Stone Topiary - Bisti Badlands

[JeffKohn]

From a recent trip to New Mexico. We spent about two days photographing in the Bisti Badlands wilderness area (camped overnight, which was pretty neat).

Here are a few images for C&C. Click on any of them to goto to the gallery page with exif and other shooting details. The full gallery of 12 images is located here.


Winged Turtle



Menagerie
(Panoramic, click here or on image for larger version)



Twins

[dalethorn]

I should wander away from I-40 more often.  These are great - looks like you got the perfect lighting.

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

Nice shots!

Bisti is a fantastic place. I was there just for a couple of hours last year. I'd love to get back and spend more time there.

[Christos Andronis]

Jeff,

you've got some nice pictures there. I went to your Pbase gallery and I can tell it really makes a difference to view these images larger. I liked most your "Egg factory #1" and "Kiss" images in terms of lighting and composition. I'd be interested to see some of them in color as well.

- Christos

[jasonrandolph]

Beautiful work!  I really like the toning and light.  You seem to have a good eye for composition as well.  Nicely done!

[wolfnowl]

Looks like a great place to be!  Thanks for sharing your work...

Mike.

[JeffKohn]

Thanks everybody, I appreciate it. We did have pretty decent light for monochrome, it was partly cloudy to overcast as the winds blew clouds through. Not really great light for color though, especially since some areas of Bisti are pretty much monochromatic anyways. So I didn't process any for color, just B/W.

[Mike Louw]

Gorgeous. Beautiful tonalities!

[John R]

Very nice work. Your "Winged Turtle" also looks like a whale to me.

JMR

[Kirk Gittings]

Nice images. Everytime I have been there the light was harsh and contrasty.

A philosophical point. What is this desire to zoomorphize (like anthropomorphize but seeing animal forms) clouds and rocks etc. in the landscape? To me it diminishes the experience from appreciating abstract natural form to a kind of Where's Waldo exercise (or wheres the walrus as it were).

[dalethorn]

Nice images. Everytime I have been there the light was harsh and contrasty.
A philosophical point. What is this desire to zoomorphize (like anthropomorphize but seeing animal forms) clouds and rocks etc. in the landscape? To me it diminishes the experience from appreciating abstract natural form to a kind of Where's Waldo exercise (or wheres the walrus as it were).

I don't know about zoomorphize, but a large singular object as in the first image could be mistaken for a fossilized dinosaur bone.

[JeffKohn]

A philosophical point. What is this desire to zoomorphize (like anthropomorphize but seeing animal forms) clouds and rocks etc. in the landscape? To me it diminishes the experience from appreciating abstract natural form to a kind of Where's Waldo exercise (or wheres the walrus as it were).

I think it's just human nature to recognize familiar shapes and patterns, I don't see it as diminishing anything. For me, visiting Bisti is like being on some alien planet that was fossilized and frozen in time; the fact that these shapes were carved by nature makes them all the more incredible. I didn't set out to shoot a walrus (or waldo); part of what's so great about Bisti is that you never know what you're going to find. I don't usually use such fanciful titles for most of my images; but at Bisti it's almost impossible not to recognize shapes in the rock forms. And part of is it is jus that a usually try to have _some_ kind of title for images, and Bisti #1  - Bisti #n would have been a bit boring.