Buffalo River is next week, starting Sunday for ten days. I'll be staying at an area called Steel Creek which is at the west end of Buffalo National River in Arkansas. I hope to be able to photograph the redbuds while they are in bloom and to catch them at a time when they're bloom overlaps the dogwood bloom. At any rate it will be a great opportunity to do some new work and do some reading.

This is a photograph I did last summer when we were in the Pagosa Springs area. It is a portion of the upper Rio Grande River. The water was so violent it reminded be of the agitator in a laundry machine and was also turbulent; thus the title, a word that doesn't exist but probably should. The perch was very "dicey". One step either way and I go for a swim. One tripod leg slip and my camera does.

Virginia and I in Rocky Mountain National Park. It was cold, very, very, cold and windy. It was a great trip.
There was a boatload of snow and Estes Park has several really good restaurants. We also found a great Italian restaurant in Elizabeth, Colorado. A little out of the way if you're driving from Springs to Denver but well worth the 20 miles round trip drive.

Nathan has been selected as an Artist in Residence for the National Park Service

Iwas notified, about two weeks ago that I have been selected to serve as an Artist in Residence for the National Park Service in Buffalo National River in Arkansas. The residency will begin around the 25th of March. I will be posting photographs here, from that residency, as well as at discoveredartists.com at photosocial.com and elsewhere. I am looking forward to this opportunity and to making some new photographs in an area that is completely new to me.

An Introduction

I am a fine art photographer residing in Clovis, New Mexico with my bride of 37 years, Virginia, a golden retriever, Calypso (named after Jacques Cousteau's boat, the word means sea goddess) and a border collie named, EmmaJune. I create photographs of the American West and a few other places, mostly in black and white. All of my landscape photographs are created using traditional methods, a large format camera and 4x5 film. I choose to hand print my black and white photographs also, using traditional methods. Up to very recently I hand printed all of my color photographs as well, but recently it has gotten to be difficult to get the color materials suitable for my type of work so some of my color photographs are now created using digital means. However all of my work is still made using 4x5 film originals. The reason I still use traditional methods is quite simple. In my opinion traditional methods give me the best opportunity to create photographs where I maintain control of every part of the creative process. I feel it is important that the DNA of the photographer be on every piece of work that leaves my studio.

Art and the art of photography

First Light, Lone Pine Peak, Mt. Whitney and the Alabama Hills.

This is one of the premier photographic areas in the west, in my opinion, and maybe anywhere else as well. I had the chance to be in the area the first week in December of 2009. A huge snow storm had moved through the day before I got there which was a great stroke of good fortune. This photograph was made just before sunrise. I used a Toyo 45A camera and a 150mm Sinaron-S lens with a dark orange filter and Tri-X black and white film