The American West Through the Lens of a Point and Shoot

Or, How a Cheap Camera and a Thousand Dollars Worth of Software Can Work For You

My parents are retired, but not retiring. As a matter of fact, they’ve begun to range far and wide. Over this past summer, they set off on what I’ve begun to refer to as their Grand Adventure. They recently purchased a gigantic ‘Monster Bus’, a sort of land yacht RV thing, the type of thing you might see certain rock stars ensconced in. My mother had never seen the great American west or southwest and it had been decades since my father had. They set off on a 45 day ‘walk about’, following the setting sun.

My mother took a little point and shoot with her, to document their adventures. The images in this post were taken mostly by my mother, Patricia Sims.  A few were taken by my father, Wayne Sims. My mother is an incredibly creative individual who has tried her hand successfully at a great many endeavors.  Among other things, she has:

• Built a beautiful field stone patio, single handedly
• Learned to sew  and applique’ beautiful garments
• Taught herself to crochet and created lovely sweaters, afghans etc
• Created incredibly intricate and unique art with decoupage
• Created lovely art with gathered and dried lichens, bark, flowers, seed pods etc
• Painted truly wonderful oil paintings of a great many subjects
• Created the MOST fabulous outdoor courtyard with lush greenery and burbling fountain
• Is a fabulous cook with an innate understanding of how to prepare wild game

Don’t tell anybody…..most especially her…..but I think my mother is an artist.

My mother has never taken a photography class, but has become a keen observer of what I do : )  I gotta say, she’s been a great ‘student’ and has a fantastic eye. She emailed all these images to me, just to share. They came directly out of her camera and were all rather ‘flat’. I couldn’t resist taking them into Lightroom and doing that voodoo that I do. Then I exported them to Photoshop and also ran some ‘actions’ on a few of them. Enjoy! This first one was taken through the moving RV window, hence the ‘grid’ effect.