When I stood on Baldy Mountain in Philmont Scout Ranch decades....lifetimes ago, I looked south southwest towards Eagle Lake.  There was a storm moving over the lake, and I thought about how things must look from above.

100 miles or so further west southwest of there is Abiquiu Lake.  I would return to New Mexico 34 years later, on a trip as a birthday gift from my beloved at the time.  She knew and encouraged my growing passion for photography, had researched areas and planned the trip, all in secret to coincide with my birthday.  I’m sure I had mentioned my trip to the "Land of Enchantment" as a boy but couldn’t have shared the details, as they’re just coming to me now some 10 years after my gifted visit. 

From our base, we had wandered west towards Abiquiu.  I had no idea who Georgia O’Keeffe was when I was 13.  The only “painters” I really knew were a couple of old drunks in town.  (My friend Eldridge Bagley was in the area, but I only knew of him.) Once I knew the loose plans for the birthday trip, I began to research the area and learned a little more about O’Keeffe.  Stopping at Abiquiu Lake, I saw her El Pedernal, that I barely knew anything about.  I saw it a few more times as we ventured around the area, including Ghost Ranch where she had a summer home. 

A trip north from there led through the high desert to Tres Piedras, and the Rio Grande Gorge towards Taos.  Heading south from Taos back toward our stay, I stopped for some images. 

I stood along Hwy 68, watching the sunset, and an approaching storm.  As I made images of the storm and sunset, I glanced over my shoulder.  In the general direction of Old Baldy, the moon was rising over the Sangres.  I just thought my instincts were incredibly tuned in…looking back, I know there is more to it. 

The next day at Rancho de Taos and a church. I knew Ansel had photographed it, and Georgia had painted it. I walked up with care, aware of the ground I was standing on. I don’t know what else they did in the rooms across the road. I approached it from behind. Cautiously.

There is something about the blue skies in NM that amazes me. Even in bad lighting and hard times of day. The light there feels closer — less filtered. There’s more at work than I understand. Some things can’t be dimmed.

San Francisco de Asís Catholic Mission Church is one of them.  The white crosses and doors beamed against the stucco and incredibly blue sky.  I moved slowly around the church, studying it, moving, changing angles, waiting, snapping, moving.  I circled the church a couple of times, perhaps like those who may have approached it in harm in days way before now. 

I stood before it, moved away from it, then back again, but never entered.

Not out of defiance.

Not out of fear.

I had already traveled the direction it once pointed me. I knew what it had given me, and what it had asked in return. Standing there was enough.

There was another church further west that I wanted to visit on that trip.  We never got there.

We explored the village, and eventually moved on. The doors remained closed behind us — not as a refusal, but as an acknowledgment.