FARMING IN THE COLORADO DESERT

Yep, the title is correct. I was driving through a spectacular canyon, over near the Utah border about a week ago, and it was a typical dry day (humidity 6%) in the midst of rock walls and lovely old juniper trees. Then, as I rounded a sharp turn in the highway, this scene opened up. A farmer was bailing hay, and right now hay in this part of the country is scarcer than gold nuggets. We are in the midst of a very bad drought. People are selling their cattle because of the weather.

This scene gave me a rare view of what can be done when you are living out in the middle of nowhere. Ah, but there was a small, but nice, river running through this canyon, and the farmer was making the best of a good situation. He was pumping water from the river and field flooding his piece of land. You can left click on this image to enlarge it; then you will see the farmer in the distance. I almost passed this scene by, but it was so unusual and strikingly lovely that I had to add it to my collection of Colorado images.

I always have a stout tripod with me on my outings, and I seldom make an image without it. Keep going, there are a lot of images and short essays posted on this blog, and it will take you a spell to see half of what I have added during the past couple of years.

WYOMING OUTBACK 1998

This image was printed in 1998 and hand colored with transparent oils. It was made from a two and a quarter inch negative and it is archival. The size of the original is about sixteen inches square.

The pinion pine was located in the desert of central Wyoming and there was still a bit of wind-blown snow on the ground.

While most of my Appalachian collection has been donated to museums and universities, I have held on to my western collection. In time, it too will be donated to a preselected museum of my choice.

I have been asked about my prices, and I will simply say that for the originals I still have, the prices would range from twenty-five hundred to eight thousand dollars.

All of my work has been limited to a few images per edition, and each original is signed, dated and numbered by the artist. No two originals are identical, and this is because each work of art involves a fresh start, and the toning would vary depending on how I felt on a given day. This not only adds a personal touch, but the collector is assured of having a work of art that is not identical to other prints in the same edition. I was probably one of the first fine art photographers who started making limited editions back during the late sixties. 

 I can recall that there was a lot of bickering and controversy coming from photographers during the early seventies about limiting their work. I felt that it was customary and proper for print makers to limit and document each completed original, regardless of whether it was a photograph or an etching.  Or, for that matter, any other form of printmaking.

I still hold to the same standards today as I did forty-five years ago. I retired from printmaking in 2005.

Jack Jeffers  

  PS:   NO, I do NOT make prints from digital images. I cannot take digital  quite as seriously as I did black and white silver prints. I prefer to view my digital images on a computer screen. HOWEVER, having said that, I do maintain a goodly number of digital images with a stock agency, and I am always open for magazine or book illustrations.

 Just be reminded that I have already completed two books for CD. The first captures the Appalachians and a disappearing way of life which I was able to capture back in the seventies and eighties, The second CD contains my view of the Wyoming Outback. Both books contain numerous stories about my adventures and how many of the images were made.

Visit my web site at:   www. jeffersfineart.com 

SPRING GREEN IN COLORADO HIGH COUNTRY

I made this image on June 1, 2012 at about the nine thousand foot level in Colorado's Cimarron Range. Young leaves on the aspen trees take on a brilliant green during their early stages of growth, and I have to plan my field trips accordingly or I will miss this high country sight. This year I was most fortunate in timing my trip at precisely the right date. The weather was perfect, and my field trip resulted in quite a number of high country images featuring rugged peaks and lovely aspen groves.

Field Trip to Escalante Canyon Colorado May 2012

      

Left click on image to view larger photograph

SPRING GREEN IN THE SAN JUAN HIGH COUNTRY 2012

 

This aspen grove and view of the San Juan Range is located west of Ridgway, Colorado at an elevation of about 9500 feet. The image ws made on May 2, 2012.

To view a larger image, left click on above.

DOWN ON THE FARM 1979

This image was made somewhere in northern Virginia, NW of Warrenton.

JACK JEFFERS circa 1947

SELF PORTRAIT

This is one of the first images I ever made and printed.

And it was printed out in my father's old wood shed with a red light hanging over a rafter. Plus, I could only work during moonless nights, because there were no shades over the windows and the numerous cracks in the old wooden walls.

Now, that was primitive. But this hands-on experience was my introduction to my fine art photography which followed some years later.

The camera I used was an old Kodak Brownie 120 roll film with three aperture openings: small, medium and large.

The camera was made about the same time that the Titanic went to the bottom of the Atlantic, and the old wooden tripod was the best I had in terms of a tripod. That old box and tripod eventually fell apart.

Someone recently asked me about my bare feet. Well, in those days many young country boys looked forward to spring because that's when we put our shoes aside for the warm season. I attended a small country school during my first seven years, and many of us went to school in bare feet on the hot days. After a while, we weren't bothered by stones and other rough objects.

How times have changed.

jj