Through the lens
The Annual New Mexico Photographic Art Show highlights 136 photographers
Albuquerque’s Jeff Danneels flew all the way to Scotland to shoot pictures of a rock. Bow Fiddle Rock, to be precise, a natural sea arch dating from 1,000 to 541 million years ago, so-named because it resembles a bow.
“That’s a famous landmark in Scotland,” the Sandia Labs retiree said. “I tried to do something different.”
He photographed the weathered formation using a long exposure of 20-30 seconds.
“It made the ocean look like a cloud,” he said. “The day we went there it was raining and misty the whole time.”
Danneels’ “Bow Fiddle Mystery” is one of 225 images by 136 photographers online in the Annual New Mexico Photographic Art Show at anmpas.com. Danneels first picked up a camera when he was in middle school.
“I never really studied it formally,” he said. “I had a friend who loaned me a camera.”
He moved to Albuquerque in 1985.
“The digital age has allowed us to do so many things we couldn’t do back then,” he said.
He took 6,653 images across two weeks in Scotland.
“That’s the beauty of digital,” he said. “It doesn’t cost you a penny.”
He’s planning a photographic trip to Tuscany in 2021.
Retired Sandia Labs electrical engineer Judy Beiriger turned to photography as a more creative expression when she quit working. She began shooting on hiking trips along the Rio Grande, as well as downtown architectural trips. Mentorship classes at the Enchanted Lens Camera Club taught her to think more critically.
“It’s taking the time to look at things instead of just rushing by,” she said.
When her husband was studying at the Czech Technical University, Beiriger photographed the Gothic and Baroque Church of the Assumption of Our Lady and Saint John the Baptist in Kutná Hora. Its sweeping staircase swirls into a spiral. The church is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
“It’s taking the time to absorb things and just contemplate and try to look for a different angle and point of view,” she said.
Last spring, Corrales’ Lawrence Blank aimed his lens at a trio of teenaged great horned owls nesting along the bosque.
“We had a lot of time to spend taking pictures of these owls at different stages of development,” he said. “They were nice enough
to have a nest in a tree right by one of the ditches. The mom and dad were nesting there in another tree.”
A part-time dentist, Blank has taken his camera on wildlife safaris in Africa, Alaska and the Yukon. A trip to Peru produced a portrait of a woman selling dolls on the streets of Cusco.
Blank learned to use a camera while working as a dentist in the Navy, setting up a camera club when he returned to the U.S. in both Philadelphia and Newport News, Virginia.
“It makes you see,” he said of the camera. “It makes you look around and take in what’s there. Living in New Mexico, just look around, there’s so much that’s incredible.”
He’s lived in Corrales for five years.
“We’ve got this view of the mountain from our house,” he said. “You could take a picture every day and it’s different.”