Santa Clara Pueblo has received $6,513,000 in stimulus funds to promote healthy forests and reduce hazardous fuels inside the Valles Caldera in Northern New Mexico. This was a long travel day for me, but man was it beautiful.

In 2010, along with fellow photographers Michael J. Gallegos, Mark Holm and Jake Schoellkopf, I was commissioned by the New Mexico Office of Recovery and Reinvestment to document how some of the stimulus dollars were spent around New Mexico. This is the fifth post is a series of six on the work I did for NMORR.

This summer I took a detour / scenic route on a weekend road trip to Denver to see a concert. I mentioned my plans to avoid taking the familiar I-25 to my mother who told me of the Colorado Gators Reptile Park located 17 miles north of Alamosa, CO. on Highway 17.

Alligators? In Colorado? How had I never heard of this before? I love gators, but growing up in the southwestern desert, they are not too common a site.

I hope to return to the park and spend some real time working on a story in the future.

If you like Gators too, may I recommend a couple things: First, Photographer Jill Richards and her husband Scott left their jobs and packed their dogs and hit the road for a year. I met Jill when she was an intern at The Albuquerque Journal. They have a recent blog post about spending the night in a gator infested state park in Louisiana. It’s a really fun read, might just make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.

If that’s not enough, check out Trouble The Water, which looks at the alligator farming industry in Louisiana through photographer Matt Eich‘s’s thoughtful eyes.

I had a chance to try out the Panasonic gf1 for a few days last week. Right now I’m working on a review for Tortuga’s blog which should be done in the next couple of days, but for now I thought I’d share a picture from my wanderings with the camera last week. This picture is straight out of the camera, just downsized for the web.

Stacia Spragg-Braude's book To Walk in Beauty: A Navajo Family's Journey Home.

“Looking through Stacia’s initial submission and then later through a larger selection of her photographs, I remember being struck by the beauty, power, mystery and intimacy of the black and white images of a landscape, culture and people I was unfamiliar with. I recall feeling that she’s not only a fiercely  dedicated and determined photojournalist, but must have an intense personal connection and relationship with this family to spend roughly a decade making these photographs and telling this family’s story.”
There is a wonderful interview with my dear friend and former colleague at The Albuquerque Tribune Stacia Spragg-Braude that I found via the APAD blog at photographer Matthew Ratajczak’s blog Eat the Darkness. Buy the book now.

Stacia Spragg-Braude presenting her book "To walk in beauty" at the Old San Ysidro Church in Corrales.

I’m very pleased to announce the launch of a new company called Tortuga Photo Workshops.  Together with  Albuquerque Journal staff photographer Roberto Rosales, we created a company offering photo adventure workshops in Latin America. Our first workshop is scheduled for the remote island of Meanguera off the coast of El Salvador in mid March 2010.  Please have a look at our new website for more information. Also please follow us via our Facebook page.

I also want to take a second to send huge thanks to Ezra at Electrophonic Design, who put this new site together and designed all my web pages. I hope to get back to posting more on Vamos A Ver, now that Tortuga is off and running.

San Antonio Express-News staff photographer Nicole Frugé is leaving the paper under her own terms to pursue freelance work. I’m sure she will do amazing things in the future.

“It’s so hard to say goodbye to so many close friends. But I’m very excited that I have an opportunity to follow my passion and hopefully I’ll produce some meaningful stories in the process. I’ve made the decision to go freelance so I can focus on conflict photography and documentary projects.”

You can follow Nicole’s work through her blog The Last Picture Show.

Also, you can see Nicole present her work with a amazing lineup of photographers at the “best little underground photo conference out there” – GeekFest in St. Petersburg, Florida this September 11-13. If you have the means at all, you’re a fool not if you pass this up.

Currently there’s an eBay auction of  renowned photographer Sam Abell’s latest hardcover photo book, The Life of a Photograph going on until August 22, 2009.

The idea is to raise money for St. Petersburg Times photojournalist Stephen Coddington, whose wife Marian had a debilitating aneurysm last year. They are a couple in their 30s with two children. Abell donated this signed version to help raise money for the Coddington family.

Search for item #260456026357 or click on the link above.

If the signed book gets out of your price range, you should also consider making a donation and learn more here:

http://savestevesfamily.blogspot.com/

This is a great idea. I found Pro Photographers Network on what is fast becoming a favorite new blog, Resolve.