Canyon Keeper

Just outside Taos, New Mexico a tree grows and watches over the canyon behind it.  It’s a noticeable tree primarily because it stands alone along a curve of the road, just as the vastness of Taos is revealed around that bend.  Every time we drive that curve, I look to this tree – kind of as a marker of groundedness.  It has become a favorite.  Much life passes by it at 70 miles an hour; it’s good to stop once in a while to survey the tree at closer range.

Canyon Keeper

16×20 inch print on Etsy

All rights reserved

I think I want to mark this print as a limited edition, but need to learn more about this process.  As I’m finding out, there is SO much more to photography than just pushing the shutter button.  I rather like the journey, though, the curves in the road, the learning and the growing. 

I will have had this particular digital camera for two years come this Christmas (thanks to my husband who gave it to me as a gift); much has transpired since I decided to see what I could do with that new tool.  Prior to enjoying the feel of a camera resting comfortably in my hands, I was interested in drawing, in writing (even some poetry!), in playing with paint, and in working with wood.  I even had a small business where I designed and made primitive items out of wood and other objects.  I’ve quilted, crocheted, knitted, cross-stitched, sewed………..but nothing quite feels like holding the camera and looking at the world through its viewfinder.  I see many wonderful things there, in that little window.  Like the tree, outside Taos, watching over a canyon.  Sorry to wax poetic, but somehow in all of the other ways I have used my hands and creativity, I have not found whatever it is that I have found while using the camera.  It has made me stop and pay attention to the canyon keepers in this world.  Maybe that’s what it’s all about.  Stopping and looking.  Not whizzing by at 70 mph.

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