Most of the photos in this group were taken in the vicinity of Circle Dug ranch, which is about nine miles north of Candelaria, Texas, along Chispa Road.

According to Texas Monthly, Chispa is "The most romantic, remote, and forbidding dirt road not only in West Texas but in Texas, period. It runs from Lobo Pass (a turnoff near U.S. 90 between Valentine and Van Horn) to Candelaria (at the terminus of FM 170) through harsh desert and dry washes. Watch out for the forks in the road with precious little signage and a disproportionate number of smugglers and lawmen." The road runs parallel to the Rio Grande (Rio Bravo in Mexico), then north into Sierra Viejo, the bottom of the Rockies, and provides fine views of the northern end of the Sierra Madre.

Michael Lee Jackson, Geno McManus, master guide Charlie Angell and I spent a few days there in December 2011, then Michael, Geno and I went to El Paso via Marfa and Van Horn on US 90, then Guadalupe Mountain, Salt Flat and Cornudas down to El Paso on US 180/62. The last group of images are from that part of the trip.

With one exception, the images were made with a Leica M9 (28mm and 35mm) or Hasselblad H4d-40 (35-90mm). The final image, the legs and boots in the Cornudas cafe, was made with an iPhone4.

Click here and then click on the right arrowhead to start the slideshow. To advance or back up one frame at a time, tap the arrowheads either side of that. Tap the small tv screen icon to the left of the arrowheads to hide the thumbnails on the left side of the screen, making for larger images; tap it again to bring the thumbnails back

December 28, 2011