Blog

Tomorrow, Tuesday, January 12 at 7:00 PM I will be interviewed by the Friends of Bosque del Apache about my Year of Refuge project. While these quarterly zoom events are typically reserved for Oasis members of the Friends, anyone is welcome to join in on this special zoom call event. To be eligible for the drawing of a 16” x24” print. you must be registered by tonight (Monday). Following a short slide show and interview by the Friends Membership Care Coordinator, Trish Sanchez, I will answer questions from people attending on zoom. I hope you can make it. Here’s the place [...]

If I asked you what tools were important to the success of my YEAR OF REFUGE project, you would undoubtedly say "cameras and lenses." And, you would be right. If I asked what else was important, you would probably add filters, camera cards, lens hoods and assorted paraphernalia. You would be right then as well. But, let me add another tool that you probably wouldn't think about that helps me get the photograph I want. [...]

The dark brown butterfly with yellow trailing edges flew east about waist high 20 yards along the line of trees before turning and flying west down the middle of the road to the point it had begun, only a few feet in front of me. [...]

The way we see the world shapes the way we treat it. -          - David Suzuki   One of the reasons I conceived the Year of Refuge project as a personal photographic journey was because I was increasingly aware of how my own language about nature was creating a growing internal conflict. It is difficult to grow up in western culture without having a mercantile and consumer view of all things. This means that we look at all non-human things as primarily a resource whose values lie in their direct service to humans. Usually, we put a dollar figure on it [...]

            In my sleep I came to the edge of words And found these had crawled out on the land -   bird heart water darkness, grace light soul, and love.   What are we to make of this glowing landscape, this odd mixture of grasses, cattails, wings tip-to-tip that are wider than I am tall, and cousins so small they disappear nearly at my feet into the coyote willow like mice with wings? How do I tell you that it all comes together like an orchestra and chorale of a thousand voices - ducks diving, kestrels posing, water reflecting the winter bones of cottonwoods, black willows, mountains and salt grass? [...]

Photographic images that I like usually do one of two things: they invite me to see something in a dramatically new way; or, they remind me of the understated beauty of the commonplace and how easy it is to take the everyday gifts for granted. The Rio Grande Cottonwood trees that string out along the river at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife are an example of the latter. Like the water from the river, they are essential to the health of this riparian ecosystem. This tree, along the Rio Viejo Trail on the refuge, is about to shed the last of [...]

I wanted an image that captured the winter solstice at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, the first day of my Year of Refuge. The refuge always delights with colors even if we have to look closely to find them. I am standing on the plywood platform atop my truck, looking east at a cottonwood tree on the east side of the pond closest to the Dabbler deck.   It is 28 degrees with a slight breeze blowing through me and my tripod-mounted camera, making it even colder. My fingers are as stiff as wooden popsicle sticks, even pushing and pulling them out [...]

I pray to the birds because they remind me of what I love rather than what I fear. And at the end of my prayers, they teach me how to listen. - Terry Tempest Williams, Refuge I am fortunate to live close to Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) and can visit it in all seasons, when each delights me with something beautiful and unique. [...]

Welcome to my first blog post. It will be an unusual one as it describes my photographic plans for the coming twelve months. Beginning the first day of winter this year, December 21, 2021, and concluding on December 20, 2022, I will photograph almost daily at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge near San Antonio, New Mexico. [...]