June 8, 1988, 5:15 p.m.

A year in the life of a mountain, one day at a time

In the late 1980s, I lived in a house in Rio Rancho, New Mexico. From the back yard, I had a clear view of the Sandia Mountains. For a year I took a photograph of the mountains every day that I could, as close to 5:00 p.m. as I could, though on some days, that was not possible. I started on the first day of spring, 1988, and finished on the first day of spring, 1989. They are The Sandia Mountains Project.

I used a Pentax 35mm SLR, shooting 400 ASA color print film and a 50mm lens; in 2005-06, I made high-resolution digital scans of the film negatives; in 2024-25, I processed these scans using Photoshop, to remove the dust, scratches, and deterioration the years had visited upon the negatives.