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.

New Mexico Magazine called me a few months back looking for images to illustrate a story about the works of author Tony Hillerman. Much of Hillerman’s detective novels are set in western New Mexico and deal with crime on the Navajo Nation.

While I do not consider myself much of a stock photography shooter, I do maintain a Photoshelter website with images from my outdoor adventures in the Southwest. I happened to have a couple of images that they were interested in, and in the end they picked this one of my friend Nicholle Kovach hiking at Chaco Canyon.

The cool thing about this photo is that it was shot during what was more of a vacation than a photo excursion. While I try to take a camera with me everywhere I go, sometimes it’s nice to not always be in that creative mode of shooting. This image was more of a result of me immersing myself in the beauty of my surroundings than me looking for compelling imagery.

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.

New Mexico Magazine recently hired me to do a series of portraits of Navajo Code Talkers. For those not familiar with the Code Talkers, they did the United States a great service during World War II by using their native language to transmit codes that the Japanese were unable to break. This was huge, and it was not until 1968 that their great deeds were declassified by the U.S. government. A movie was made about their achievements in 2002 called Windtalkers.

Needless to say, the remaining Navajo Code Talkers are considered hero’s here on the Navajo Nation. I recently attended a ceremony of sorts where they will be building a museum to honor their achievements, but that’s a different post.

My assignment was to photograph three surviving Code Talkers; Willfred Billy who live in Farmington, NM; Frank Chee Willetto who lives in Crownpoint, NM; and Chester Nez who lives in Albuquerque, NM. It was a truly great assignment in that I was given as much time as I needed with them, which I feel resulted in some  compelling photos.