Looking Back

The New Mexico History Museum will be opening an exhibit called "Looking Back: Reflecting on Collections."  Four photographs from the Naamehnay Project Navajo Nation Four Corners work will be featured in the exhibit.

The exhibit will be up for about a year.  The public opening and reception will be on Sunday, March 8 from 1to pm.

Look forward to seeing you there.

be strong, be safe, Carlan

Opening the Entire Chaco Protection Zone to Oil and Gas Industrialization

A yearlong federal moratorium on oil and gas leases within 10 miles of the Chaco Culture National Historical Park ended this past Saturday.  Today the Bureau of Land Management Farmington Field Office and the Bureau of Indian Affairs Navajo Regional Office released a joint Draft Resource Management Plan Amendment (RMPA) and Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for lands surrounding Chaco Culture National Historical Park.

The Trump Administration’s plan envisions opening the entire Chaco Protection Zone to leasing, including lands that directly border the National Park. Even where protections are proposed for Chaco, they will do little to protect the Park, other nearby Chacoan cultural resources, and the Native people who live on the landscape surrounding the Park.

be strong, be safe, Carlan

Management Plans for Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante Open Lands for Extraction

The Trump administration announced it was opening two national monuments to development. The culturally and geologically significant Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante monuments will be available for cattle grazing, mining, and oil and gas development. Five tribes had formed a coalition in 2015 to promote protection of the Bears Ears region; dozens more tribes have expressed support for their effort.

The Interior Department’s release of a formal land-use blueprint for the approximately 861,974 acres of land will allow oil, gas and coal companies to complete the legal process for leasing mines and wells on land that had once been part of Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, established by President Bill Clinton. In December 2017, President Trump cut the monument’s acreage about in half, aiming to open the newly unprotected land for drilling and development. At the same time, he removed about a million acres from another Utah monument, Bears Ears. Together, the moves were the largest rollback of public lands protection in United States history. 

Under the plan, much of Bears Ears and nearly 1 million acres in and around Grand Staircase are open to grazing. BLM will also make two new routes in Grand Staircase open to off-road vehicles, which archaeologists and conservationists are concerned could damage vulnerable artifacts and natural features. “These plans represent the lowest common denominator for BLM stewardship,” Stephen Bloch, legal director for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, one of the plaintiffs in the monuments lawsuits, said in a statement. “One of the wildest landscapes in the lower forty-eight states will be lost if these plans are carried into action over the next few years.”

be strong, be safe, Carlan

New Mexico in Black and White

The light in New Mexico is magical.  Dawn to dusk.  Clear skies to storms.  Each day each moment changing. Stunning landscape to create black and white photographs.  March 22 - 27 I have the pleasure of teaching Expressive Black and White Landscapes and Fine Art Digital Printmaking at the Santa Fe Workshops.  Join me as we travel across the New Mexico landscape capturing once in a life time moments and creating exhibition black and white prints.  For more information and to register visit Santa Fe Workshops.

Look forward to our paths meeting in Santa Fe for an exciting week of making photographs together.

be strong, be safe, Carlan