Day 5 & 6: Return to the White Place; Pedernal with storm clouds; a break in Santa Fe; more at Ghost Ranch

Cacti at the White Place
Cacti abound at the White Place

I went out early to catch morning light at the White Place (this was our second visit – see this post), and spent a good couple of hours getting footage there. I heard that a major Hollywood flick (“Cowboys and Aliens”) will be filming on location at the White Place very soon, so thankfully we were there just in time to get it to ourselves! (There was, incidentally, a lower-key crew from Britain filming a documentary on dinosaurs at Ghost Ranch during the whole time we were there.)

O’Keeffe once said that when looking at her subjects, they sometimes seem to paint themselves ”“ until you try. That’s how I feel about the White Place. It’s so multi-faceted and filled with different possibilities for angles, lighting, framing, etc, that it felt nearly impossible to get a shot that sufficiently captured what I could see with my eyes.

Pedernal with storm clouds
Pedernal with storm clouds

Later there was a lightning storm (a welcome change from the constant dry heat and sun), and I grabbed the opportunity to take some road-side footage of Pedernal with storm clouds hovering above. Afterwards, we took a break from filming for a leisurely afternoon and evening in Santa Fe (an hour drive away from Abiquiu).

The next day (Day 6), still using the Abiquiu Inn as our home base, we rested and worked on planning our route back to the Denver airport. We also returned to Ghost Ranch to capture just a bit more footage of the landscape from the road.