White Mesa, Albuquerque

I'm in the process of improving my ultralight landscape kit. I picked up the Sigma 19 and 30mm f/2.8 on a fire sale several years ago, but I've never really been satisfied with them, so I've decided to sell them and I've replaced them with the Panasonic 12-32 f/3.5-5.6 and 35-100 f/4.0-5.6, purchased very cheaply off the gray market. This improves my kit for my purposes because these lenses are not just freakishly compact, but also because of the lens' built in IS (as the IS built into the E-PM2 never seems to help make photos less blurry and it even seems to induce shutter shock, the only time I ever see shutter shock it's with the 40-150 on the E-PM2 with IS turned on). As an aside, the 35-100 also improves my dual-camera setup—

These collapsing Panasonic lenses lack closeup ability, so to fill that gap I'm just using my iPhone SE (which also makes a great camera for very low angles))

Unfortunately I had to send my E-PM2 off to be repaired due to a premature shutter failure, so on my this trip I used the E-M1. Haven't even gotten to try my 35-100 on the E-PM2, and I won't get to for another week.

The location is the White Mesa Bike Trails, northwest of Albuquerque, NM. These bike trails are on BLM land sandwiched between the Ojito Wilderness (most famous as the home of the Seismosaurus, the longest dinosaur fossil ever discovered; also a location featured recently in Better Call Saul) and Zia Pueblo. Geologically a very compelling location, this mesa has a gypsum capstone. The entire surface is littered with bright white stones and crystalline selenite. A nearby mining operation is removing the capstone of a neighboring mesa, supplying gypsum to a local drywall manufacturer.

I brought a tripod with me, but as I was hiking with a partner I never really had time to set it up. Everything is handheld. I also took this time to adopt a new black and white conversion method.

Cabezön Peak in background, a volcanic feature in nearby Rio Puerco Valley.

I liked the painterly look of this shaky exposure. Just happy accidents.

Thanks for looking!