The Botanical Gardens in Albuquerque's Biopark is just a short distance away. We got there this morning a half hour before the 9:00 AM opening, so spent some time visiting the pond behind the aquarium. Always new things to see in the Conservatory. The Percherons had a busy morning.

Kodak Reflex II

Mesa Prieta

On a recent Friday morning
I walked about a mile along the escarpment at the southern end of the Petroglyph National Monument which is known as Mesa Prieta. In addition to the many fine petroglyphs, I saw a covey of scaled quail.

Friday in Old Town






Vivitar Ultra Wide & Slim

A visit to UNM's Maxwell Museum provided an opportunity to use my Kodak Duo Six-20, and to add a page on it to the vintage cameras section of my web site.
    I have had the camera for a while, but put off shooting it because I have been averse to re-rolling 120 film onto the old metal 620 spools - something that is a must for the Duo Six-20. It turns out to be easier than I imagined, partly I think because I used a couple of the 620 spools, and rolling onto one and then back to another with the same core diameter avoids any buckling problem.

I never pass up a chance to photograph these old planes. They really seem to fly out of history into the present time.
    The aircraft should really be photographed in their natural environment, high above the earth. Lacking the opportunity to do that, I try to portray them in compositions with a dynamic quality which suggests their grace in action.
    I also often include people in the scenes, sometimes as current-day observers like me, but often they are there to give some perspective on the relationship of the men and machines of the era. In a few cases, as with the B-17 pilot in this series, the people are links or stand-ins for those who flew in these aircraft a long time ago.

Pentax Spotmatic ,
Super-Takumar f3.5/24mm

A big day for Santa Fe 2926
The Governor showed up at the site along with other notables to lend support to the establishment of a rolling museum to be pulled around the state by the restored locomotive. I don't always enjoy these kind of events, but this one was fun because it was politics-light, and because of the fine organization and enthusiasm of the 2926 restoration crew.

Pentax Spotmatic , Mamiya/Sekor f2.8/135mm

Spring

The last of  my Clack photos for a while. It's a great old box camera.

I added another page of pictures to my site which are from the Agfa Clack box camera. The photos show the current state of a restoration of one of the last great steam locomotives, the Santa Fe 2926.

A fellow loaned me an Agfa Clack camera a couple years ago. I've been looking for one for myself ever since. I finally stumbled on one at the Albuquerque Fair Grounds flea market last weekend. It's one of the great box cameras.

I spent a couple of days shooting my new little plastic Vivitar Ultra Wide & Slim around Albuquerque. The results were a mixed bag, but fun.

We went to a fine lecture on flight in bats and birds at the Albuquerque Natural History Museum. I took along my little Vivitar Ultra Wide and Slim camera loaded with some ultra-speed Kodak film that was five years past the expiration date. Not a very fair test for the plastic point-and-shoot, but interesting results nevertheless from wandering around the museum prior to the presentation.

ULTRA Wide & Slim
I gave away all my little plastic point-and-shoot cameras some time ago. But, then I saw a Vivitar ULTRA Wide & Slim on ebay with a reasonable shipping charge, so I had to get it. The results from the first roll are posted at nelsonfoto. I've also put my whole collection of previous P&S work onto a page at the web site.

We took a walk through the Piedras Marcadas section of the National Petroglyph Monmument at the western edge of Albuquerque. The Rio Grande-style petroglyphs are magnificent.

I discovered that some of my recent work could not be properly viewed with the Opera browser. I've corrected that, so the Rinconada rock art photos, the cyanotypes and the cats should all now be available for users of Firefox, MSIE and Opera.
    I've been pleased with the results I'm getting from the combination of TMAX 400 film and a couple of my old cameras, the Kodak Reflex II and the Ikonta 520. They do a particularly nice job of rendering the tones and textures of my rock art subjects. I hope to have some more available soon from those cameras showing some of the extraordinary images from the Piedras Marcadas site.

There is a lot to see and do in and around Albuquerque. One can be a perpetual tourist here. A recent outing took us to the National Petroglyph Monument just west of town.

Moved in.
Most of the boxes are finally unpacked, and everyone is pretty comfortable in the new place. Richard and Rio spend a lot of time at the windows keeping tabs on the local free-range wildlife. Along with the house, we got a mother cat and two kittens who live in the garage; they seem to be adapting to the new tenants.

The house is sold, or at least we have signed a contract to that effect and are wading through the final bureaucratic details. Now, we are looking for a place to rent somewhere close to downtown Albuquerque.

Moving On With Margaret's recovery progressing, I am spending more time cleaning up the house in preparation for selling it. We are looking to move back to city life, but have yet to decide on a specific location. I have added a property description page to the web site. I'll post some of the pictures of the place I have made over the 13 years we have lived in it, and I'll try to add some new ones, including some panoramas, to give a better idea of what it looks like.

Special

One of the most interesting Kodaks in my collection is this recently-acquired No.1 Autographic Special. The camera was made between 1915 and 1920 at a time when Kodak was still making use of lenses and shutters from other manufacturers in Rochester. This one has a fast f4.5 Bausch & Lomb Tessar lens, and an Optimo shutter that was very advanced at the time. The camera was manufactured to very high standards, and has some unusual materials that went into its construction, including bakelite side panels and sealskin leather covering. There is a page about the No.1 in the vintage cameras section of my web site.