Tag: Phoenix

Pueblo Grande, No. 1

Photos in this set were taken at the Pueblo Grande Museum and Archaeological Park in Phoenix, Arizona. Hohokam people settled here around around 450 BC, and inhabited the site until about 1450 AD. The ruins are located within view of Phoenix’s Sky Harbor International Airport. It’s an odd sensation to watch planes take off and land while walking the paths around this ancient place. 

Hand Studies: Details of hands from portraits in the collections of the Phoenix Art Museum. To me, hands are often the most powerful and expressive feature in portraiture. As a photographic subject I enjoy the effect of isolating the subjects’ hands from the broader context of a painting or sculpture.

Please click any photo in the set for enlarged views.

1. Thirty Minutes for Lunch / Lew Davis / 1936.

2. Portrait of Nito / Peter Hurd / 1961.

3. A Cellist / Antoine Vestier / 1788.

4. Spring Flowers / Julius Stewart / 1890.

5. The Singer Rose Renault / Antoine Vestier / 1791.

6. Saint Bernard Receiving the Blood of Christ and the Milk of the Virgin / Anonymous / 18th Century.

7. Taos Indian Chanters with Drum / Ernest Martin Hennings / ca. 1935.

8. Nuestro Señor el Desollado / Paul Pletka /  2004.

9. Colonel Lord Howden / Thomas Clement Thompson / 1823.

Hand Studies: Details of hands from portraits in the collections of the Phoenix Art Museum. To me, hands are often the most powerful and expressive feature in portraiture. As a photographic subject I enjoy the effect of isolating the subjects’ hands from the broader context of a painting or sculpture.

Please click any photo in the set for enlarged views.

1. Thirty Minutes for Lunch / Lew Davis / 1936.

2. Portrait of Nito / Peter Hurd / 1961.

3. A Cellist / Antoine Vestier / 1788.

4. Spring Flowers / Julius Stewart / 1890.

5. The Singer Rose Renault / Antoine Vestier / 1791.

6. Saint Bernard Receiving the Blood of Christ and the Milk of the Virgin / Anonymous / 18th Century.

7. Taos Indian Chanters with Drum / Ernest Martin Hennings / ca. 1935.

8. Nuestro Señor el Desollado / Paul Pletka /  2004.

9. Colonel Lord Howden / Thomas Clement Thompson / 1823.

Greater roadrunner (Geococcyx californianus), at the Desert Botanical Garden, in Phoenix, Arizona.

Please click photo for an enlarged view.

Roadrunners really are great. From beak to tail this bird was about two feet long (60 cm). He had wandered into the nesting territory of a mockingbird, and the smaller bird drove him up off the ground and into the shrubs. The wild animals one encounters at the botanical garden are not captive. They are genuinely wild. But it is in an environment of artificial habitat richness, especially of water resources, and in a setting where the wild denizens become somewhat accustomed to people.