Working with the landscape in Santa Fe

 

Chimney Rock, Ghost Ranch, New Mexico

 
Santa Fe,  New Mexico, in the United States of America.

A trip that I had been looking forward to for many months; to Santa Fe Workshops, a photography centre with high calibre tutoring. The home of Georgia O'Keefe.

Part of me felt ambivalent about travelling to the US given recent worldwide events, but the other part of me really wanted to go; I was excited by the course aims and the work of its tutor Anna Rotty. The course was entitled 'Landscape as Collaborator'. 

A bit of a pretentious title perhaps? Not, it became clear, for those who truly respect the land and also the people who have inhabited it for hundreds of years before white settlers arrived. I had a lot to learn. 

So what is a collaboration? I was happiest with a definition that involved participants working together to achieve something greater that that which any individual participant could achieve if working alone. Without the effect that the landscape has on my psyche my photography would not exist.

I didn't want to get too heavy and philosophical about the title, being more interested to experiment with new techniques. Often my 'why' of making images comes much later. It  becomes clearer with time whether a deeper meaning is emerging. I am happy to let weeks pass and see what transpires. I was there to have fun.  And I did.

Typical adobe ( mud and brick) architecture of Santa Fe.

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Our group arrived with a few images from home already printed out, but quickly started making new images in the bright, almost desert, high altitude landscape.

It was refreshing to trek out into the garden with minimal equipment and to start photographing just a few yards from the centre. I have long given up photo workshops where you travel many miles in a bus to a chosen location, all jump out of the bus, line up your tripods and take the 'classic shot'. Not for me. Especially not waterfalls in Iceland or red boats sailing in front of icebergs in Greenland! I prefer the closer details and the colours of the terrain. I don't like having my photographic subject matter chosen for me.

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Photographing through a home made viewfinder.

We started off making viewfinders for looking at the landscape. This rapidly moved to taking pictures through the viewfinder. Fragments of sky, bush, tree, soil. Isolating objects. I have done something similar before with litter, but enjoyed the blue sky and the cotton wood trees.

We printed images in the digital lab and went outside again to try new juxtapositions. Finding shadows and creating shadows became a happy game.

a photograph used as a viewfinder.

self portrait with daisy

It was Anna Rotty's waterfall of light on water 'Paradise Waterfall'  that drew me in to applying for this course.

I  was excited at the idea of creating sculptures with photographs, and the idea that I don't have to frame my work in order to display it. This is good for both my pocket and the environment, and fits with my recent sculptural book making experiments, 

Paradise Waterfall | Anna Rotty

We found a beautiful sun lit stream to work with.

​A happy place......

​The bright sunlight created wonderful ripples on the water. 

Sunlight and fallen leaves

At work in the early morning

As the days progressed I became more interested in repeated rephotographing of images in different locations. Lush vegetation on dry soil. Water on parched soil. I started thinking about location, transportation and the presence or absence of water. 

The rain drenched lupins below are rephotographed in Abiquiu, Santa Fe and Vancouver. A record of my recent trip and also a previous trip to Alaska where the lupins resided. 

Abiquiu, New Mexico

Santa Fe, New Mexico

back to the lush rain forest of North vancouver

I worked with shadows and my own body. Placing myself into the landscape without showing my face. Immersing photos in the stream and watching them gain strength as they dried. 

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'I am where I am' - Santa Fe

river washed photograph

As a stranger in Santa Fe I didn't have an obvious way to connect with the landscape., except as a stranger.  But by demonstrating my presence there I began to feel connected in the way that I usually do when walking and exploring natural spaces. 

I don't really know yet what I am trying to say other than;

'I am in this place. I give you the the evidence. This is landscape.'

See; I can be really pretentious if I try.......

Also emerging are themes  about changes with passing time, travel/transportation and  different climates.

Now that I am back home on the beach at Camber Sands I will continue exploring possibilities and playing with ideas until I really know what I wish to say.

I have all summer to think about it. 

​Thank you Anna!

Santa Fe cloud at Camber Sands

Immersion | Caroline Fraser

Women with Vision Online Photography Conference 2023

On feathers - words and images in response to a pre-covid photograph

 

Dawn Flight, Camber Sands 2019

I belong to the 'photo and text' group of London Independent Photography.
A group for photographers who also enjoy words, and who value the added meaning that text can bring.

At our last meeting we agreed to respond with words and/or images to a photograph that I made on a balmy summer's morning in the pre-covid days.

Gulls at dawn, on a gentle high tide. A double exposure with a feather filling the sky.

I decided to respond with words and new photos in the form of a poem. The following words and images are my thoughts and reflections.

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Dawn flight

A photograph;
gulls drifting and rising
calling and falling over
waves stilled in the windless air.
A peachy morning glow
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Feather | Caroline Fraser 2021

A feather....

its quill still,
(no writing today)
emerges skywards 
from its silica bed.
Battered and torn,
no longer worn.
A feather re-fresh.
Self maintenance, gull style.
The pre-breeding molt.
​
A delicate descent
of plumage
from sky to sand.


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Does it hurt when they fall?
​Why do we never see the descent?


How many feathers are needed for a bird to fly?

‘The work of feather counting is tedious and exacting, and yields small result relative to the labour involved’

In 1932 Phoebe Knappen counted 11,903 feathers on an adult female mallard.

feather detail | Caroline Fraser 2021

Rachis and vane.
Calamus and barbule.
(I am learning the words all over again).
Ripped and contorted by the roll and clatter
of pebbles on a spring tide,
lying in repose amongst fragments 
tossed landwards from the deep.
The exquisite curls of downy barbs
lie abutted as if trees on a windswept hill.

beach debris | Caroline Fraser | 2021

I counted five feathers as I strolled
with the photograph in mind
The average gull has 5000.
Where are the rest?

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gull feather | Caroline Fraser | 2021

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Thank you for reading...... it has been a while.... I think covid recovery took longer than I realised. 

I could add some comments about home life and how my other half has turned very unexpectedly into a model railway enthusiast, but you probably don't want to know the finer details of track laying and the correct angles for smooth running of railway curves.....

I insisted that he purchase a name sign for his station. I wait with bated breath; the choices are endless. It's a big decision. Suggestions welcome.

​Watch this space.....

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On the road to Deadvlei

My other half (OH) and I are on the road in Namibia.

Long dusty journeys on gravel roads, from one spectacular desert view to another.

With his usual style, OH takes me to wonderful places for rest breaks.

A Wimpy in the middle of nowhere, followed by a concrete picnic spot with its own dog, miles from any signs of habitation.

But it is all in a good cause, for the scenery is nothing less than spectacular, and we were heading to Dead Vlei at Sossusvlei, a land of dunes and dead trees.

Dead Vlei is a landscape photographers' paradise. 600 year old dead trees that have not decomposed because it is so dry. The river bed that once fed them water has long since dried up.

The ground is dry clay.

We got up at 4.30am to be there before the sun got too hot.

The park gates open at 06.15, and an orderly queue had formed.

In we went and drove along beside the enormous dunes.

We passed Dune 45, which is climbable, and saw a steady line of human ants making their way up.

Our guide was determined that we should avoid the crowds, so we climbed a different dune and learned about the plants and animals of the desert.

Mole and bird tracks

some grass

and lots of sand

Sossusvlei

Slowly we made our way towards the small area that is the famous Dead Vlei.

Deadvlei

As we approached our guide informed us that we could take 'as long as we wanted.... 5 or 10 minutes'.

FIVE OR 10 MINUTES!

I had come half way around the world to see this.

My fellow travellers were not photographers, and had no idea what I thought of his generosity.

I rushed across the dry clay to the farthest trees, took a few quick pictures and then ran back to the folk waiting patiently for me.

I don't think they believed me when I said I could have spent hours there.

dead camel thorn trees at Deadvlei

We stopped at the desert toilets and headed off for a picnic lunch.

Moral of this story; don't go to iconic photography spots with non photographers.

Next time will probably never happen, but it was wonderful all the same.

South bound - moving in new photographic directions with double exposure landscapes

Time to go home.

I am in Perth and ready to return to English springtime.

Australia is hot and I have had enough heat.

I feel as though I have been away for a long time, and it is time to reflect on what the photographic outcomes have been from my time in New Zealand.

The images that sum up this trip for me are the ones I will share here.

Double exposures of the quieter back roads in New Zealand's South Island. Places where I travelled alone and felt the wide open space and the peace and quiet.

Treading on gravel roads, dry grasses and footpaths I got to really know the landscape and to love it.



I experimented with different exposure levels of the wider landscape and what my feet were standing on.

This one a bit heavy on the grass.....

I processed the images in Lightroom to give a uniform monochrome tone.

I don't feel the need to say where the images were taken.

I want them to remind the viewer of journeys that they might have made.

Dusty roads and dirty windscreens.

Hedges and fences.

Man made structures alongside natural ones.

The series can be seen on my website here


And one is currently showing in Budapest at PH21 Gallery in their exhibition 'Lines and Curves"

Ph21 gallery opening of Lines and Curves. photo: Gábor Ancsin / Képszerkesztőség 

Which makes me feel that all those hours of wandering were worthwhile.

It takes a lot of time to make a new body of photographic images.

About three months in this case, and now I am ready to go home.