Checked in, through security, at my gate b25 and this really does totally suck, I’ve got around 2 hours until I board and thankfully the flight is delayed by 20 minutes - anything to delay going back to the shitty England, every second away from that shit hole is a blessing…. :(

Out of the window is Phoenix and beyond, maybe i should just walk right out of here…..

On the bright side, i’m trying to convince myself that the trip I’d still only half complete, as I’ve got the interesting job of having all my images scanned, processed and printed, which i always enjoy doing and it sure will be a mammoth task this time!

The strange thing is, having been here a month - it may sound strange but i was about starting to get used to it, almost like i was beginning to fit in… I’ve been around and seen so much stuff, it really is hard to have to drop it all and come home…

On the bright side there’s some interesting stuff waiting for me at work, that I’ll no doubt be dragged straight back into when i return - and I guess that I should be glad they gave me the month off as many people were shocked to believe that it got authorised in the first place, so maybe if I plan it well next time it wont’t be a problem..

When I come back to the US at some point, apart from doing AZ again which would be brilliant, I’d like to do yosemite, Zion, then the west coast including Oregon. I’d also like to do some research on canada and possibly a trip down to Florida to shoot wildlife…

I’d like to move here, but getting work sponsored permit is a nightmare due to US unemployment, even if you “get the job” it can be overruled by immigration if they feel a euro would be taking the place of an out of work american.. Which you can’t really argue with… That and it may be better to keep it at arms length, that way I won’t get bored of it… :/

Oh well.. Not long now.. Horrah.. :[

On another interesting note, I’m writing this from my new apple iPad, it’s really great and I bought it for around £200 cheaper than the uk, where they’re not released for another month! All the anti apple people on irc (brannon, mark and Ben) have been ripping the piss Out of it but they can go and fuck themselves ;-) I also picked on up for my buddy Lew.

So today I had the nerve wrecking task of collecting the processed film, preying my quickload holder and darkslide holders were all light tight, and just about every other worry I could imagine… I actually ended up going the wrong way on the Bus to collect them, and had to run back about 3 miles down 24th to the place because I thought it closed at 5 - when it actually closed at 6!

So I turn up a ball of sweat and dribble, pay my fee and set about the rather gigantic lightbox all decent labs have..

What lurks inside…

Velvia in all its glory - har!

For those of you who are perhaps wondering, “Hey, so he went halfway round the world to end up with a load of postcards?” each one of those is a 4x5” transparency, which when scanned by my normal work flow equates to around a 100 megapixel image, which is over 4 times bigger than what the top of the range (£5k) DSLR will produce, with a mind blowing amount of detail.

The above picture shows a random slice of about 3/4 of them, but they obviously have to be scanned/printed etc, I did shoot some junk but on the whole I’m over the moon with the results, my exposure and sharpness has come on leaps and bounds, in most of the images you can pick out individual grains of sand in foregrounds - they really are razor..

Don’t forget the black and whites:

Showing the negatives, again 4x5. I haven’t shot nearly as much B&W as I have colour and I did put quite a bit of effort into shooting B&W on this trip I’ve got some very nice shots, especially from Coyote Buttes south and white pocket. I wish I had show more B&W but you simply can’t do everything, even in a month.

I also got some really nice 6x12 panoramic colour shots but only 2 rolls worth, (12 shots) again, 5x4 took over!

So, a big relief, the trip was a complete success, apart from the accident which wasn’t my fault - absolutely nothing went wrong when so much could have - it all came together very well!

Now for my celebratory drink: (yeah Pepsi on ice, I know how to party :/ )

Then a trip downstairs for a fillet steak, then a good lie in ready for tomorrow’s flight back to……. England “;/” which really sucks as I really don’t want to come home now, I could go out and do the entire thing again without batting an eyelid, I’m not homesick in the slightest…

Tomorrow, British Airways will have the unfortunate task of dragging me back into the real world screaming, kicking and clawing.

So there we have it, back in Phoenix, RV handed back and the above box handed at Colormark for processing…

In total around 120 colour transparency photographs, (100 Velvia 20 Provia) and around 55 black and white, (Ilford delta 100)

I collect the results tomorrow night around 5pm, to say I’m a little “on edge” is a bit of an understatement, although I’ve built on experience over the past year it’s still a big gamble to take - to come 8000 miles around the world and spend an entire month projecting light onto flat plates of film emulsion, the only gadgets being my Seconic light meter and eyes..

But I guess that’s all part of the excitement, I’ve also learnt an enormous amount - my technique and routine is now far more refined and smooth. Shooting large format is a very long and complicated affair, one that demands a good routine and work flow, any interruption to the routine can result in total chaos, shooting large format for a solid month has really “ironed out” the way I work and I feel more accomplished now - regardless of tomorrows results.

At the end of the day I’ve had an awesome time, I’ve driven around 4500 miles, (3500 in the RV and around 1000 in the Jeep) I’ve seen some of the worlds best scenery and met some great people, I’m also only 28 and I feel that this trip is a “step” and in time I’ll do something similar again.

I’m not sure whether I’d go alone again, an entire month alone is quite *difficult* excluding the guides and some of the people I met up with like Bob from Texas who let me tag along with him to “The Wave” the only real conversation I’ve had goes along the lines of “Hi, $100 unleaded on number 3 please” or “Yeah, fries and coke with that lulz” in between calling home every few days… So hopefully next time I do this I’ll have a buddy who’ll be up for it!

The only slight bummer (apart from being run off the road) was last nights Moonrise at the Bisti, a ton of cloud rolled in from the west and totally buggered my plans, as I drove off the moon showed itself briefly for a few minutes through the cloud around 50 miles away and it was right on the horizon - so it would have been perfect. But hey! I’m from England, so I’m used to the weather pitching up and completely ruining my life! In total that was the only really spoiling moment, weather has been good for most of the time.

The days after the accident really annoyed me, I got stressed out to hell and didn’t really feel like doing much photography, shooting a large format camera is like sketching or writing - you have to be in the perfect frame of mind to do it, otherwise it’s pointless..

Sure - the accident wasn’t my fault, but that’s not really the point. I’m not really 100% comfortable in driving around in a partially damaged vehicle, that and the memory of that fucking golden Kia driving at me on the wrong side of the road, it puts a dampener on things..

I drove round to Shiprock, a large pinnacle of rock that looked very interesting, however I then remembered that it’s on a Navajo reservation and I’d need a guide which I didn’t have. After “David” from Monument valley, I’d pretty much had enough of them so I drove back to Farmington and parked the RV in the Walmart car park overnight.

Feeling stressed and not really knowing what to do, I ended up near a hotel where I could use it’s WiFi from an empty car park across the road. As I drove the RV into the car park, I noticed a porn DVD lying on the ground - being male, 28 years old and having access to the internet I don’t really have a need for shit porn DVDs lying on the floor in car parks - for all I knew it was probably just the case and was infected with HIV or something, so I left it and drove past…. Upon parking I realised that a few blocks down was a large “Adult DVD” sign, obviously ending any speculation on where it came from!.

So, Laptop on, checking the weather, news, IRC, photos etc etc when I notice this battered pickup drive past really slowly, didn’t really pay any attention to it and I forgot all about it pretty quickly… Around five minutes later, the same pickup then drives right up to the window of the RV, level with me sat at the table - the window then comes down to reveal this grinning lunatic of a man, clutching the porn DVD from the floor of the car park “Extreme cream 7” or something it was called, he then proceeds to laugh manically at me, whilst waving the DVD out of the window, before hitting the gas and screaming out of the car park amid screeching tyres and petrol fumes. I haven’t laughed so hard for a long long time. It was almost as though it was his “Find of the century”

So, around 45 minutes pass and I hear a knock at the RV door, “For fucks sake” I mutter to myself as the same battered pickup truck is now parked directly next to me, with the lunatic at my door - the door that no longer opens since the accident. I jump out of the drivers side door to confront the man, a scraggy looking Hispanic guy - thin with rodent features - possibly due to drugs, “What?” I snarl at him, “Say there, er, that there porn DVD wasn’t yours was it sir? the one on the ground - I picked it up!” he asks embarrassingly, “Er, nothing to do with me - it’s all yours, knock yourself out!” I laugh back at him, “Er well, ok you sure” … “Yes, it’s your DVD, do whatever you want with it, Its nothing to do with me!”

By this point I’m just getting annoyed with him, then he starts asking loads of questions, where I’m from, what I’m doing, is this my RV, etc etc. Alarm bells instantly come on in my head, this guy has fuck all apart from his pickup and his precious DVD, I on the other hand have significant amount of money in cash, credit cards, laptop, camera gear, etc etc. That coupled with the way he’s asking questions makes me wonder whether he’s gonna pull a gun on me or something, you can always tell when people are genuinely curious or whether there’s an agenda to their questioning. I turn to stone on him, “Yeah….” I shout casually over my shoulder, before getting back in the RV, packing things away ready to drive off. He also drives off into the corner of the car park before being joined by someone else in a different pickup, “Great, they’re gonna follow me and try to do me over” so I drive off and they instantly follow right behind, I do two circles of Farmington and they stay with me, before I turn into Walmart again - then they fuck off… “Awesome”

Violence, fighting, pain, doesn’t really frighten me, I’m more than capable of taking care of myself as proven in the past, it’s just if someone pulls a gun on you and they want your stuff - what can you do? In Farmington things seem very run down and very poor, many people wouldn’t have much to lose by shooting a tourist and stealing all his possessions.. At the end of the day, I either get shot or stabbed, or I stove his head in with a hammer and get arrested - there can be no “good” outcome, except to drive away as quickly as possible… <sigh>

So, all that shit aside, I decided to kick myself in the butt and “just get on with it” with a few days in the Bisti Badlands. The place is starting to come to life in the evening now and the moonrise is getting good, I hiked 13 miles yesterday and the trip computer on my GPS says I’ve hiked a total of 43 miles in the Bisti in total over the last few days I’ve been there - with a 65lb pack for 3/4 of it, which isn’t bad going! I’ve been scouting out some locations for the moonrise, tonight and tomorrow it should be at it’s best, last night was a bit high, but still good, although this little snapshot camera seems to come undone in low light:

Some of the rocks around Bisti are awesome, they look like desert camouflage:

Last night, I opened my final box of Velvia 50 quickload! Fuji have no discontinued quickload - which is a major bummer for ease. “Bottom” playing on my laptop trying to cheer me up:

Shooting black and white:

I’m cleaning the RV out now ready to return it, plan to do tonight and tomorrow night in Bisti, tomorrow night I’l grab some midday kip before shooting the moonrise, then drive back to Phoenix which is 430 miles away - I need to drop all my film off at ColorMark for processing early on Wednesday morning ready for collection Thursday, I should have around 115 transparencies, and 60 black and white 5x4! Getting a little nervous about the results - but hey we’ll see.. it’s been fun anyway “:-)”

So there I am, 1130 in the morning driving through the winding mountain roads of New Mexico on highway 371, sun shining, my favourite songs on the CD player, sunglasses on…..

I go round a bend, speed limit is 65mph I’m doing roughly 50-55mph when this golden Kia Optima instantly comes into view, doing around the same speed as me it veers directly across the road directly towards me almost entirely on my side, literally 30-40 yards in front of me.

*Somehow* I swerve out of his direct path, the RV practically on two wheels - he hits the mid/rear driver side with a loud smack - within a split second I’m on the verge heading towards a 20ft drop, *Somehow* I apply full opposite lock, the back end steps out and smashes into a road sign, back on the road I fishtail from side to side then come to a standstill, everything is out of the cupboards like a bomb has gone off inside…

So I step out, head in my hands wondering what the hell just happened, when the driver of the golden KIA comes down the road, a gigantic obese man probably 40 stone in weight heaves himself out and apologetically shakes me hand, repeating his apologies over and over again..

At this point I’m happy to be alive - the last thing I feel like is arguing or causing a scene, he admits he was at fault so there’s nothing to do except to wait for the police to turn up and ensure he tells them the same thing.

The police eventually do turn up, he admits everything to them and gets a traffic citation so he’ll have to go to court - I imagine it’ll be for the UK equivalent offence of “Driving without due care and attention + causing an accident” or something. The police file their report and I’m a free man, completely innocent.

Damage:

Bent signs and tyre marks:

Would have been great fun down there, sideways at 50mph, full tank of gas, propane etc, etc “:/”

So all in all, lucky to be here… A stark reminder that there’s always a chance of something lurking around the corner, ready to jump out and kill you - I’m pretty sure that if it had been a head on, one of us or both of us would have been very seriously injured or worse. I still don’t know how I avoided him, I’m satisfied that my reactions are as sharp as a hell, a difference of inches or a few fractions of a second could have seen a head on - or me in the bottom of a deep ditch…

I didn’t sleep well last night, all I could see was that horrid gold thing coming towards me on the wrong side of the road, over and over and over and over again…

I’ve done a lot of driving, my main car at home has 104k miles on the clock in the 3 years I’ve owned it - I’ve owned a very fast car and driven to all manner of places including around racetracks, off road etc - I guess you could call me an “experienced driver” but no amount of experience can prepare you for that, it just comes out of the blue from absolutely nowhere. A lot of times you can see accidents forming - somebody overtakes in a bad place, pulls out into traffic etc, but with this it’s a nightmare, no time to brake, no time to think - just eyes and instinct and reaction speed. One of the worst bits was right after the impact, the RV was like a bouncy castle trying to go in all directions at once - you steer into the slide and it goes the other way almost on two wheels, back and fourth from side to side - an absolute nightmare…

Lesson of the day, don’t become complacent when driving!

Right now I still feel a little grim, the Rental company have been in contact with the police and hopefully his insurance should pay for everything, the RV is *OK* I can’t open the side door because the awning has dropped a few inches blocking it, everything still works - its just a shame.

I went back to Bisti Badlands last night to shoot some of the Hoodoos, before coming back to Farmington this morning to email pictures and update this.

Before then I spent another night at white sands, where I had much better light, I went through 8 quickloads and found some good shots:

Then made a trip down to the VLA - which I found more interesting than photogenic, the 60mph sideways winds wouldn’t have been much fun staying out until sunset.

Not sure what I’m going to do for the next few days, Bisti Moon cycle is coming up so I guess I should try for that - not really in the mood for photography at the moment, feel a bit weird having come so close to serious injury/death, I’m sure I’ll survive,.

So anyway, I couldn’t be fucked with Roswell, the RV park was really good and it gave me a chance to stock up on supplies, empty tanks, take on water etc etc, however the place itself was just like Skegness but with plastic aliens everywhere instead of the Jolly Fisherman, along with more fast food and fatter people, and no sea of course.

I thought about going into town to buy some comedy alien souvenirs, but I just couldn’t be arsed - what would anyone want with a load of inflatable aliens anyway… <no suggestions from irc.quakenet.org #sqs please> :-]

So anyways, I checked the weather and it was showing isolated thunderstorms over “White sands” which was a 100 mile drive, I decided to do it as thunder storms over pure white gypsum dunes could look pretty good!

White sands itself is an active missile test range, they periodically close it from time to time, as they test all manner of missiles, jet engines, aircraft and spacecraft propulsion systems, you can actually see a large facility about 10 miles past the dunes through the desert haze, I imagine its something to do with the testing - I also imagine your head gets removed by a sniper if you go within a mile of it!

Made the 3 hour drive and had a look around, there’s a loop road that allows you to drive right into the middle of the dunes, it stays open until an hour after sunset so you can get some quite nice shots, I found it quite hard going on the first attempt.
I got a good sunset and lots of storm clouds, but shooting large format means you make every image count and it has to be right, I simply couldn’t find any form or curves in the dunes that would make a good shot, which resulted in me carting my camera over my shoulder, dune after dune, until I was a mile from the RV, thats a long way in ankle deep sand.
Sunset came and went and I hadn’t taken any, so back to the RV (Thank god for good sat nav, I have a Garmin 550T and without it I’d be fucked, its so easy to get lost in the dunes)
I think I need to get out there earlier, to find a better part of the dunes, I have a feeling I wasn’t in a very good place - so tomorrow I plan to scout out an area first.

White sands:

White sands doesn’t open until 7am, which pretty much rules out any sunrise shots as that’s an hour and a half late, so I went to check out Las Cruces - around 30 miles up the road, had a drive around then came back down, on the way I bumped into an old missile at the side of the road, to signify entry into the “White sands missile area”

Nike Hercules missile:

Down the road lies the “White sands Missile museum and park” where they have decommissioned missiles, sticking out of the ground like some insane garden of terror - I’ve always been mega interested in guns/missiles/war/bombs etc, so I thought it’d be good to go and check it out, admission was free too.

Only downside is you had to go through security and show them driving licenses/passports etc, but once your inside - its basically a massive town full of test facilities, defense companies/governments/all manner of people, come to test weaponry here, from standard guns to experimental energy weaponry like lasers, quite an interesting place!

So anyway, they have this garden full of missiles - they range from old stuff from the 40’s and 50’s all the way through to relatively modern stuff like the patriot system.

Garden of madness:

Tow: (Tube-launched optically tracked, wire-guided missile) Basically its fired out of a launcher over your shoulder, the “operator” then guides it to its target with a small controller, down a long thin wire that unravels from the back of the missile for up to 10000 feet - I think this is similar to the Javelin system we use in the UK and I think they use it mainly against tanks and other armour :

V5 surface to air:

Forgot the name of this one, but it’s one of the missiles capable of carrying a nuclear warhead:

155mm Howitzer, this is basically a field gun, used to shell basically anything, can fire all manner of ammunition, (HE - high explosive, chemical effect rounds, smoke, illumination)

Inside the loading chamber and barrel of the howitzer, showing the rifling which spins the projectile causing it to fly straighter due to gyroscopic stabilsation.

Patriot missile, if it flies it dies:

“I shit you not” is what this thing should be called, apparently it was some sort of decent vehicle they were going to use for landing on Mars, looks like the fucking thing came from Mars, if I was an alien I’d be pissing myself as that thing came through the atmosphere upside down and on fire.

So anyways, gonna try for another sunset at white sands now…. its very hot, around 90-95 <sweat>

Atmospheric analysis:

Constant components
(proportions remain the same over time and location)

Nitrogen (N₂) 78.08%

Oxygen(O₂) 20.95%

Argon (Ar) 0.93%

Neon, Helium, Krypton 0.0001%

Variable components
(amounts vary over time and location)

Carbon dioxide (CO₂) 0.038%

Water vapor (H₂0) 0-4%

Methane (CH₄) trace

Sulfur dioxide (SO₂) trace

Ozone (O₃) trace

Nitrogen oxides (NO, NO₂, N₂O) trace

You can breathe there too..

Very strange:

Eggs:

Welcome to the Bisti Badlands - somewhere I decided to checkout on the drive south to white sands, mainly to see what the access was like, as I intend to give this a proper go next week when the moonrise cycle should be optimal - weather permitting of course.

A bizarre twisted landscape of eroded mushroom shaped hoodoos, canyons, organic soil, strange rocks and petrified wood - they even found a T-Rex skull here once:

I bumped into a pair of other photographers from Denver Colorado (Scott and Kevin) we hiked around for a day checking out various parts of the Badlands, we found some very interesting places, so I’m hoping to go back around Friday.

At the moment I’m about 100 miles west of White sands, in the world famous “Roswell, New Mexico” Alien capital of the world - well in green inflatable ones perhaps… It also seems to be the home of fast food, there is more fast food here than anywhere I’ve ever seen and everybody is absolutely fucking gigantic, people don’t walk here they slither or roll like gastropods.

Take me to your braindeath:

Roswell seems to be made entirely from pictures of aliens painted onto every possible surface - walls, windscreens, the floor, wheels - everywhere I look I see endless grinning green aliens - it’s all completely un-alien, especially compared to the “Bisti Badlands” which is probably the most alien place I’ve ever seen, and I doubt there are many places like it anywhere else in the world.

I love science fiction, but this place is just taking the piss! its gone way too far to the point where its just “oh aliens, lulz” I’m going to check out the place later once I’ve done the laundry and restocked with water etc, will probably venture into town and have dinner inside a UFO full of 50 stone women mummified in green face paint.

Awesome :-)

So last night I drove into Chinle, AZ. It’s basically a shanty town of wrecked shacks, smashed pickup trucks and endless really dodgy looking people. Wild horses run wild across the road and graze freely outside the shops, dust and gigantic lumps of tumbleweed blow past - it really is a grim place.

Its also the first place where just about everybody is obese, just about everybody is native and they’re all absolutely gigantic, the stuffed car park and queuing out of the door at the burger king, partially tells its own story.

I drive into the local supermarket and try to park the RV somewhere, then I realise it’s a huge great white thing, stuffed full of camera gear - among rusting battered pickups and really grim looking people. “Fucked if I’m parking this here and leaving it” I think to myself, before driving off in the direction of Canyon De Chelly.

I stop off at the visitor centre and have a 5 minute walk around, taking notice of a big sign that reads “Visitors are urged to lock their vehicles and keep valuables out of sight, etc etc etc, there have been many thefts recently, etc etc” “No shit” I laugh to myself, before getting back on the road, for an afternoon drive of the South Rim.

Canyon De Chelly really is very pretty, gigantic sheer canyon walls almost perfectly vertical, dark and lighter streaks of colour run up and down almost like some sort of desert varnish.

I check out some of the viewpoints before realising the light isn’t right for taking pictures, so I take a few snapshots with the toy camera. “Spider Rock” is pretty awesome:

I stay the night in the “Spider Rock Campground” which surprisingly enough has WiFi internet (hence the blog updates)

Looking into the Canyon there are lots and lots of textures, so it gets me into black & white mode, I load some delta 100 into my darkslides using the changing bag everybody at work was taking the piss out of :-)

Also, when I was in Walmart the other day I found some weird frozen orange juice concentrate, it came in a can so I thought it might be good for mixing and taking on my hikes.. I’ve never seen anything like it before, so I thought it’d be worth a shot:

Just make a small incision, below the lid…:

That shit’s gonna eat through the hull!

??? :-(

So anyway I mixed it with some water and it tasted like shit, so I sent it screaming down the sewers, normal water for me :-(

Got going on the Hike, a 2 mile trek into the canyon descending 800ft down a steep winding path, towards the “White house ruins” one of the only places you can go without a guide in the canyon, I stopped off a few times to take some shots:

The canyon itself is amazing, swirling sandstone pretty much all the way down, although you’re not allowed to leave the path under any circumstances, no taking pictures of the dwellings, simply walk to the white house ruin then walk back.

I spent quite a bit of time shooting the ruins, mainly black and white with colour shots in mind for later when the light became less harsh. I found some more lizards again, in particular one which let me get quite close, this little snapshot camera is impressing me more and more, considering this chap was only a little bigger than my finger and the light was terrible:

Navajo traders packing up for the day:

So anyway, I made my way back up the 800ft canyon via the steep path, I’m quite impressed with my fitness all the circuit training and high intensity classes I’ve been doing for the last 6 months have really paid off, I went up the entire way with my heavy large format pack without stopping once it was tough, but I just kept pushing through the pain barrier - which is pretty hard when your pack weighs 65lb.

Afterwards I was starving and it was getting late, I thought I’d give “Burger King” a bash seeing as i’ve eaten practically zero fast food since I’ve been here. I had a “Super mega fucking lulz 500lb burger XXL +5” Jesus christ @ the size of it, I had a bucket of coke - stood near the machine filling it up, was like filling the RV with gas, no wonder everyone round here is massive! I felt really bad after eating it and still do - I’m not going to do that again for a long long time :-(

Heading off into New Mexico tomorrow, gonna haul ass down to “White sands national monument” for the white sand dune sunsets, should be good..

Yesterday evening I went on a one to one guided tour, inside monument valley with a Navajo guide, “David”.

He took me into the restricted areas and we got very close to some of the Mesas and Buttes, that make Monument Valley famous. They’re very impressive structures and you don’t see the full scale of them until quite close, many of them are also named after how they look:

This one is called “Sleeping Dragon”

This one is known as “The big chief”:

There are many different buttes with names, but the Dragon stood out the most for me. I spent quite a long time shooting black & white, as the textures are very strong and pronounced, we then made our way right to the back of Monument Valley to shoot upwards towards the Mesas.

Breaking out the 400mm Tele-Xenar, the longest lens I bought for the trip - taking a shot of the distant Mesa’s with what little cloud was left in the sky:

We then drove to the Totem, one of the bits I really wanted to shoot, it really is a great place, not bad for a point and shoot snapshot camera!:

I spent the rest of the evening working around the Totem, getting different shots of the Dunes. David is an expert around here and knows exactly which dunes to go to depending on the light.

Getting down low in the dunes, have to be very careful the camera bag doesn’t fill up with sand, keeping everything locked shut and not exposed to the wind needs to be part of your routine here. A bit of this sand getting in your lenses or camera could render it useless:

After the Totem, we drove back and I got some sleep. The only downer on the whole thing was the fact that “David” my guide, seemed to be the most miserable and depressed person I’ve ever met, he practically said nothing for the entire time we were driving around, it was quite difficult but I just got on with taking pictures.

In the morning, I shot Totem from a different set of dunes, the cloudless sky meant it was pointless doing a silhouette, although I did see rather a strange shaped butte - no prizes for what I’ve named it, (I left my Nikon in the car that morning, so had to resort back to the iphone for snapshots), I call this butte “The Rabbit” I’m sure the people of #sqs on irc, will be entertained:

We then went to shoot some of the arches and petroglyphs, (ancient Navajo rock art) although the arches were pretty spectacular, although difficult to photograph with it being a big hole in the rock, I was quite interested by the Petroglyphs though:

This one seems to be going for a dump, (god knows why):

Afterwards David dropped me back off at the visitor centre, refused to shake my hand and demanded that he be tipped.. “fair enough” like the $500 I gave the night before wasn’t enough.. so whatever I tossed him $20, If I’d have been in the UK I’d have probably told him to get fucked lol.. Perhaps it’s me, but it seemed to spoil the whole thing a little bit, he took me round everywhere without really saying anything, then “Give me more money” as soon as we get back. I dunno, maybe I’m an arsehole or something lol.

Anyway, time to head to Canyon De Chelly!

Well after last night’s sandstorm sent me screaming back to the RV wrapped in Paramo with my tail between my legs, today has been much much nicer.

I paid $500 for an afternoon till sunrise shoot, and tomorrow morning sunrise and early morning, with a private guide who will take me all the way into monument valley in a Jeep, to shoot the Totem and Yei bi chei, and other things like Petroglyphs etc.

The wind has dropped significantly, the guide was explaining that the cold front tends to come through, which brings the high wind for a day, once that has gone its fine for around another week - it generally doesn’t last long and is a well known part of spring.

View from the visitor centre this morning:

Yours truly :p

So far one thing I’ve noticed about America is they really know how to do radio stations, I’m driving around in places like this, and the likes of Hendrix, Led Zep, GNR, Rush, etc come on and its awesome, no more PHACKING JADGE JUWLES or VA PHACKING DAVE MHWILES SHAOW.. I could drive around here for days listening to the radio and looking at the scenery, it really is awesome.

Speaking of driving, I’m not sure if they have any kind of MOT system in the US as some of the cars seem to be - well, as James B back at work would say “Pro as fuck!” eg:

I haven’t taken that many photos this morning, shot a few black & whites at the Visitor centre, those big white fluffy clouds and deep blue skies should work quite well, although it is quite crowded and once somebody with a tripod starts, other people pitch up.

Get the fuck off of my obstacle!

Shooting black and white with a Lee 23a deep red, viewed from the ground glass, the colour absorbs the blue skies and darkens it to make the blue sky much blacker!

Anyways, need to load some more film before driving back to the visitor centre to meet “David” my guide for this evening and tomorrow morning, should be interesting!