I have been thinking maybe we should go to Colorado for a while!… maybe this "red" is getting, should I say, a bit "old"? I wonder if it affects the senses after a while as there is so much psychology in parallel with that color!

[Quote] "Red is the most arrogant, attention-grabbing, and energetic color of the spectrum. In terms of temperature, it is the warmest color. Emotionally, we relate red to love and passion. Red is the color associated with our hearts: roses are red, and so are boxes filled with chocolates on Valentine’s Day. It is the color that excites us most and makes us take notice–the color of stop signs, fire engines, and alarms. Red is an in-your-face color that demands your attention, not a color that sits idly by waiting for you to take notice. Because red excites us, it is not the choice of color in psychiatric wards, prisons, or hospitals. Excessive subjection to red can lead to agitation, anger, and even violence."[Quote]

Maybe as the shadow of this "duck" seemingly agitated? None of that however "with us", regardless of its analysis, when in Monument Valley, or in Utah for that matter or anywhere else. "If you were Homeless, you would be Home now"… we are always Home. The surroundings are such an attention grabber, if you take your time that is, the eyes never rest and the camera never gets a break! We end up riding the loop a couple times, once for sunset and once as soon as the sunrise occurred, for some reason I have not been able to get up early lately.

Magical! Isn’t? Thinking that at one time the entire empty space was in level with the upper Mesa of those Monuments. They are the "Mittens", with an elevation of 5,564′ above sea level. Before human existence, the Park was once a vast lowland basin.  For hundreds of millions of years, materials that eroded from the early Rock Mountains deposited layer upon layer of sediments which cemented a slow and gentle uplift generated by ceaseless pressure from below the surface, elevating these horizontal strata quite uniformly one to three miles above sea level.  What was once a basin became a plateau. Natural forces of wind and water that eroded the land spent the last 50 million years cutting in to and peeling away at the surface of the  plateau. The simple wearing down of altering layers of soft and hard rock slowly revealed the natural wonders of Monument Valley today. I just find it fascinating.

This was the main reason to camp right on location as they say! Witness and feel the passing of time and playing with the camera. We met this gentleman I had seen stopped by the road I think a day earlier, taking photos a bit off the black top. I can always tell from their equipment the seriousness of their hobby or maybe even as it sometimes turn out, be a professional. (I just wish those pros would send us Spirit’s pictures when they take them as they say they will! Never happens… still waiting…). We had a nice conversation about Photography, an interesting one that I always debate. This gentleman, including a real printer, has most likely spend in the neighborhood of $30,000’s worth of equipment, probably more, and is launching himself into selling his Photos… The debate was the Software used to enhance them all… a bit over $1000’s worth of it.

I admit at times enhancing some contrast, rarely saturation, zooming and cropping is fun… but there are no more boundaries as his bottom line was "there are no more Photographers left, but Artists with Software". Of course composition is of importance, even that can be changed. I can accentuate colors through my own camera and that was his argument about "tweaking" the photos. I take a lot of pictures, most of them are deleted and some do make it to the Blog, it all depends if they are meant to be documentation of the day or to be chosen for any kind of Artistic value. It would be silly to ride all day without a single photo because the sun was not where it should be for a nice shot… but then again, when it is, that is when the fun begins as it did those couple days spend in Monument Valley. The purpose of the visit "was" pictures… and of course, as usual, I was not the only one having fun taking pictures!

Spirit meets many people! We ride around a bit, stop, walk around a bit, much water, I don’t look for pictures… they are there or not and I think that is the satisfaction of it, the element of surprise because I know that every morning, if one really looks, something, sometime, will jump up into one’s vision as a "frame" ready to be snapped… Of course I myself never get tired of taking Spirit’s pictures!… trying to get his best profile.

A little bit of cooking before the ride, nothing to speak off really as we need to go to Blanding to provision, there is nothing in Bluff. Playing with the local dogs and it was a good night sleep…

A nice evening after some reading and chatting with visitors from France, Germany, a young man playing the Native Flute and a couple from Finland thinking that their PT Cruiser was a raised up four wheel drive, after punching some rocks which resulted in a green geyser… stuck for the night they were! Luckily their car was big enough for them to spend the night in. And should I mention the couple from Florida, him with a build in mouth speaker unhappy about how one of the awning of his million dollar RV was behaving? Amazingly… half an hour later after a call on their… of course… SAT Phone, a repair truck showed up! In the middle of nowhere… they could not fix it. They took it down. Quiet time arrived quickly and so did waking up for the magic moment of the sunrise…

The birth of a new Day, a perfect sky… much thoughts, emotions within the good fortune to witness these Magical moments, one day at the time I keep telling myself, either way the choice is never ours. These are pictures, these three pictures are ones that I will always look at… they are so much more than just another sunrise, they are the definition of Life itself as we are so lucky to be present throughout one moment at the time. They are part of our "Oasis"…

Till next time… enjoy and all be well…

Have you checked the T-shirts? "Throw the Dog a Bone!"… T-shirts… Mouse pads… Photography… we have been getting great feedbacks.

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Ara Gureghian   853 Vanderbilt Beach Rd #245   Naples, Fl 34108

Ara & Spirit

This entry was posted on Monday, June 2nd, 2008 at 4:29 pm and is filed under travel, spirituality, pit bull, sidecar, motorcycle, cooking, photography, riding, homeless. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.