Mono Monday: Out of my comfort zone.

You don’t often see me post landscapes and with good reason.  I am not very good at them.  I don’t have the patience to wait for the perfect sky, set up a tripod, or limit my photography time to just around sunrise and sunset.  And certainly processing them in black and white is even more of a challenge.  But now I find myself in the southwest where there are big skies, amazing clouds, and beautiful mountains surrounding the deserts.   

On the 10th, I mentioned in my blip that we had seen my high school friend’s images hanging with some of Ansel Adams work in a Santa Fe Gallery.  We discovered we were both going to be in Tucson at the same time on this past Saturday, so he invited us to an event at the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona.  There was an Ansel Adams exhibit in honor of Ansel’s birthday, and an excellent lecture by a former White House Photographer who knew Ansel very well and worked with him to influence several presidents to preserve our national parklands.  It was amazing to meet up with my friend after 50 years and to have him give us a personal tour of the exhibit.  He knew the locations of all the Adams images and could explain some of the developing processes that were used.  This was followed by another photography gallery visit and a dinner where we had time to catch up
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Feeling duly inspired by all that B&W landscape photography, I thought I would give this challenge a go, especially when I looked out over this gorgeous location.  Don’t look too closely though… I didn’t use a tripod, my aperture was too open and those mountains are quite soft.  A late entry, nevertheless. 

Many thanks to all for the hearts and stars that have put me on Page Two of the popular page.  It's been a long time since one of my photos made it that far, so I feel very honored.