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BistiArt > Pithouse Life Atop Chapin Mesa, restored remnants of Anasazi pithouses let us see how the Anasazi lived during Basketmaker III time about 550-750 AD. From Chapin Mesa at Mesa Verde to Lowry Pueblo northwest of Cortez to Canyons of the Ancients and, finally, to many un-restored pithouses on Cedar Mesa, Anasazi lived in an early life style for about 200 years. A pithouse was dug into the ground a few feet, then covered with trees, brush, and dirt. This composite site is actually two pithouses. With a fire pit only 6 feet below a ceiling laced with sticks and timber repeatedly dried by many cooking fires – the Anasazi lived in a potential fire hazard. The bigger room is actually the first pithouse ~ which burned to the ground some time after 674 AD. Archeologists suggest pithouses had a normal life of 20 years; providing they escaped fire!
BistiArt > Citadel Even more remote than Moon House, Citadel housed about the same number of families on Cedar Mesa. A major difference was protected egress; this time, the Anasazi lived in a small structure along narrow causeway of rock. Steep canyon walls fall away to deep stream beds. Both ruins occupy the same canyon level; a sandy shale unit beneath the towering brow of a guardian cliff. Bears Ears, distant sacred mountains of the Ute, are about to witness another in a very, very long cycle of sundown's.
BistiArt > Fallen Roof Up canyon from Citadel, another small ruin underlies an unusual ceiling. Ancient sandstone layers are slowly breaking away from beneath an overhanging cliff’s brow. Plate sized remnants clutter the ground, lying where they landed. Evening sun's westerly reflection enhances a golden underbelly, with a sense of 'fallen roof...'.
BistiArt > God&#8217;s Hand An early autumn morning begins the next epoch, nearly 2 years later. New Mexico's summer had been unusually rainy. We were to have autumn in a calmer mode. Yet, filmy, first tendrils of an incoming storm riveted my eye! Knowing the clouds might not last very long, I scrambled among Hoodoos, seeking precarious foothold, camera angle, and dramatic expression. Indeed, I only had time for a few precious images with such a delicate central cloud beckoning upward in an evocative, alluring manner. I've been shooting the Bisti now for several years. I've learned you return for light changes, mood changes, and superbly enhanced drama. I've learned to return often to hone my photographic skills. I've learned not to carry a point-and-shoot in one hand, but to carry a heavy pack with camera, lenses, batteries, food, GPS, etc., safely stored, always at the ready! In ways, shootin' the Bisti has become a digital pilgrimage, a land in which I try out new, additional photographic learning skills! Bisti Hoodoos, water carved images from the Creator's hands, by themselves, can be rather spectacular. But, when you can combine them with startling clouds, delicate sunrise or sunset, or surreal Moonrise, they become stunning backdrops. As fast as the clouds were moving, I scrambled just to find a hand-held position. Click, one image in the bag. Quick examination; in my haste, the shutter speed was wrong ~ the image was blurred. Hurry! Click, and this fantastic image literally sprang onto the flash card. In that literal instant between shutter-clack and green-light card flash, I knew the name for this image "God's Hand...!" The new photo gallery BistiArt.smugmug.com, has a facility where viewers can click on a Green Thumbs UP to show their individual approval for an image, placing it in the Most Popular Photo category. For the past 30 days, God's Hand has received high marks, typically being in the top number chosen. So I thought, "Let's submit God's hand to a camera club digital image judging contest!" On Thursday, January 18, 2007, God's Hand received a judge's vote for 2nd Place in the digital image contest! But, that's not all! During development of BistiArt, an interested bystander decided to add it to her collection of black-and-white prints. So, it would seem the public likes it whether in dramatic color or startling black-and-white! And, on another road... Robert Frost's paraphrased immortal lines I took the road less traveled, And that ...has made all the difference!" I'm now leading sponsored tours for photographers into the Bisti Badlands. Check out the Bisti Tours section at BistiArt.smugmug.com. So, come to the Bist and 'make all the difference!' ©2004-2007, Images and Text, Chopawamsic LLC, All Rights Reserved
BistiArt > Bisti Badlands One autumn mid-afternoon, my path branched and I began a new road. As I look back now, it's very reminiscent of Robert Frost's immortal lines, "Two roads diverged in the woods, And I, I took the one less traveled by, And that ...has made all the difference!" A point-and-shoot camera, mid-afternoon, a gorgeous Bisti Badlands hoodoo, and the luck of the Irish ~ these components would make such a tremendous difference. A hoodoo is created when erosion removes a soft shale underpinning from a delicate, yet stronger sandstone cap. At first, with an eye level near 6 feet, I could only see the hoodoo and the faraway background, just not together. I moved around it several times, staring at it, wondering, "What's the best way to shoot this thing?" Finally, I realized, "Why don't you just lie down and shoot that delicate Hoodoo's tip above those incredibly dramatic Red Dog Hills in the background?" So, shot number 0890 zipped to the flash card... A year later, I would enter this JPEG image in the 5th Annual Photo Contest for the New Mexico Magazine. One day, a friend walked in with the most recent New Mexico Magazine and pitched it on the table. "Look at this...!" I picked up the magazine, looked at the cover, then thought "I've seen this picture before." Seeing my uncomprehending look, excitement rampant in her voice, she said, "It's your picture!" Dumbfounded, I looked on page 3. It said something to the effect 'Out of a thousand photos submitted to the contest, they chose Bisti Badlands for their January, 2006, Cover...' The Bisti Badlands is a small, hidden jewel inset in the Four Corners Country, land of the ancient Anasazi, south of Farmington, NM. Once site for shoreline of an inland sea, dinosaurs and rain forests inhabited this country millions of years ago. Now, the Bisti is a wilderness, capturing various surreal art forms from the Creator's imaginative hand. One out of every five visitors is international. A superb photographer, recently trekking with me in the Bisti, said, "There's just no way I could've found everything you've shown me, if I were by myself here for just three days!" The Bisti became my photographic laboratory. Starting from a point-and-shoot with hand-held shots, I'm now in a professional 14 bit DSLR with better lenses and a panoramic head on a tripod. Instead of shooting just daytime shots, I've graduated to much more complicated Moonrise shots at sundown, with Bisti Hoodoos carving spectacular epitaphs in difficult, multiple f-stop, bracketed images, and High Dynamic Range (HDR). And I've move onward from Photoshop Elements 3 to CS3. And, on another road... I'm now leading sponsored tours for digital photographers into the ancient Anasazi ruins of the Four Corners area, SW United States. You learn how to shoot, whats the best CS3 workflow, and allow your imagination to run with HDR... Check out the Anasazi Adventures section at BistiArt.smugmug.com. So, I think you can now more clearly see Frost's paraphrased immortal lines "I took the road less traveled, And that ...has made all the difference!" ©2004-2008, Images and Text, Chopawamsic LLC, All Rights Reserved
Pithouse Life
Atop Chapin Mesa, restored remnants of Anasazi pithouses let us see how the Anasazi lived during Basketmaker III time about 550-750 AD.
From Chapin Mesa at Mesa Verde to Lowry Pueblo northwest of Cortez to Canyons of the Ancients and, finally, to many un-restored pithouses on Cedar Mesa, Anasazi lived in an early life style for about 200 years.
A pithouse was dug into the ground a few feet, then covered with trees, brush, and dirt. This composite site is actually two pithouses. With a fire pit only 6 feet below a ceiling laced with sticks and timber repeatedly dried by many cooking fires – the Anasazi lived in a potential fire hazard. The bigger room is actually the first pithouse ~ which burned to the ground some time after 674 AD.
Archeologists suggest pithouses had a normal life of 20 years; providing they escaped fire!
BistiArt > Pithouse Life Atop Chapin Mesa, restored remnants of Anasazi pithouses let us see how the Anasazi lived during Basketmaker III time about 550-750 AD. From Chapin Mesa at Mesa Verde to Lowry Pueblo northwest of Cortez to Canyons of the Ancients and, finally, to many un-restored pithouses on Cedar Mesa, Anasazi lived in an early life style for about 200 years. A pithouse was dug into the ground a few feet, then covered with trees, brush, and dirt. This composite site is actually two pithouses. With a fire pit only 6 feet below a ceiling laced with sticks and timber repeatedly dried by many cooking fires – the Anasazi lived in a potential fire hazard. The bigger room is actually the first pithouse ~ which burned to the ground some time after 674 AD. Archeologists suggest pithouses had a normal life of 20 years; providing they escaped fire!
Pithouse Life
Atop Chapin Mesa, restored remnants of Anasazi pithouses let us see how the Anasazi lived during Basketmaker III time about 550-750 AD.
From Chapin Mesa at Mesa Verde to Lowry Pueblo northwest of Cortez to Canyons of the Ancients and, finally, to many un-restored pithouses on Cedar Mesa, Anasazi lived in an early life style for about 200 years.
A pithouse was dug into the ground a few feet, then covered with trees, brush, and dirt. This composite site is actually two pithouses. With a fire pit only 6 feet below a ceiling laced with sticks and timber repeatedly dried by many cooking fires – the Anasazi lived in a potential fire hazard. The bigger room is actually the first pithouse ~ which burned to the ground some time after 674 AD.
Archeologists suggest pithouses had a normal life of 20 years; providing they escaped fire!
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Contact Joe at BistiArt@geocompa.com for more Anasazi Adventure Tour & HDR Workshop Details!
©2004-2009, Photos and Text, Chopawamsic LC, All Rights Reserved.