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| Mother of Game Panel |
Looking back while looking forward, music runs through everything I do. In my car, solo, on a drive, the stereo is pegged at 25, the volume level that supports the speakers not distorting as I have “speed volume” selected at MAX, the faster I go, the louder the music.
On this trip, the Gorillaz were on rotation and the song…
November is good temps for the desert Southwest.
Wow, MF Doom, the lyrics, yeah! Windshield time on this trip was nice and filled with smoke (a controlled burn) and big sky, straight long dirt roads. Often a big part of my trip is the road and the stereo soundtrack impacts my mood. This trip was stunning and I feel that I’m capturing it. The images,the feel of the introspection while on the road, hiking and afterward. Part of my trip is writing, getting my thoughts out of my head and on this medium. But it’s virtual, you can’t fold it up, it needs a battery or a cord.
The below pictures are from my Nikon D780 with the Nikkor 18-35 f3.5-4.5 AF-S G ED FX
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| A controlled burn on the 260 |
Big desert vistas are breeding dreaming grounds with a soundtrack. it started with Sergio Leone and Ennio Morricone, the Spaghetti Westerns, desert vistas, ghost towns, indigenous people…
Today is different. The Gorillaz feature artists and MF Doom is rapping his ideas on this song, one of my favorites. I looked up the lyrics and yes, many of his ideas come through. What does this have to do with the Mother of Game Panel?
If you have been following along, this is all part of The Idea. Although archeology, blogging, photography and music, the idea is to fill my head with images. I want to paint when I can’t go and do the cool things like this.
You see, I use music to imprint a time in my life. I’ll take a new album and purposefully listen to it on a trip, Frank Ocean on a trip to Japan, the Gorillaz “Humanz” on a trip to Kauai to fly fish for trout in the rainforest. When I play those albums in the future, I remember the time, the location, where I was while I’m in the future. I know what I’m doing with it, it’s been happening since I was a kid and now I just use it and go with the flow.
Music fills my time on the road. Sometimes it’s Chopin, other times it’s MF Doom or the Gorillaz. If you are a human, I’m pretty sure you can relate to listening to music, in my case, volume up high, alone, driving to my destination.
The highway goes and a country road unrolls, GPS interrupts the music, turn here, prairie road, X Mode on, whoa, no previous tracks. It’s been a while since someone has driven down this desolate road. I am finally on the last few yards of road and I turn around and park. I’m a couple of hundred yards shy of the GPS parking waypoint, I can do the heel toe express, no problem, I’m about a mile away from my destination.
I’m very nervous. I shouldn’t be. The previous map study has been good. I’m shaking a little. If I had my flask, I would hit that but it’s at home. All systems are firing at one hundred percent as I get out and walk to the back of the Forester’s hatch, lid open and I pack my cameras quickly shouldering my pack.
It’s too heavy and I’m too excited to take out more gear than I need.
Way too much gear, and the wrong gear. I took one walking stick, nope, I need the pair as it is a far easier technique of rhythm to walk, hike with. From now on I will take my iPhone (for safety - satellite comms) and as a back up camera, my DSLR and one film camera. I’ll use zoom lenses to cut down on the amount of extra gear. If I want a certain look, I can mount that lens on one of my cameras.
I’m going to set up a dedicated backpack for this. This is my everyday carry pack and it has a lot of gear not necessary for desert petroglyph travel. I’ll get a hydration pack, Camelback makes some good ones.
The hike in causes me to think…
I’ve done some pretty cool shit in my life, skateboarding giant central Arizona pipes, surfed pumping waves on the North shore, surfed down steep champagne powder gulleys in Utah, so high going cross country in my hang glider, ungodly high above Sedona landing near Flagstaff. My jobs in industrial stained glass, heart surgery, opening a college of cardiovascular sciences, and my career in cardiology. But nothing pales my family, children, a life with a wife partner helping and being a part of family, and friends.
This adventure is turning out just as cool as those.
I get to the edge of the little river canyon and I start to look. The GPS indicates that I’m close. Carefully stepping on desert that seems fragile, there are no signs of previous foot traffic. I look back and see my tracks, I feel bad but I’m careful not to step on any plants, I try to walk on hard-pack and rocks minimizing my presence. The rain or snow will erase my track. I care. I look over the edge of the ravine again and again…
“Fuck, there it is”
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| iPhone 16 Pro - first glimpse |
I’ll have to scramble down, no obvious easy way but with this pack, it’s not that easy anywhere.
Whoa, I lay my pack down on a flat boulder.
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| iPhone 16 Pro - I took way too much with me |
I am realizing that this panel is quite special. In anything that piques my interest, I buy books. I usually end up with the best authors and I look at the bibliography and find more books. I’ve begun to purchase archeology books on my area. Anyway my favorite books on petroglyphs is “Tapamveni” and the author/photographer’s name is Ekkehart Malotki. The “about me” on his book is a picture of him at this panel. Out of the thousands of sites he could have chosen, he picked this one.
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| Ekkehart Malotki - photographer/ author |
Unreal.
I’m not special, I don’t think anything other than I’m just a guy mixing passions to cook up a life of adventure. I’m super happy to be where I’m at and as I lay here on the couch cooking up tomorrow’s adventure while reporting on my last one, I’m realizing just how cool it is to be able to have interest in an area such as the indigenous peoples in my area of the world. I don’t want people going out to these places to desecrate them, to steal artifacts, to destroy the history of our land.
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| Selfie - iPhone 16 Pro |
Which reminds me, the recent government shutdown prevents me from visiting an adjacent area to photograph more petroglyphs. I’m upset, yeah, about the stupidity and all that goes around the government shutdown but not upset because I’m going to go back here with a friend. Hopefully with a friend that will understand why I am taking them and just how important they are to my life.
The below pictures are from my Nikon D780 with the Nikkor 18-35 f3.5-4.5 AF-S G ED FX
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| The AF-S Nikkor 18-35 f3.5-4.5 G ED FX flared… |
Argh! A few of my close ups have blue blobs! Lens flare. So disappointing. My Nikkor 15mm f3.5 AIS is notorious with some photographers calling it the blue blob monster. But I took the only picture that I had enlarged and framed with it and no blue blobs. I just have to be mindful of lighting. As a photographer, that’s my job. I’m doing this job for free so I have no one to blame except myself. Learning to become a good photographer is not fast and easy, it’s going to take experiences. Fortunately, I took enough pictures that I got what I came for, good images.
Speaking of good images, the act of visiting, being in the presence of, studying, viewing, thinking, it’s all part of the idea. The MOG figure is indelibly in my head, aspects of the Rochester Panel, right there too, Molen Reef, Sego Canyon, the figures, the patterns, it’s all coming together, the whirls, spirals, snakes, soon I’ll be sitting in class learning about color composition and then taking oil painting class, the Idea is taking shape.
Leave no trace, so important, I only left some footprints in the dirt. I avoided stepping on plants so the dirt got the impression. Mind you, much of my path was on rock, quite a bit of my walk was on hardpack and rock so there was zero trace.
Why do I know that?
As a young man, I was an infantry medic. Not just an infantry medic but an Expert Field Medical Badge holder. That, along with the first group of civilian trained EMT put me first to be picked on missions. Anytime the infantry trains, a medic must be in attendance. I’ve travelled quite a bit and have attended many special training exercises. One that comes into play is a tracking school I attended in Malaysia. For a solid month, I was trained how to track humans. We returned demonstration, trained, tracked. I’m cognizant of my steps, I always have been, especially when it matters.
Rochester Panel was ten hours by car and a twenty minute hike. When I arrived, I didn’t touch the rock. I didn’t even think to. I see pottery on the ground, I see with my eyes. If I find a point, I leave the point there. I recently bought an arrowhead, a non indigenous small bird point. I was going to leave it in the Forester just to have it because they are cool. After thinking about it, I’m going to throw it away. Literally, in the rocks of my alley. If I’m ever stopped in any scenario, the last thing I want is to have to explain to the ethics police my ethics and how this is a modern bird point and not one I found, picked up and kept. My integrity is intact, I take only pictures and I do not trespass.
I’m friends with the people that are gone. Not so much with the people with attitudes. I’m not paying any retribution for being a white man. I didn’t do that. I’m not going to think every native person is going to understand how respectful I am. Grave robbers and thieves drive the same roads, I’m not them but I am white. I now know prejudice, it’s a horrible feeling. I’ve always known but I’m not that, I am friends with the Dine’ wether they like it or not.
I am bigger than prejudice, I have to be.
I’m taking nothing but pictures and the dust on my clothes home with me. I didn’t even open a gate to get here…
Ughh.
Life is imperfect but I’m learning to embrace the imperfection.
In the new year I am joining a local archaeology society. I will listen to learn a deeper meaning of how to study. I’m truly interested in how people survived in my area. I can’t stand it in the summers here. It’s just horribly hot but when November comes…
The below B&W images are from Ilford HP5+ 400 asa, Nikon FE2, Nikkor 35-200 f3.5-4.5 AIS
The pictures below are from Kodacolor 100, Nikon F3 - Nikkor 50mm f1.2 AIS @ f8
The below pictures are from a Nikon F100 - AF-S Nikkor AF-S 50mm f1.8 G FX and Kodak E100
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It was an amazing adventure. Pictures from the iPhone, my D780, the F100, FE2 and F3. I will be posting which camera took which shots when I get them back from scan/dev. I shot a few frames of black and white too!
The trip was epic. I will come back with a friend next time and a lot less gear.
From a social media post, “ November has come…5:59a in a cheap hotel in Flagstaff, pecking out one finger on my phone an epic adventure I am resting from.A Internet acquaintance told me about it. I knew he trusted me snd Im worthy of it.
I got in the Forrester and drove 3 hours into some desolate desert, then 30 mins on even more minor desert roads then a final 20 mins of never maintained fading track.
I got out of the car shaking a little, packed three film cameras, water, two digital cameras, got the GPS going and started walking across the high desert chaparral.
I’ve done some pretty cool shit in my life, skateboarding giant central Arizona pipes, surfed pumping waves on the North shore, surfed down steep champagne powder gulleys in Utah, so high going cross country ungodly high above Sedona landing near Flagstaff. My jobs in industrial stained glass, heart surgery, opening a college of cardiovascular sciences, and my career in cardiology. But nothing pales my family, children, a life with a wife partner helping and being a part of family, and friends.
What am I writing about?
Oh.
I’m thinking this as I walk looking at the piñon and little things in the dirt from people hundreds, thousands of years ago. I’m an amateur archeologist photographer. My new journey and it is so cool.
I remember catching my first glimpse of the panel. I remember saying, “Fuck, there it is.”
I had to scramble down to it. If I fell, I am so screwed. Days later if I survived, I would look up…
Nobody is going to fall Adam, stay on task.
Social media post: got it.
I took a selfie.”
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