Back to the Land of Enchantment

 

Bet you can tell these pictures aren’t from Austin. On the morning of October 10th we headed west from home and pushed the 620 miles to Las Cruces, New Mexico. Past trips had taken us through there and across southwestern New Mexico but only as a means of getting to Arizona or California. On this trip I intended to spend some time in that part of New Mexico for its own sake before driving up to the more familiar and better known northern part of the state.

Late in the afternoon on October 10th, as we set out to find a place for supper in Las Cruces, I noticed—how could I not?—that a good sunset was taking place. Unfamiliar with the town, I drove east looking for a high vantage for pictures. By the time I found one, it was too late. We went back there the next morning to see what sunrise was like over the Organ Mountains: the top picture shows you.

  

About half an hour later, a little north of Las Cruces,
the clouds over the Organ Mountains were still photogenic.

 

© 2022 Steven Schwartzman

 

 

 

The Colorado River at Dawn

I came away with my one moonshot when I’d driven up to the heights along W. Courtyard Dr. on the morning of February 3rd hoping for a good sunrise. As things turned out, the sky offered only subtle colors but I did manage this view of the Colorado River and the downtown Austin skyline in the hazy distance.

© 2021 Steven Schwartzman

Three views of sunrise clouds

When I went outside my house on the morning of December 22nd last year I saw colorful sunrise clouds, as shown above at 7:15. The trees across the street partially obstructed the view, so, hoping for a better shot, I drove east and at 7:23 pulled into a parking lot. Below is what I saw from there, which I think you’ll agree had gotten more fiery.

Then I continued a little further east. At 7:27 from another parking lot I photographed this beguiling cloud:

© 2021 Steven Schwartzman

Sunrise at Morro Bay, California

Four years ago this morning I went out early to see if I could catch the sunrise at Morro Bay, California. I did. The vertical view above, with its dark strip of land across the middle and a border around it gives me the illusion now of looking through a two-pane window. I also made a tight one-pane portrait of a seemingly unshy gull, which I take to be Larus occidentalis. The red patch on the lower bill apparently characterizes a breeding adult; imagine if breeding people had a red patch on their chin.

© 2020 Steven Schwartzman

A new way of looking at broomweed

In the recent post about experiments in zooming I mentioned that the fountain at the Lakes Blvd. and Howard Lane hadn’t gotten turned on by 7:10 in the morning, so I left and did other things. One of the first was to see what sorts of images I could make with the disc of the rising sun reflected in a nearby pond. I used those bright reflections to silhouette a broomweed plant, Amphiachyris dracunculoides.

Here’s an unrelated thought for today: “The notion that nothing might be anything is quite something.” — S.S.

© 2020 Steven Schwartzman

Dawn

Channeling my inner Steve Gingold, on the morning of September 4th I left home while it was still dark outside and drove to Mills Pond in Wells Branch to see what dawn might bring. The sunrise was pleasant, even if not as dramatic as what we’re used to seeing from Massachusetts. In part that’s intrinsic: Austin isn’t known for great sunrises and sunsets the way some parts of the country are. The fact that the pond is on the prairie and surrounded by a neighborhood means a photographer has no chance to get up high for a broad view that includes only natural scenery. Confronting those drawbacks, I went for a silhouetted sunrise.

© 2019 Steven Schwartzman

 

A new day, a new year

Let the early morning view from my computer-room window on December 3 of what is now suddenly last year serve as a welcome to this new one. A healthy and satisfying 2019 to us all.

© 2019 Steven Schwartzman

Morro Rock

Within an hour of leaving the Piedras Blancas Elephant Seal Rookery in San Simeon on November 3, we arrived at our Morro Bay hotel. It was close to the coast, so when I awoke early the next morning and saw some color in the sky, I hurriedly walked the few blocks to the water in hopes of recording the famous Morro Rock at sunrise. I think this was the only time in my life I’ve done back-to-back sunset and sunrise pictures.

© 2016 Steven Schwartzman

Chisos Basin at dawn

On November 23rd, our last day of the Trans-Pecos trip (these travel posts aren’t sequential), we went out while it was still dark in hopes of seeing a good sunrise. Though we didn’t get a fantastic one, we did see some pleasant early-morning colors from the Chisos Mountain Basin in Big Bend National Park.

© 2015 Steven Schwartzman

Cattails by pond at dawn

Twice in the fall of 2014 I pulled a Steve Gingold by going out in the dark before dawn to places where I could get in position for daybreak. Last year I showed a picture from the first of those two sessions but none from the other. Here, then, on the one-year anniversary of that second dawn expedition, is a photograph taken at a pond on the eastern side of Buda, a rapidly growing town south-southwest of Austin. Cattails (Typha domingensis) stood between the water and me.

© 2015 Steven Schwartzman