Snow and Sky at San Carlos Cemetery

 

The winter storm that barreled from New Mexico to Maine last week dropped about 4" of snow in the Albuquerque area, making travel slow and dangerous.  (Some of our towns don't have any snow removal equipment; they just rely on the sun to melt it all!)

But as the storm moved out, the snow was followed by a deep blue sky with some beautiful clouds, which provided a rare (for New Mexico) combination of snow and sky for me to photograph at nearby San Carlos Cemetery.  

The photographic challenge with this cemetery (and many others) is getting visual separation -- that is, having a clear, distinguishable subject for a photograph when the background (or foreground) is filled with other objects.

For example:

You would probably guess that the headstone for Ginio Trujillo is the subject of this image, but it's got a lot of competition for the viewer's attention.  

Similarly, you'd probably say that the angel in the center of the image below is the subject, yet here too there is a lot of competition for your attention:

My best strategy for achieving separation is to find a point of view that leaves most (if not all) of the other stuff out of the frame.  Frequently -- especially in cemeteries -- that means getting on the ground and shooting upwards from below, with the sky as background.  So here's Ginio Trujillo . . .

 

and that angel . . .

On this day, fortunately, I had the benefit of fantastic clouds in what ordinarily in New Mexico would be an empty and uninteresting sky.  Thus . . .

In the image above, you might notice a colorful figure in the background (to the left of the leaning cross).  This statue is one of my favorite subjects in San Carlos Cemetery, so I made my way over to her:

Just as I got close to her, a big cotton-y cumulus cloud covered the sun, and suddenly, in effect, I had "blue hour" light.  Framing her against the streaky cirrus clouds, I got my shot:

If you would like to see these images in a larger format, please visit my photography website, Todos Juntos Photography, by clicking here.

Enjoy!