Desert Tango

I’ve been photographing a ton of mountain bike racing lately, which is great because I spend a lot of my own personal time logging miles and miles of sweet singletrack here in western New Mexico and beyond. This past race, the Dawn Til Dusk 12 Hour Endurance Race, takes place right here in Gallup. I cranked out a race report for the Mountain Flyer Magazine website and shot some stuff for the event organizers. I was really happy with the images that I came away with on this assignment and a lot of that came from knowing the course like the back of my hand.

The latest issue of Mountain Flyer Magazine recently came out, which means I can show my coverage of the 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo mountain bike race in Tucson, Ariz. Actually a few of these images appeared in the race report I did for their website in February. For that I cranked out a quick story, something I don’t get to do often. Covering the Old Pueblo turned out to be a bit more of a challenge than I had anticipated, but it was extremely rewarding. Having not had to write a story for deadline in several years,  I was a bit rusty in my interviewing skills. Editing photos in the field was also tough, especially with the dusty conditions of the low desert.  I also ended up writing a short race report for the magazine edition to accompany my photos (a couple of which appear here). In the end it worked out well and the editors were happy and I made some beautiful photos at one of the country’s largest mountain bike races. To see a larger edit of my coverage of the race please visit my Photoshelter gallery.

This past holiday season, I was hired to photograph a Navajo wedding by some friends of mine. This was the first time I’ve witnessed a traditional wedding. Brian and Dionne Tandy were married right here in Gallup, New Mexico at a relatives house.

What I found interesting was that, while the many of the rituals and ceremonial stuff  were based on Navajo wedding traditions, there were elements of a contemporary wedding as well. This manifested itself to me in the cake cutting. Earlier in the day during the heart of the wedding ceremony, Brian and Dionne had fed each other blue corn mush. Later they cut cut the cake fed it to each other as well.

It was a beautiful, relaxed and open ceremony full of  Navajo traditions I was unfamiliar with, but in the end it sort of amounted to the same thing; two families unified by the act of marriage.

To see a more complete gallery of images, please go to my website.

Like the rest of the country,  western New Mexico has had it’s share of snow this winter. To a Midwesterner like myself, I can’t say that it rivals the amount we would get living along the western coast of Lake Michigan, but it’s no less fun. In fact, it’s more like an invitation to continue to getting out and having fun, even as the biking season winds down. The Zuni Mountains are a fantastic set of mountains to explore, their smooth and rolling nature lends itself to short backcountry excursions with your choice of up and downs along the small ridges,  or just cruising along in the open  meadows.  And when it’s all done, there is nothing better than coming back to the warmth of a friends cabin.

Yikes! It’s been almost a month since I last posted something. No worries, I’ve got a few things in the works in the coming weeks. For now, I wanted to post this photo from the Tour of the White Mountains mountain bike race I shot this fall in Show Low, Ariz.  It ran as a double-truck in Mountain Flyer Magazine this month. I first blogged about this event here, so this is sort of the second half of that post.

Early October took me to Show Low, Arizona to photograph the Tour of the White Mountains for Mountain Flyer magazine and their website. The race, which is put on by Epic Rides (who also do the 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo and The Whiskey Off Road races), was set in the White Mountains of eastern Arizona. Three courses, a 15, 35 and 65 mile route make for a diverse group of racers.

I’m making it a goal next season of photographing more mountain bike races. I missed two of Gallup’s best races this year due to weather and a prior commitment, and this race got the juices flowing. In fact, you’ll probably see me at the Old Pueblo and Whiskey races mentioned above in February and April of 2010.

If you would like to read the race report and see a couple of more photos, check it out here. Also, note that I’m withholding from posting a few images that will appear in the next print issue of Mountain Flyer.