Thomas Bethune's Photographic Journal

In 2007 I had the opportunity to photograph at the Pecos National Historic Park. This was about the time that I started to take digital photography seriously. I no longer had a darkroom, and had sold off most of my photography gear. I felt ready to step into the steep learning curve of fine art digital photography. I was going to learn of lot of technical skills in order to produce gallery grade photographs. I had a wonderful to use new digital camera, and here at Pecos, I had the subject matter to work with.

This rendering in color just did not satisfy my previsualized notion of how to present it.

For me this had to be done in black and white.

This rendering was a step in the right direction, but not quite there.

This variation of the ruins was to me a stronger composition. This has become one of my all time favorite images. At this point in my photography, I felt that I had finally reached the point with digital photography that to me equaled and surpassed what I could do with film. I used a Sony R1 camera, and processed the image in Lightroom and Photoshop.

This was my starting point on working this photograph.