In the Shade
April 5th, 2007
About Big Bend
April 5th, 2007
Before I left for Big Bend my friend and fellow photographer, Tim Black, told me he had been there and didn’t think much of it. Of course, I had to go see for myself anyway. But I think Tim was at least partly right. I found some photos. Found some good places to shoot. But there are a lot of places in the desert southwest where I’d rather go. I don’t think I’ll be back to Big Bend. Everyone who was along for the shoot pretty much shared that opinion of the place.
And it seems strange. Maybe we were missing something. We kept running into people who told us it was their 4th trip back to the place. Our response was always, “Why?” They loved it there. Some said that people either love Big Bend or hate it. I don’t fall into either category. I don’t love it and I don’t hate it. I’m pretty much indifferent to it.
It’s a big place. It’s a harsh, cruel place. The sun is relentless. There is no “golden hour.” The sun beats down until it finally drops below the mountains. Remembering my belief that there is not “good” light and “bad” light, only easy light and challenging light…well the light is always a challenge at Big Bend. I found myself either working with the effects of the hard sunlight, or hiding the models from it in the shade. It was always a problem to be dealt with, not the gift of beauty that the sun sometimes provides.
On top of the natural setting is the culture of the people in the place. We only found one restaurant that served good food (not counting the park lodge restaurant with did a great breakfast buffet and even let us sneak in late one morning). Other places had interesting character, and characters, but the food was marginal. The restaurant at our motel offered nasty food and surly service.
In one local eating place we found a couple interesting local characters. One was a welder who pronounced that he loved Big Bend because he could escape all the hustle of modern life and work on “Terlingua time.” The fact that he was wearing a bluetooth earpiece while saying that somewhat belied the statement. I was reminded of a photo essay by my old friend and mentor, Bruce Humphrey, from back in our newspaper photographer days. The essay Bruce shot was entitled, “Incongruity.” A portrait of this fellow would have fit in well.
The other man in the restaurant that morning was the cook. He was moving slow and barely able to move one arm. He had rolled his truck a couple days earlier. We had seen the truck being gathered up by a tow truck the morning after. He had been checked out by the local EMTs who told him he probably had a few broken ribs and possibly a broken collar bone. He had not been to a doctor. The nearest doctor is in Alpine, 80 miles away…and his truck was a wreck.
The welder pronounced that to be the way it is in Big Bend. “Don’t fuck up,” he said, because there isn’t any help if you do.
Until a few years ago the school in the Terlingua area only went to the 8th grade. If a student wanted to go to high school they had to go that 80 miles to Alpine. That has changed, and other things are slowly changing. Who’s to say which of the changes are good and which are costing this unique, remote corner of the country the very things which have defined it.
Some are drawn to this community and this harsh desert. I’m not one of them. But I’m glad to have visited and to have had two very talented figure models there to help me make photos. I don’t think I’ll be back, though.
This is Niecy Moss on our first day of shooting. She’s in some partial shade from that cruel sun.
Balance
April 3rd, 2007
I try to do my figure photos in nature in places where there is no one else around. I have no desire to push nudity at anyone who doesn’t want to see it. But sometimes the places I want to shoot are fairly popular. That was the case with this unique rock formation at Big Bend. There were a few other folks around as we waited for a chance to shoot after a steep climb to the spot. After a bit of conversation with one older couple, and after the other guy who was there pulled out his D200 and put it on his tripod, we simply told them what we wanted to do and asked if they would mind. As in every other case when I’ve done that, there were no objections at all. Thank you folks.
This is Rose balancing with the rocks.
I leave for Ohio in the morning. I’ll be on the road for two days and don’t know if I’ll be able to get on line to do any more updates before I get back home, so I’ve given you a few here to tide you over.
Desert Moon
April 3rd, 2007
The Desert Blooms
April 3rd, 2007
We’ve had some great shoots and there are many more photos to share when I have time and an internet connection.
Niecy in a slot canyon
April 1st, 2007
Here is beautiful Niecy Moss in a slot canyon here in the Big Bend area. I shot this yesterday. We did another very full day of shooting today with both Niecy and Rose, who drove down yesterday from Albuquerque to work with me. I haven’t had time to even look at all we have shot, but did a quick pick of this one so you’d have something new to look at and so you could see what I’m finding in Big Bend.
This is a big place. That’s good, but in some ways not so good. The expanse of the place is breathtaking. But it means there is a lot of driving to get from one possible photo location to another. And not every possible location turns out to be something that works. So it makes for a long day.
Also, although there are some beautiful spots here, it isn’t an overwhelmingly beautiful place. Lots of wide open spaces with nothing much but cactus. But there are good places to shoot and there aren’t a lot of people, so it’s pretty easy to get figure photos taken in most places we’ve found.
More from Big Bend as I get time to edit…but it’s time for bed now…tomorrow we’ll get another early start and spend the day shooting again.
Niecy in the bayou
March 31st, 2007
Here’s Niecy in the bayou outside Houston earlier this week. This is the last photo from the Houston shoots that I’m going to post for a while. We had a great day of shooting in the Big Bend desert today. Rose arrived this evening and we have a full day planned for tomorrow. Plenty of good material for figure work here. I’ll start posting some of them as soon as I get some time to edit.
Kimberly and Niecy
March 31st, 2007
What is better than shooting a beautiful nude model in a beautiful location? Shooting two beautiful nude models at the same time, of course. Here are Niecy and Kimberly in the Texas woodlands. They both did a great job. I’ll have more to post.
I’m sitting in my camper in Study Butte. Dan and Niecy are in the motel room nearby. The wireless internet connection works in the campground. Amazing!
Tomorrow (or I guess I should say today, since this post will have a Saturday dateline) we will drive around looking for good shooting locations. I don’t think we’ll have any trouble finding them. Saturday evening Rose will arrive and we’ll all have dinner together and get acquainted. Then we’ll have to make a plan for the next 3 days of shooting.
The sky is clear tonight, but the wind is rocking the camper. Could be an interesting night. Maybe it will just rock me to sleep.
There’s a full moon coming in a couple days. I checked the astronomical charts and it looks like Sunday night is the night this month to shoot moonrise photos…maybe with a model and some cacti in the foreground. We’ll be looking for a good spot to pull that off…I’ll have to check the bag and see if I brought the doubler along…
Kimberly
March 30th, 2007
Here is Kimberly Boenker posing in a stream northeast of Houston earlier this week. This was my first shoot with Kimberly and she really impressed me as a great model with a great attitude. And she is a real beauty. I have hopes that I’ll be working with her again this year.
I was impressed with the beauty of the Texas woodlands area as well. Not the sort of thing I think of when I think of Texas. I’ll have more to post from there over the next few days.
Of course, now I’m in the kind of country that Texas is known for, the desert of Big Bend. Dan and Niecy just arrived and we’ll be heading into the park soon just to look around today.
You can find Kimberly on Model Mayhem here: http://modelmayhem.com/member.php?id=294684
Reflected Mo
March 29th, 2007
Today was a wonderful day. A great drive. I left Houston at about 8:30 this morning and headed west. It was rainy for the first half of the trip. Then I headed out into the desert and the rain stopped, the sky cleared. While I listened Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys on the stereo, I watched the rolling hills and scrub pine turn to mesas and prickly pears. The rain had enlivened the desert. The ground was covered with yellow flowers and the Joshua Trees were in full bloom. I made great time. I love the 80 mph speed limit in this part of the country.
I was heading to one of the most remote areas of the lower 48, Big Bend. Even the GPS wasn’t sure what was out there. It didn’t seem to know about the left turn I needed to make in Alpine. And it was saying I had 18 miles to go when the road signs said 50 miles. (Magellan really should get some of these kinks worked out. I probably should have gotten a Garmin.) After I left I-10 the road got more interesting. The speed limit was still 70 mph, but the yellow diamond signs indicated a more sensible 30 mph for the climb into the mountains. Because of the road I decided to let Willie Nelson, Waylon, and friends repeat the Outlaws CD instead of hunting for something else. The radio searched the entire FM band without finding a station. The mesas began to look like misshapen beasts lurking in the distance.
Eventually the road straightened out and I picked up the pace again. I put on Warren Zevon’s final album for the last leg of the trip.
So now I’m in Study Butte (pronounced Stewdy Beaute) just outside the Big Bend National Park. The rock formations I’ve already seen look like they will make great settings for my figure work. The rock is dark brown, almost black. The contrast with skin tones should work very well.
Niecy Moss and her husband, Dan, will arrive tomorrow. Rose will get here Saturday night to model for several days. Study Butte seems to have everything we will need for a comfortable stay. Much to my surprise, here in this remote corner of the country I have excellent cell phone reception and the motel has wireless internet access. So I’m finally able to make some new posts to the blog. For some reason blogger would not let me post from Niecy’s computer in Houston.
I had a great two days of shooting in Houston. Two models on a ranch, a few special things for Niecy, then a day with two models in a beautiful wooded area with a great stream, then on to a bayou that also worked very well. I’ll have things to post from those shoots soon, if I get time for editing.
For now, here is another shot of Echoed Light during our grueling hike in the Ozarks. This is her edit of a shot she chose. I think she chose well. I did just a little tweaking of the file in photoshop. I haven’t had time to look at the photos from this shoot yet, since I’ve been shooting so much, so I just swiped this one from her deviantart page. Thanks, Mo.
