TexasGirl Photography

This is a moment in my life where I am very grateful for the things that I went ahead with: plans kept, adventures made, decisions carried out. For example, I am very grateful that we went ahead and spent the entirety of last week at Big Bend. The last time I was there, in 2014, a series of camera malfunctions / snafus (which you can read about in other posts of mine) left me with a sense of unrequited creation. In other words, my photos from the last trip were such a disaster that I had been hopping from one foot to the other waiting to go back and try again. For six years.

We used to think Big Bend was so far away. After the last few road trips of ours, where the final day turns into a marathon 11-12 hours of driving just to get our tails home at last, the highway portion of the trip felt pleasantly short.

I’m 10 rolls in to my developing process, all B&W so far, and haven’t finished scanning them, but I wanted to share this one that resonates with me in contrast to its predecessor. In 2014, we hiked the trail at Grapevine Hills in rather excruciating heat (it was June), with a sweet and mostly charming 6 year by our sides. The light was bad when we reached Balanced Rock, but of course I still asked her to pose. The wonky viewfinder on the Graflex XL that my Dad had loaned me meant that I was barely satisfied with the result: you can’t really even see the balancing rock. Doh.

This time, on a gorgeous March day (it was still hot, since we didn’t arrive until mid morning and my constant photographing made the 2.2 miles last about 3 hours), Walt and I made the hike alone. I was carrying a bajillion cameras on my back – NO REGRETS – including the beautiful Ondu Pinhole multiformat 120 that a friend recently gave me. With pinhole, you’d better believe you’re going to get the whole dang rock formation in the frame, even from close proximity. Not only that, I managed to bring home the sun from that day as well.

So there you have it: then, and now. Six years later, I have a photograph that makes me happy. Hopefully it brightens your day a little bit too “The darker the night, the brighter the stars, The deeper the grief, the closer is God!” – Fyodor Dostoevsky