Roswell/Valley Of Fires/Large Array












Roswell/Valley Of Fires/Large Array: No flying saucers unfortunately. I thought for sure, after all the signs I saw before I left for the trip!! Did go into the UFO museum and out to the Bottomless Lakes State Park. The park was very photogenic with both color and B&W opportunities. Temps are hanging in the 90’s and it I did not break out the view camera again due to strong winds. Fortunately the 2 ¼ and digital are lower profile so I can usually get the shots I need with those. Clouds are still a rare thing. Lots of hikes for the photos and that is always good. The New Mexico Military Academy had an excellent pool that was open to the public at certain times and I took advantage of that.
The Valley Of Fires Park is a nice camp. Not much around but the lava beds is good adventure both during the day and at night.
Speaking of clouds being a rare thing, it is Saturday and I have hit the Petroglyphs Park and am in Alamogordo again waiting for the evening to fall so I can see the Full Moon in White Sands. So as I need to wait for a number of hours yet guess what fills the sky?? Yes , an overcast of clouds in abundance. This could prevent the moon from showing tonight. But my only choice is to wait it out to see and if need be stay here for another day for a chance tomorrow night.
Sunday 4/20: Well there is now a reason to get back to White Sands. The night was a perfect cool and windless evening with some good photo ops. I did get to see an awesome full Moon rise. But alas, the cloud cover was such that after about 20 minutes it went behind the overcast, not to bee seen except now and then in a haze. The night was far from a loss though as sunset and night photos took up the time. Today has been very windy so I moved out of the Valley of Fires and on to the Large Array. Snowed going over the pass to get to the VLA. Even though it is also very windy here the dishes don’t seem to move so much they will blur a sunset picture. The one in the blog is before it gets really dark even though I had to paint it with the spotlight anyway. I did get to see them all swing about 122.7 degrees away from the Sun. They were in a perfect position for sunset shots. They seem to move them every 45 minutes or so. So eerie standing out among all the dishes at dusk, with them silhouetted against the sky, like in the other picture. Seems so otherworldly.
Wednesday April 23: Just added the pictures for the past week or so. In Albuquerque now and seeing things around here as well as getting some things taken care of. Then it's off up north for the Tent Rocks, Bandelier, water falls etc. Picked up some more 4x5 film here and even in a big city like this 4x5 film is slim pickins. Only got one box of 10 of the color print film. But that should last for the next few weeks being that I still have lots of other types to pick from in my film bag.
That's it for now. Hope all is well with everyone and may there be little wind in your days.


1 comment:

Caroline said...

Bill: Gorgeous photos. I love that you can and do photograph anything. Hope to see more of them when we see you!

Counting the minutes.

Caroline