Rio Rancho
Going through my recent rural land photography archives while out in remote places in New Mexico, I was reminded of being brushed by a strong thunderstorm. It does not rain often in the winter in the greater Albuquerque area of New Mexico, much less a thunderstorm. Thus, my surprise at having to stay close to my Jeep Renegade Trailhawk in case a deluge broke from the sky or lightning started striking the ground.
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I have only put 1,500 miles on my Jeep Renegade Trailhawk since I got it last month and have not taken it more than an hour outside of Albuquerque, but I have been offroad a lot already. Nothing crazy like Moab-like trails or anything, but I have been using it as the Jeep, especially the Trailhawk version, was intended. I really like knowing I can go anywhere, do anything with this vehicle. However, I would not do everything you see in Jeep and other offroad vehicle commercials like driving down and across streams! Or causing tumult by trying to "crawl" over big rocks. To me this is destroying Nature. I do want the Jeep to help me reach places just not possible on foot, but by staying on established fire roads and unmaintained roads.
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Yet another week started out with time in the high desert of central New Mexico out on a rural land photography assignment for Hemingway Land Company in remote, northwest Rio Rancho. This area off of Northern Blvd was a little more to the southeast than I had been to before. It was sandier with less brush covering everything. It's rare to see sandy desert in this area of New Mexico. It caught my eye to make a photograph featuring the sand itself, as seen above.
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In full disclosure this is my Jeep Renegade Trailhawk I just got three weeks ago that is featured in this 4K drone video made in the Rio Rancho, New Mexico area on remote fire roads in the Southern Blvd area. Jessica was in the passenger seat and the pilot for this video, though I used the intelligent flight mode Active Tracking in the DJI Go 4 app, so all she had to do was to make sure the Mavic Pro kept the Jeep in frame. It was a lot of fun being out in the desert having an adventure and being able to make a unique home movie of sorts of this exploring!
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In my life a lot of rather big things happen rather suddenly. For example, two weeks before I landed in Seoul, South Korea, I had never been abroad before, I was about to attend Claremont Graduate University's PhD program in California, and it had never crossed my mind to work overseas. Not quite as dramatic as that, but in a similar fashion, getting a SUV to better match my work and personal lifestyle here in Albuquerque, New Mexico as a professional photographer and certified drone pilot, had only fluttered across my mind a few times. I was not even sure if it would be possible as I still had payments left on my 2013 Mazda3 sedan, which I totally loved and had zero problems with in owning it for 42,000 miles.
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The Remax ribbon cutting event in Rio Rancho was the first event I attended as an official member of the ABQWest Chamber of Commerce and the first to photograph with my awesome new Tamron 15-30mm f/2.8 VC lens! I needed that ultra-wide lens to get everyone in frame in that tight space (had not much room to back up myself). Then it's just timing the ribbon cutting just right!
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