Views and Feelings From Vista Del Malpais
©Bert Gildart: My father’s words rang in my ear as we parked our vehicles at Vista del Malpais and then stepped out into a windy evening. “Stick with your objectives,” he always said, and ours was to enjoy the incredible vista of badlands offered from THE VISTA as we munched on a locker full of cheese and snacks and then wash it all down with several fat bottles of red wine. All this, of course, set up the conditions for much philosophical discourse.
Forgive me Betty for including an image that makes your checks look swollen, but you’d just munched a slab of cheese and the other photos were blurred because of the wind. Image on Right: our “fort” against the wind.
The setting was absolutely incredible but the wind was creating a challenge, making it hard to even sip wine, but Tony Feathers was inventive. “Let’s do like we did when we were kids and make a fort.”
So that’s what we did. We positioned our vehicles beneath several ocotillo bushes now touched with their fiery torches of red, opened the doors, sat in the lee of the wind and watched the sun slice the badlands into a myriad of tiny entities — and downed our bottles of wine. Then we discussed our place in the universe.
Dad, we were sticking to our objectives.
View from Vista del Malpais
We sat there until dark, then returned along the four-wheel drive road to the state road. We bid Tony and Betty a sad farewell (“Stay in touch – see you next year.”), and then we drove to one more place I wanted to photograph. I wanted to capture THE DRAGON beneath one of the famous Borrego “dark sky nights.”
THE DRAGON, beneath one of Borrego's famous "dark sky nights."
By now the wind had died down and my long time exposure complemented the feelings of immense space and a timeless universe that badlands, wine and clear skies can create.
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AIRSTREAM TRAVELS FOUR YEARS AGO:
Night Photography in Organ Pipe
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