One of the assignments in The Studio was to create a still life with an added human element. My photo ended up being predominantly human rather than still life, so the human touch in a still life is something I’m keeping on my (mental) to-do list.
Santa Fe- Seeing the Sacred
The final assignment in my lensbaby class is a photo essay using mostly lensbaby images, and it can be either narrative or thematic. One can’t walk around downtown Santa Fe without noticing churches and sacred images everywhere, so I chose to focus on this theme for my photo essay.
Seeing the Sacred
Notes:
The first image- I’m not sure what building this was!
The next two are the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis, and the third is a statue of Kateri Tekakawitha (1656-1680), the first Indian of North America to be promoted a saint. The simple cross was hanging over our bed.
The rest of the photos are from San Miguel Mission, the oldest church in the U.S., built between 1600 and 1620.
Exploring Santa Fe
Last Sunday we celebrated my birthday in Santa Fe. We walked around the downtown taking in as many of the sights as we could in one day and sampling northern New Mexico cuisine. Here are a some random detail shots gathered taken on our walk around the city; all were taken with my lensbaby.
Persistence at Garden of the Gods
After leaving the plains of Kansas, we drove to Colorado, spending the night at Limon. We decided to get up early-ish (early for us, late for landscape photographers) the next morning to drive to Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs before heading to Santa Fe. We woke up to overcast skies and got to the park around 9:00 or 9:30. Garden of the Gods is a public park with paved walkways among gorgeous red rock formations. It was relatively uncrowded, probably because it appeared that it would rain at any moment. We were both eager to see the iconic view of Pike’s Peak through the red rocks, but of course, you couldn’t see the mountains because of the clouds. I love the combination of gray clouds and red rocks, but I was really hoping to see Pike’s Peak!
After walking through the park for awhile and monitoring the skies in case we had to make a dash to the car, we finally decided a drive around the park might give us a glimpse of the mountains. We drove around, but all we saw were clouds and red rocks- and more clouds. But as we got out of the car to look at the Balancing Rock, we noticed that the skies were beginning to clear a bit.
We ate a quick snack at the Visitors Center, and then drove back into the park to see what we could see- and VOILA!
The above shot is of the same rocks and walkway (from a different angle) as the first one a couple hours earlier.
Persistence pays off!
Kansas Minimalism
We are home now, after a LOOOOONG drive through Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico and a day off to celebrate my birthday in Santa Fe. There are a lot of photos to go through- especially from Santa Fe, where I tried to take enough photos with my Lensbaby to satisfy the photo essay requirement for the last week of the class (even though I’m not a full participant and won’t be evaluated).
So today, I again celebrate the flat horizons and vast expanses of Kansas with these minimalist shots, both taken with the Edge 80 optic.
Kansas Wheat
The drive across Kansas gave me an opportunity for an up close and personal view of a wheat field. My husband must have Kansas in his blood- I think the color version is his favorite photo from the trip.
Both were taken with the Lensbaby Edge 80.
melinda anderson photography 