Tag Archives: photography

November 20, 2017 · 5:35 am

Hatch Valley Road Trip—Clint Eastwood was hanged near here


Along the Rio Grande

One of our favorite weekend day trips is along the back roads between El Paso and Hatch, New Mexico. It’s scenic. It’s historic. It’s delicious. Deliciously spicy, that is. Hatch is home of the world famous Hatch chile. And what is Hatch’s green chile good for? Glad you asked. A while back I posted my chile rellano recipe using poblano chiles, but Hatch green really makes that recipe shine. And let’s not forget that modern culinary miracle, the green chile cheeseburgers. You’ll see one of the best of those on this week’s Fun Food Friday.

Chile field

By the way, did you know that Clint Eastwood was once lynched here in the Hatch Valley? That occurred along the banks of the Rio Grande not far from where these photos were taken, very close to Fort Selden (topic of a future blog article). The year was 1968, and poor Clint was mistaken for a murderer by a posse that included, of all people, kindly Skipper from Gilligan’s Island (Alan Hale, Jr.) in the movie was Hang ‘Em High.

Surrounding hills

But to heck with Clint Eastwood. This is chile country! And lunch is right up the road!

Chiles

Another great feature of this recent road trip is that the foliage was just beginning to succumb to fall.

Mesilla Valley fall colors

We’ll continue with narrative on Wednesday, but for now I’ll leave you with some more sights from this drive through the country:

Salt cedar in fall
Alfalfa?
Red and green chile
Chile field
Along the Rio Grande
Hills

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November 17, 2017 · 5:35 am

Fun Photo Friday — Another spectacular El Paso sunset


El Paso sunset — 11/4/2017

We love the views from our home here in El Paso. As you can see from this backyard view, we face out over the Mesilla Valley to the left, and the Franklin Mountains form our backyard view to the right. Frequently we are treated to some very spectacular sunsets.

El Paso sunset — 11/4/2017

All the pictures you see today are pretty much untouched except for some mild tweaking of contrast, however on one photograph I upped the saturation level ever so slightly. This is the one on which I upped the saturation:

El Paso sunset — 11/4/2017

As you can see, the others simply didn’t need saturation boosts straight out of the camera.

El Paso sunset — 11/4/2017

In addition to changing the composition and framing, I also played around with orientation. Here’s a portrait view from that evening (I may have to consider this image for a future book cover):

El Paso sunset — 11/4/2017

This last image I cropped to simulate a panoramic view:

El Paso sunset — 11/4/2017

This sunset series was taken in raw on a Panasonic FZ-1000 developed in SILKYPIX Developer Studio 4.4 SE. The subsequent JPEGs were then tweaked in Google’s now defunct Picasa 3. That’s a real shame, too, because Google really had this program right when they abruptly quit supporting it several years back.

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November 10, 2017 · 5:35 am

Fun Photo Friday — Quito Hop-on/Hop-off Favorites 2


Streetlights

This series on Ecuador began nearly five months ago, and the images presented during that series are but a fraction of the many taken during our ten days there. My first photos of Ecuador were taken in Guayaquil on February 14, 2016. The last shots were taken in Quito on February 23. In between we saw a cocoa plantation, walked the streets of Cuenca, stayed at the beautiful La Andaluza resort, traveled to Alausí and took the Devil’s Nose train, journeyed deep into the Amazon River Basin for another fantastic resort stay at La Casa del Suizo, visited a hummingbird preserve and crossed the high Andes, stood on the Equator at the Middle of the World, and finished in Quito.

Door Light

I sincerely hope you enjoyed the tour these past five months, and that you’ve not grown bored with Ecuador.

Independence Monument

Today’s Fun Photo Friday is the end of the road for this look at Ecuador, so here are some final images:

Reflections

Colors

Monumento a los Héroes del 10 de agosto de 1809

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