Cowboy Logic

I enjoyed four days in a different culture last week and managed to do it without leaving Arizona.  Still it was indisputably another world.

Vinson with Prince

I started getting the idea on the first night of the Arizona Highways Photoscapes “Ranching Arizona” workshop with Scott Baxter.  12-year-old Vinson Picozzi, by way of saying goodnight after dinner, tipped his hat to me and said, “Good night, Ma’am.”  Vinson is a sixth-generation rancher and cowboy in Apache County and has, as they say, been brought up right.  He’s been a photographic model for Scott for some time and is mature beyond his years while patiently posing as well.

A few weeks ago I photographed “mutton busting” at the Maughan Ranch Calf Sale in Peeples Valley AZ.  It’s a sheep riding competition for small kids. One of my high school friends commented on one of those images on Facebook, “Ain’t that America; I wish more kids were raised like this.”

 

Ken, J. Brad and Vinson looking serious

There’s a particular cowboy ethic and practicality, I think.  Everyone we worked with has a quiet competence and professional demeanor.  I didn’t detect a shred of drama there.  There were lots of opportunities to lose patience with our endless requests and changes of plan.  Scott might ask mounted cowboys to ride the same route five or six times to get just the right shot for us.  This must have seemed a bit like the movie “Groundhog Day” to them, but they never complained and managed to gently tease us a bit, too.

I’m reminded of Michael Martin Murphey’s song, Cowboy Logic:

If it's a fence, mend it, if it's a dollar bill, spend it

Before if burns a hole down in them jeans

It it's a load, truck it, if it's a punch, duck it

If she's a lady, treat her like a queen

That's cowboy logic, every cowboy's got it

It's in the way he lives his life and the songs he sings

That's cowboy logic, every cowboy's got it

He's got a simple solution to just about anything

 

Macky Running the Remuda

The song is a bit like cowboy poetry, inspiring and gently funny.  When I posted the first images from this outing on social media, My friend and cowboy poet Bill Vernieu offered Where the Ponies Come to Drink by Henry Herbert Knibbs.  Here’s a lovely excerpt which reminds me of our time last week photographing a remuda of 32 horses at day’s end:

          Out they fling across the mesa,

wind-blown manes and forelocks dancing,

Blacks and sorrels, bays and pintos,

wild as eagles, eyes agleam;

From their hoofs the silver flashes,

burning beads and arrows glancing

Through the bunch-grass and the gramma

as they cross the little stream.

An aside:  Here’s a video of Bill reading another poem, The Bra by Bill Hirschi, which made me laugh club soda right out my nose.

 

Farrier Jason Hobson doing a "hot set"

Back on the ranch, we were treated to a demonstration from farrier Jason Hobson.  He made what is undoubtedly a difficult process look easy. It turns out that shoeing a horse is quite photogenic as well, with the red glow of the forge and the keratin (think fingernails) smoke from the hooves during a hot set.

 

Jason Hobson

It turned out that Jason, his 8-year-old son Jax, and Vinson Picozzi are all ropers.  After the horse was shod, they treated us to some impromptu roping demonstrations.  Again, years of hard work allowed them to make it look easy.

 

Panorama of the Headquarters of X Diamond Ranch

All this took place with the warm hospitality of X Diamond Ranch  Running this, her ancestors' spread, is Wink Crigler.  She’s the real deal. In addition to ranching she’s a historian, a collector of nickelodeons (among other things), an educator, and offers guest cabins on the property.  She’s the granddaughter of Molly Butler, famous founder of the eponymous lodge in nearby Greer.  There’s something on the menu there called a Wink Burger made with X Diamond beef. Yum.

 

Ken Moore

Other photogenic cowboys graciously posing and riding for us were J. Brad Miller & Ken Moore, As well as Macky and Kim Trickey.  Kim is an artist, and her work is worth checking out.

More from the X Diamond are in the Northern Arizona Gallery on the website.

The (sort-of) Triangle

Hoodoo Sunrise, New Mexico Badlands

Perhaps I need a 12-step program; I just can’t seem to stay away from The North Kaibab Forest in the autumn.  This year I considered skipping it; I’d scheduled a camping trip with Arizona Highways Photoscapes (more on that later) which started October 4.  I hated to think of driving the 6 hours from the aspens, unpacking and re-packing, and driving another 7 hours to Chaco Canyon.  The Photoscapes people told me I could join the trip in Lurch, so I planned the semi-triangular route; 8 days in the mobile mansion.

Modified Triangle

The last week in September and first in October are generally the best for yellow leaves there.  As it happened, my trip collided with the remnants of hurricane Rosa, so for four days if it wasn’t raining it was drippy and damp.  I lived in my rain pants but thank goodness for them.  The Kat fire was still not quite under control and the resulting forest closures limited my options as well.  

Lurch in one of the great campsites, Kaibab Forest

This sort of limitation can sometimes be a blessing, though, like the famous photo exercise which requires that the photographer shoot all day with just one lens.  You learn to adapt, and in this case, I camped at three brand new spots, two of which I LOVE and know I’ll return to.

Fog in the Kaibab Forest

The cloud inversion over Marble canyon and fog in the forest were gifts as well; I’ve never had a chance to do an autumn shoot up there with these unusual conditions.  Most often, we see brilliant sunshine at this time of year.

Setting up to be in Gallup for lunch the next day, I camped at lower elevation (3500 feet from 9000) near Marble Canyon.  How delicious to wash my hair and hang all my wet stuff out to dry.  I thought the rainy weather had passed until I woke up at 3:30AM to a thunderstorm.

Sunrise, Navajo Bridge

I shot sunrise at Navajo Bridge, and then drove to Gallup to meet the group for the Photoscapes trip.  After four days on my own, I felt I had to learn social skills again.  The blue corn enchiladas at Gordo’s Cafe and some patient new friends helped a lot.

We stayed for three nights at a group site in Chaco Culture National Historical Park (is it any wonder that people mostly just call it "Chaco?").  The temps dropped to the upper 30s.  I’ll admit to some guilty feelings, sleeping in my heated camper, but tried to make amends by sharing ice cream treats and beer. I think I got away with it.

The camp was outfitted by AOA Adventures, a Phoenix company.  They provided all the camping gear and cooked for us.  What a gift to roll into camp after a long day and have no responsibilities but to sit down to a delicious dinner. I  highly recommend them!

Great light on the Chaco doorways

This was my first trip to Chaco; I really just scratched the surface. Kerrick James, who I’m lucky to claim as a mentor, did a fabulous job leading the workshop.

The park’s hours are not particularly photographer-friendly (7:00AM – Sunset), but Photoscapes did arrange for early entry one morning; we were escorted by a ranger and had a chance to photograph stars a bit.
 

Petrified wood, New Mexico Badlands

We also had the pleasure of wandering around a part of the New Mexico Badlands called Ah Shi Sle Pah, similar to, but less traveled than the more famous Bisti.  The shapes are otherworldly, and we enjoyed the most impressive petrified wood I’d ever seen.

Thanks for riding along on this epic triangular trip.  More images are in the New Mexico Gallery on the website.

Fundamental Restlessness

 

Watson Lake Sunset, maybe better than moon rise

Sometimes this traveling nature photographer stuff goes smoothly; all my research pays off and each location yields, if not exactly what I’d planned, then images or experiences which are at least as good.  August has been a bit of a challenge.  Most likely that’s just a coincidence, but the time in Guatemala is always life-changing in one way or another, so it’s also possible that transformations are brewing in my subconscious since we came home at the end of July.  I find that when that happens I’m often restless and dissatisfied and that things seem more challenging.  I hardly ever recognize what’s happening in real time.

The Guatemala trip required lots of interaction with people, a great deal of it in my improving but nothing-close-to-fluent Spanish.  The introvert in me returned home desperate to get out on my own.

Pema Chödrön wrote, “It’s a transformative experience to simply pause instead of immediately filling up the space.  By waiting, we begin to connect with fundamental restlessness as well as fundamental spaciousness”

 

Sunset in a new favorite spot, Coconino National Forest

So, once the Guatemala images were processed and the laundry done, I packed up lurch and went looking for flowers and empty psychic space in the Flagstaff area. The first night I stumbled on a new favorite place to camp, one of the benefits of boondocking without a plan, but found only a few scattered blooms.  On the second day I was griping about the smoke from wildfires all over the west, mosquitoes, lack of flowers, and the unheard-of high temperature of 98 degrees.  It was a long day.  Yes, I do understand what a privilege it is to be able to be in the wilderness in this way, and the Buddhist concept of acceptance (ahem); its just that whining a bit can be therapeutic.

A couple of weeks later I was in Pine, Arizona for the annual retreat of Through Each Other’s Eyes.  Our gracious host, Errol Zimmerman, let me and Lurch sleep in his driveway Friday night.  Saturday was productive and inspiring but again, because I’m such an introvert, lots of talking and interacting is exhausting.  Afterward I had a few days free and was so close to Mogollon Rim Country it seemed a waste not to explore a bit, so I broke my rule about never camping on weekends there.

 

Determined mushroom, morning walk

These parts of the Coconino National an Apache Sitgreaves National Forests are lovely but on weekends are crowded, loud, and home to dangerous drivers.  Oh, and there’s target practice.  On top of all that, there was a large forest closure which included one of my favorite camp spots and the adjacent trail which I’d planned to hike.  I did some exploring and ended up tucked into an unspectacular site, but my morning walk was quiet (rednecks seem to sleep late) and had some nice surprises.  

 

Golden Light, Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest

The next day I burned half a tank of gas scouting around and settled into a spot on the edge of the Rim which allowed a vista including layers of near ridges and diminishing mountains in the background. My favorite image, though, was a serendipitous shot of the light turning golden on the dust kicked up by another car as I drove home in the morning.

Meetings and family stuff kept me home after those trips, but I planned a few local shoots around the full moon.  Photographers will already know that the full moon is bright. One way to deal with this photographically is to shoot moon rise the day before full and moon set the day after.  That way the sky is not fully dark, and there can be interesting dawn and dusk light as well.

 

Moon Rise, Watson Lake

I did my research with The Photographer’s Ephemeris, Photopills, and some old-fashioned brainstorming and found a spot on the shore of Watson Lake in Prescott for Moon rise last Friday.  A friend came along and It was a lovely night; the first this year hinting at autumn. Unfortunately clearing storm clouds precluded seeing the rising moon until it was full dark, maybe an hour after it came up.  I can’t complain though.  Reflected color was worth the price of admission.

 

Moon Set from Yarnell Hill

Moon set Monday morning, similarly researched, was at the overlook near our home in Yarnell. Thought not perfectly timed (moon set was about an hour after sunrise), the scene was  breathtaking and worth the early wake-up.

 

Setting moon and its fractured reflection, Watson Lake

Tuesday I hit the road at o-dark-thirty and paddled Watson Lake, soaking in the therapeutic solitude again.

I do treasure the fundamental spaciousness, if I bring an open mind and earplugs.

There’s more in the Summer 2018 Gallery on the Website.