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9/22/11

Purple Sage

Riders of the Range...

Out West in America means Big Sky and Wide Open Spaces. 

This is true from the northern reaches of Montana to the southern ends of Arizona and New Mexico and relates to perception. Many of us see the vista as an expansive range of opportunities whereas some people feel small and engulfed. How someone perceives the landscape is an indication of individual perspective as well as point of view and to me provides an insight into the essential nature of someone's soul. Do they sense fearlessness or fearsome, awed or overwhelmed? How they ride through the range and react to it hints at their comfort with themselves, the geography they're surrounded by and ultimately their interaction with people and perception of reality in the world.


In this photograph in the highlands of southwestern New Mexico I am experimenting with impression through grain and color. In the foreground is purple sage muted rather than bright and the grasslands are a sandy color rather than a richer green amber hue due to the dry conditions at end of hot summer. Distant mountain ranges are characteristically pewter beryl dividing the picture by the toned down big blue sky with white clouds caused by a light storm of rain mixed with dust that had passed through a few hours prior.