Southwest Ruins: Chaco Canyon Series
I recorded these photos at Chaco Canyon sometime around 1994. In those days I used a Vivitar film camera and I think it was one in the XV series. I bought it used. I don't remember the lenses I had but there were two -- a prime and a telephoto. They were the bayonet mount like the Pentax K.
In those days I was shooting almost exclusively with 200 ASA slide film for outdoor photos. The pictures in this collection were all on slides and I scanned them into digital format with a Canon Cano-Scan 9000F scanner in 2016. It had a slide adapter and offered a wide range in output resolutions.
These slide pictures lived through hot and cold, storage and moving for 22 years before I digitized them. Even after the conversions I did quite a bit of processing to get them more presentable.
This photo was badly washed out with low clarity, and no matter how much adjusting I did, it just wasn't getting anymore interesting to look at. I applied an oil paint style to it which helped by overwriting the existing textures, creating soft forms and interesting plant profiles. This is one option for improving otherwise beat up old photos so they still have some life.
This is a closeup of the rock work at Chaco Canyon. The Anasazi stacked much of these without using mortar or mud. They created dense living structures that must have served them well in a climate of raw extremes.
This is a pulled back view of the same structure as above. If you look at the right side of the picture you will see some of the stones were supported with what looks like some type of mortar. I think that was modern rework done to preserve the structure's integrity.
Living at Chaco must have been an intense communal experience. Here you can see living spaces separated by a walkway. Each "home" had a fireplace and niches where residents must have stored personal possessions.
The Anasazi at Chaco Canyon built some very tall structures and they oriented windows and doors to capture the intoxicating northern New Mexican light.
Here, you can see the thicknesses of the walls and the way the Anasazi managed to blend the many different styles and sizes of stones into a cohesive unit. This photo still has that unmistakeable green blue sky you often see in old slides. But, the rock work is old too, so it is fitting.
