I gave Laurie a gift card to get her hair colored and styled for her birthday. Since she’s studying Old Norse, her inner Viking pushed her into going for the lighter red in her hair, so now my beautiful wife is a Viking redhead. Like Gorm in the Icelandic Sagas, I might not be considered the wisest among men, but we were both wise enough to marry beautiful women. His wife, Thyri, was considered Denmark’s Adornment. My wife, Laurie, I consider my Crown Jewel of Corrales.
For those of you who didn’t think it quite right to do photographs of balloons in B&W, here are balloons up-close and personal, in early morning, stark, bright light, backlit, and in living color. Several balloons where launching from the “goat head” field at the top of our road, so I grabbed a few photos as I drove by on my way to work. All the photos were done with my iPhone, and the effect on the last photo is shooting through a dirty windshield.
I was messing around with the telephoto on Laurie’s camera, and got this shot of Guildenstern lounging on Laurie’s legs from across the deck.
The balloons stayed to the south of us today, but the sunrise through a sunflower beaten down by frost was quite nice.
The balloons finely flew over our house this morning. They were high and moving fast, but even though I’ve done hundreds of balloon photos over the years, it’s impossible not to photograph them. I decided they look great in B&W and the checkered balloon displays the full range of the gray scale.
While I’m on the old adobe theme, this old house on Corrales Road next to the Tijuana Bar is finally getting some attention.
Last year around this time, volunteers from the Corrales Historical Society helped prepare and apply new mud plaster to the historic Martinez house in Corrales. Little did they know they celebrated the annual event of applying mud to the Martinez House for the last time. The owner of the Martinez House must have grown weary of the age old-tradition, and rare practice, of mud plaster after this past summer’s brutal storms, because on Saturday, the Martinez House got a new coat of cement plaster to join the ranks of the vast majority of adobe structures in New Mexico that are plastered and stuccoed.
The first photo shows the north side of the Martinez House with its new plaster, while the second photo shows a similar shot of the wall as it had been prepared for the new coat of mud plaster last year. The third photo shows the south and east side of the house with its new “brown” coat of plaster. The fourth photo, from last year, shows the south wall with the newly applied mud plaster and the east wall waiting for new mud. The last photo is a view of the freshly plastered east an north walls of the house.
After the “brown” coat of plaster dries completely, they should apply a color coat of stucco that I assume will be very close to the color of the mud they covered with cement plaster. The cement plaster and stucco will provide a much more durable and weatherproof covering than the mud plaster, but the old adobe blocks do not breath properly under cement plaster/stucco finishes, which is not good for the blocks. But the durability and protection of cement plaster has obviously become preferable to the cost and burden of applying mud plaster every year, a finish that offers little protection from severe storms like we had this past summer.
I went out before sunrise to see if the test balloon from the balloon fiesta might fly over, which would mean the mass ascension would follow. No balloons flew over today, but I discovered Mother’s Rose glowing in the pre-dawn light. Then I came out of retirement from baking and, with René’s help, made Laurie a chocolate mocha cake for her birthday.
The summer monsoon was not nice to the mud plaster on the old San Ysidro Church in Corrales. The north side of the church is weathered and cracked with some large chunks of the mud plaster missing — washed off by driving rains in July and August. We were at the church for the opening of the Old Church Fine Art show, which runs through October 13th. Susan Graham, friend and fellow photographer, has two pieces in the show and won third place for her photo Floral Fireworks, a fantastic explosion of colors that has the appearance of a photo-realistic watercolor. Congratulations, Susan!
I thought this in a 1952 Chevrolet Styleline Coupe, but it turns out it’s an Oldsmobile, probably 1950. I would like to see it after the owner is finished restoring it.
Off Center & Not Even 