ever seen of it."
Between May and December, 2009, a number of prominent judges have also offered their professional view of Ship Rock. As noted above, it has placed prominently in three major photographic venues from New Mexico...
ANMPAS
ANMPAS is a Christmas photo event celebrated at the Fine Art Building, New Mexico State Fair. It's free and open to the public daily 10 a.m.-6 p.m., except Tuesdays, until 23rd December, 2009.
I'd think at least twice if not thrice before I'd miss seeing these fine art images from New Mexico's top photographers. Seven rooms contain over 200 images juried by five judges for this first time event. At Saturday's celebration, awards were handed out for best image in each of seven categories. An overflow crowd cheered through the awards ceremony.
If you haven't been there, our Fine Art Building is an open, spacious gallery. Once through the foyer, you step into the main room. The array of quality fine art images is absolutely stunning. Framed, matted images have been meticulously prepared. Each image was carefully staged under overhead lighting.
Then, you proceed through the Judges room, to the five remaining rooms, looking at other images, seeking just those which really strike your fancy!
Pathways of Light is negotiating with selected photographers to present small versions of their images with a recap of emotions while shooting their image. Ship Rock paves the way for those images...
So, over the next few weeks as ANMPAS continues, you're going to see my selections for top entries. As each writer/photographer produces a piece and an image, we will post them. Keith Bauer has agreed to write an overview when this process is complete.
In a short video from New Mexico Magazine on their webpage December 15, 2009,, Fabian West, Art Director, described Ship Rock.
"This is one of the most beautiful pictures I've ever seen of Ship Rock! It's such a different view with strong light and color contrasts. I like the circular arc of the dike framing and leading ones eye to Ship Rock..."
Thanks Fabian…
New Mexico Magazine - Update December 20, 2009
In a short video from New Mexico Magazine on their webpage December 15, 2009,, Fabian West, Art Director, described Ship Rock.
"This is one of the most beautiful pictures I've ever seen of Ship Rock! It's such a different view with strong light and color contrasts. I like the circular arc of the dike framing and leading ones eye to Ship Rock..."
Thanks Fabian…
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