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Santa Fe Photo Workshop

Spools as Tools – Peña's wife, J.B. Boles-Peña, is also an artist. Rather than showing the textiles she creates, I decided to feature her tools, some of the many spools of thread, as another one of my close-up assignments.

Evening Comes to the Ranch – Our final assignment at this Santa Fe ranch was to make an environmental portrait of owner J.B. Boles-Peña sitting outside of her house at dusk. In the golden glow of a porch light, I used a technique called "layering" that Nevada Wier often features in her own work. This picture is organized around three layers of meaning: a black dog anchors the foreground, the subject of the portrait relaxes in the middle ground, and the ranch house provides context in the background. A flagstone path diagonally leads us through the entire photograph.

Stormy Sunset – Sunsets can make pretty pictures, but often are clichés. Our instructor suggested incorporating other elements into sunset pictures to enhance the meaning of the moment. I had an opportunity to practice this suggestion during a class visit to her Santa Fe home. We were treated to a spectacular evening sky following a rainstorm. I used a pattern of horizontal bands to organize my picture and make it go beyond the typical sunset. Two trees in the distance create a focal point, and suggest, through scale contrast, the vastness of this scene. The distant mountain is also diminished in size, adding additional contrast in scale. A band of intensely golden clouds provides high contrast lighting to both trees and mountain. Another band of falling rain descends from the dark, feathery clouds at the top, crowning this stormy landscape of the American Southwest.

Rainbow over Santa Fe – Another important principle learned in this workshop is to concentrate not only on what may be in front of us, but also behind us. While shooting the previous photograph of the sunset over Nevada Wier's backyard, a rainbow was soaring through the sky in front of her house. Rain was still falling as light from the setting sun illuminated the clouds behind this rainbow. The sun's golden light, displayed in many shades of color, offers a breathtaking context for this rainbow, and my wide angle lens embraced its huge arch. Such picture opportunities as this offered a memorable lesson: good pictures are all around us.

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