With postponement of an event billed as the world’s largest now back on, Matanzas have been in the news of late.

I had a wonderful opportunity to attend and document the one below recently in the South Valley. As it is here, Matanzas are traditionally a family and community-gathering event, with friends and neighbors helping in the labor-intensive work of processing a large animal. While turning this into a worlds-largest event doesn’t really have the same feel to me, I hope to cover the event in Valencia County whenever it is rescheduled. Stay tuned.

I’ve been really bad about posting of late, but the good news is that I have been busy so there is no shortage of work to share. Here is my take from a story I did for The Communicator recently on rookie jockey Jude Baca from Santa Rosa who is already winning races at the Downs of Albuquerque. My friend Jakob Schiller did a feature on Jude while he was still in high school, getting ready for prom, so check it out too.

My first assignment for the New York Times was this portrait of Kevin Feige, the president of Marvel Studios. He is perhaps the most powerful comic-book geek in the movie business today. I always want to make great pictures, regardless of how big or small the publication or story. My hands were tied a bit on this one, as everything on set of The Avengers is top secret, so I can’t tell you about the big movie stars I met or how the movie ends. While I do like this picture, it was a bit frustrating because there were so many amazing places around the sets that would have been great if we could have gotten clearance to make a picture around it. All that is just to say, I want to get another chance to shoot for The Times and show them what I can do if I’m allowed to sink my teeth into an assignment. Thanks to Robert for getting the screen photo when the picture was on the Times home page in the early hours.

My thanks to Dolores, Lorenzo, Xavier, Nastasia and Maddox.

I had the great opportunity to meet and photograph Hilda Raz for the Lincoln Journal Star last week. Hilda and her husband Dale just moved to Placitas, and Nebraska’s loss is New Mexico’s gain. You should read the article. You can also see more of the photos from my first visit with Hilda and Dale on my online archive.

A boutique shop window that greets pedestrian traffic (reflected) as they exit the border crossing.

A vendor looks for more customers as people wait in line on active train tracks to cross legally into the USA. I wish I would have slowed my shutter speed to show the train moving.

A pregnant woman waits in the hot sun to enter the USA.

After spotting the border patrol, a man climbs the fence back into Mexico.

The border fence

Waiting for a family member, the man at right is a US citizen, but his daughter isn’t.

Bringing a lot of milk to Mexico.

A border patrol agent watches the fence in hills over Nogales as the sun goes down.

One note I want to make, something I say all the time, but I feel compelled to tell people again and again. Mexico is so much more than what you see around the borders. The problems around the border are a direct result of US policy, specifically our failed war on drugs. Prohibition creates this situation, look at Chicago from 1920 to 1933. Just my two cents. Feliz cinco de mayo.

Be sure to make time tonight to look up at la luna tonight, I hear it’s pretty big. I’m still hoping to make a better picture than this, but we are under cloud cover right now, and not good, big interesting looking clouds either. So, I thought I’d share this to show how close a 300mm stacked with a 1.4 and 2x converters looks, with a bit of a crop. Not the worlds greatest detail, but kinda fun to look at. Just need an airplane to intersect it now.

February 23 marks the anniversary of the publishing of the final edition of The Albuquerque Tribune, and alumni gathered locally as we do each year.

It’s great to have an opportunity to catch up with everyone. Some of the photo department folks I see nearly every week or less, but many others I see much less frequently. So much has changed in such a short amount of time. The growth of the kids in these pictures help mark the passage of time. I hope all those who missed it this year can join us next year.

I’ve been having fun shooting in camera square format black & white with my GF-1, a fresh way to see and compose pictures for my eye. If anyone wants copies of these images, just double-click on the picture to access my archive where you download them for free.

I couldn’t resist making a few frames of President Obama with my iphone when he was in Rio Rancho back in May of 2009.