Miles gone by

 I revisited the southernmost section of the Petroglyph National Monument.  It has been quite a while -- five years? ten? -- I'm not sure.  Memories of the place were sparked by a recent discovery of the photographic work of David Grant Noble who spent about forty years documenting ancient ruins and rock art of the Southwest. I'm not sure how I missed seeing Noble's excellent pictures sooner; I only became aware of them because the Maxwell Museum has scheduled an exhibit and artist talk in May. I was pleased to find a couple copies of Noble's book, In the Places of the Spirits, in the Albuquerque Library.

I was also delighted to find that Craig Childs has published several books since I read House of Rain twelve years ago. I decided to start catching up with Childs by reading Tracing Time; Seasons of Rock Art on the Colorado Plateau. Childs' approach to thinking about the ancient cultures of the Southwest is informed by familiarity with the academic research, but it is fundamentally the product of a unique personal immersion in the region's arid environment.

One of the topics Childs deals with in Tracing Time is the destruction of the ancient petroglyphs and pictographs.  In previous books he made the case for leaving any traces of past cultures completely undisturbed.  In this later work he suggests that those who deface and destroy ancient rock art are motivated by assertions of power and ownership which likely were behind similar destruction in ancient times.  It is not uncommon to find rock art panels with many layers of pecked or painted designs laid down over centuries.  The difference, of course, is that the destructive process has been greatly speeded up by exponential population growth along with greatly more efficient tools of destruction including firearms, spray paint and off-road vehicles.

Over the years I have maintained this blog I have at regular intervals acknowledged the idea that my photographic efforts would be enhanced by a more focused and deliberate approach, as opposed to just walking for miles and recording interesting sights I came across.  My journey back to Mesa Prieta yesterday was a concrete expression of that strategic option, brought about now by necessity.  I just can no longer wander for miles at a time to indulge an urge to record serendipitous discoveries.  I'll likely get back to National Petroglyph Monument again soon, and also hope to visit some of the many other rock art sites within a day's drive from Albuquerque.

I am also thinking I will try to narrow my choice of cameras to a few which are likely to produce reliable results to match my current photographic ambitions.  I exposed my recent roll of slightly expired Tri-X in my Mamiya C330, first on a walk beside the river, and then during my visit to the rock art site.  What I found in the process was that it would have been wise to quickly review the camera's manual before setting out as I encountered some problems with lens swapping which I was not prepared for. The C330 is the most versatile tlr available, but the controls are decidedly unintuitive.

Cat Interrupted

 The modular construction of the Kodak Brownie Hawkeye Flash makes it easy to disassemble for cleaning or modification.  The easiest and most common mod is to reverse the lens front-to-back.  With the lens unmodified, the minimum distance for sharp focus is about eight feet. Flipping the lens brings the minimum for sharp focus down to about 3.5 feet.  However, only the center of the image will be seen to be sharply rendered, while the periphery becomes progressively blurred.

I loaded a roll of slightly expired Tri-X into my Brownie Hawkeye Flash and made twelve exposures in the house in about five minutes.  Because of the low light I set the camera to use the shutter's time mode to permit an exposure of an estimated one second; the camera was braced solidly on the floor to avoid camera movement.  The first shot caught Ruthie, my cat, unawares at her water bowl.  She was a bit irritated with that intrusion and threatened to leave the room.  I apologized, convincing her to stay, and she composed herself and assumed a more dignified pose.

In addition to the peripheral defocusing the flipped lens also seems to have an increased tendency to flare with back lighting.  

I took the camera into the living room and made a couple shots of Roxie with the camera braced on a chair .  Her skepticism about the process seems emphasized by the sharpness of the eye closest to the center of the image compared to the slight blur of eye closer to the edge.