TAOS SKI VALLEY NEW MEXICO – We’re staying at the Bavarian where we celebrated New Years Eve with some friends who have built a house here. A family party image with my Panasonic.
New Years Eve
On this day last year: Maria in a nun costume. The scary thing about this was that Maria went to convent school and actually knows how to act like a nun.
TAOS SKI VALLEY NEW MEXICO – We made it to Taos. Our children, Alexander and Francesca, are excellent skiers. They started at age 3 and are at a very high level at this point. In most ski resorts they disdain actual runs, preferring off piste with a guide or instructor. Taos is a little different – there’s a bumper sticker that says “Taos – a four letter word for steep”. That pretty much summarizes it. They are in heaven. Maria is also a terrific skier. Laura is a beginner and is tackling lessons with great spirit. I haven’t skied that much since my knee replacements – I’m taking lessons to see what I can recover. At my current state there’s actually not a way off the mountain that I can ski.
The great thing about Taos is that it has snow, and spring skiing conditions in December. Midday it’s in the low 40s (F). Here’s lunch at the St. Bernard. All images from the trip are with my Panasonic – my travel kit when I’m concerned about size and weight (I actually thought that I might shoot on skis) or iPhone.
Lunch at St Bernard
On this day last year: wind carved snow. Shot with my Hasselblad.
NEWARK AIRPORT – This is one of those dreaded (photo-wise) travel days. Remember? I generally struggle to find an interesting image in airports, cabs and the like. Well actually the iPhone helps a lot – it’s always at hand and post processing apps provide entertaining (in reality silly) modifications of images. Who said that the photo-a-day gig has always to be serious.
We flew Southwest Air to Albuquerque. The “we” is me, Maria, Alexander and his wife, Laura, and Francesca. A three hour drive put us in Taos Ski Valley, one of the highest and frankly most difficult mountains in the US. Anyway here are two images taken in the aircraft as it prepared for takeoff. iPhone images. The first percolated and the second grunged up slightly.
Southwest AirSouthwest Air
On this day one year ago: Windswept field. In last year’s image from this date I used tilt to decrease the apparent depth of field:
WARREN CONNECTICUT – I love it when in mostly cloudy weather clear patches illuminate bits of the Connecticut countryside. Here’s an example. It lasted for a few seconds. I was lucky to capture it with my Leica and a 90mm Elmarit lens. One of my best landscapes of the year.
Baby Cloud
WARREN CONNECTICUT – Our children are starting to disperse. Here’s an iPhone shot of Thilo, Francesca’s boyfriend, and Jemima Kirke’s portrait of Francesca (which we’re about to take off to the framer).
Thilo and Francesca
WARREN CONNECTICUT – Boxing Day. Curiously I shot the same subject one year ago. This time I selected a different angle and camera, my Alpa Max with a short-mount 120 mm Schneider lens and a tilt adapter. Tilting is a view camera feature that is available for longer Alpa lenses. It permits tilting the lens and thus the focus plane, to either extend or shorten apparent depth of field. Here I have used it to keep the top of the sundial and the wall and the trees in the background in focus. It can be a tedious iterative process to get focus right with this technique; there are rules of thumb that help; there’s also an iPhone app that gives you a very good starting point. What I don’t like about this image is a mental mistake on my part: cutting off the bottom of the sundial.
Sundial
