This one is from my friend’s vegetable garden.

Came across this critter near the Old Irontown Ruins west Of Cedar City Utah.  Don’t know if it’s a unique species or an albino mutation.

Nine trips down the Colorado, every one beginning with breakfast at the Marble Canyon Lodge.  Everyone who is anyone on the River has planted themselves in a chair at that long table for breakfast, dinner, and beer.  Thousands of memories thousands of stories, all gone.

It was so poignant that nothing had been moved…

The only thing I left to do was to go to the river, wade in up to my shorts, wash off the tears and look downstream.

Today’s painting, with Kai, age 10 and Mila, age 5.  Kai and I have painted together many times.  This is the first to include Mila.  So much fun, and great results!

It’s that time of year again, when the Southwest burns.  Our ongoing, possibly permanent drought makes it even more critical to pay attention to signs like the one above.  Many wildfires are started by Zeus and his pesky lightning bolts, but some of the most devastating conflagrations of recent years have been caused inadvertently by idiot humans, or deliberately by disturbed ones.  These images were taken in Ash Canyon, south of Sierra Vista in 2010, while the ground was still warm.

It’s not just trees and animals that burn.  People’s lives go up in smoke as well.

Life does persist…

These deer were inside a fenced area with a pond and were being fed hay by local residents.

This fire was caused by a campfire.  Please make sure, if you must build one, that it is completely out when you leave.

But if you must know, It’s in Mexico City.

Decay and entropy create beauty.  One of the things I love about Mexico is that amidst the very alive and vibrant culture, both of these are allowed to exist.  A dog that died on a beach in the United States would never be there long enough to dessicate, for the sand to drift upon it, creating this lovely, if macabre, sculpture

Kind of like dogs pissing where all the other dogs piss, the Spanish built their Cathedrals and Government buildings on top of significant religious and political sites all over Latin America.  Hence the spectacular Templo Mayor buried in the heart of Mexico City.  This stunning chunk of rock is right in the middle of the site, and is the remains of an altar decorated with 240 carved human skulls.

I drove this truck for nine years and close to 100,000 miles.  Had the engine rebuilt once.  Drove it in 2009 from Tucson, Arizona to Lago Atitlan, Guatemala and back, getting the tie rods replaced in Aguas Calientes.  It was a wonderful icebreaker with the young soldiers at the puestos militares along Mexico’s highways.  “Lo hiciste???”  “Si, yo lo hice.”  “Que padre!”  I had to learn to drive differently, owning such a recognizable vehicle.  No flipping off other drivers, cutting them off, and absolutely no road rage.  I had several police cars tailgate me for blocks while they ran my plates to discover a clean record.  When I drove it to Juarez with my friend Randy, Customs ran two dogs in and around it for a half hour on our return.  Border Patrol south of Tucson came to recognize it with my frequent trips for photos near the border.  It has a camper shell, but Zach, whom I sold it to a few months ago, prefers to go topless.  I’m happy he hasn’t repainted, and that my Spiderman action figure still hangs from the passenger sun visor.

My wife often tells me it is difficult to be with me when I have my camera, because “it mediates the experience”.  What I think she doesn’t understand is that it mediates my experience whether I have it over my shoulder or not.  I see the world differently now, and always will.  I notice things I never noticed before.  I see beauty where I didn’t before.  I frame things that aren’t framed, isolate microcosms of the world around me as images in my mind, even if I don’t snap the shutter.  It’s like learning a language, it makes the experience richer, not narrower.  Unfortunately, as with a foreign language, it can exclude those who don’t speak it.  The language of my eye saw this sign and framed it as a composition, balanced and full of contrast, which I have translated for you by clicking the shutter.