La Cieneguilla

I first visited the petroglyph site at La Cieneguilla shortly after we moved to Albuquerque in the Fall of 2008.  I was pleased sometime later when one of my shots of the Autumn foliage there was featured on the BLM web site for the area.  Recently, though, I noted that the picture has been reduced to a size which leaves much to the imagination, so I'm posting it here again.

The Cieneguilla site is a few miles south of the Santa Fe Airport at the west end of Galisteo Basin.

I drove up to La Cieneguilla again yesterday.  I was climbing up to the rimrock by 6:30, but it was already getting warm, and clambering over the rocks to get close to the petroglyphs was a challenge.  It is an effort worth making, however, because of the quantity and variety of rock art on display.  The site is particularly renowned for the large number of hunchback flute player images, but there are representatives of a great many of the designs found all along the valley of the Rio Grande and its tributaries.

Kokopeli

Procession

Whimsically recumbent Kokopeli

The Elk Hunter

I shot the Fuji 200 color in my Leica-copy FED 1g with the Jupiter-12 35mm lens and the matching wide-angle viewfinder.  My shutter repair seems to be holding up well, but I did get a little over-lap in a few frames.  Probably time for a more thorough cleaning.

I also exposed ten shots on TMAX 100 in one of my Kodak Duo Six-20 folders.  I have four of these 6x4.5 Kodaks which I like very much.  The one with the Anastigmat 4.5 lens and the Compur shutter works well.  I was planning on giving it some more exercise, but the heat and the terrain got the best of me. Next time, I'll take less gear and more water.

Species Thought Extinct Found in London

The Guardian has a piece today about recent inductees to the photo agency, Magnum.  One is Matt Stuart, a London street photographer.  Here is a snippet of the "About" page on his web site:

FAQS

How long have you been shooting on the street? 20 years.

What film camera do you use? I use a Leica MP with a 35mm f2 Leica Summicron lens

What film do you use? Fuji Superia 200/400

How many rolls of film do you use a week? At least three rolls a day. I never leave the house without my camera...

La Bajada

I drove an hour north of Albuquerque yesterday to enjoy the morning's cool breeze and a sunrise walk at La Bajada.

La Bajada is best known today for the remnants of the old Route 66 alignment which snakes up over the escarpment above the Santa Fe River. That famous roadway, however, was preceded by older north/south routes including the colonial Spanish Camino Real which stretched all the way from Mexico City to Santa Fe. Before that, the local native people followed trails across the mesas and down the river canyon for thousands of years. Many petroglyphs can be seen on the slopes beside the eroded Bajada roadway which are thought to date mostly from the height of the Puebloan period between AD 1300-1600.

An acequia at the base of the escarpment carries Santa Fe River water to cultivated fields and pastures around the village of La Bajada.

Petroglyphs along the La Bajada route are mostly in the Rio Grande style.  Some like the small horned serpent figure are nearly identical to glyphs at La Rinconada forty miles to the south.

The Sandia Mountains east of Albuquerque can be seen in the far distance in the scene below.  In the foreground a large, cryptic design covers the upper surface of a large basalt boulder.  On the other side of the boulder there are a number of zoomorphic figures.

There are said to be petroglyphs all along the five-mile stretch of the Santa Fe river canyon between La Bajada and La Cieneguilla where there is a concentration of thousands of petroglyphs along the rimrock above a marshy area.

Perhaps when the weather cools in the Fall I'll try hiking to the top of La Bajada and down through the river canyon.