On The Rio Grande
Luminous Landscape Endowment
This book was published with the support of a grant I received through the Luminous Landscape Endowment.
In August 2007 The Luminous Landscape Inc., created a fund designed to provide financial assistance to photographers to help finance worthwhile photographic projects. A call for submissions was made, with a deadline of Feb 11, 2008.
This fund was financed by readers of the Luminous Landscape website through purchases of their download video tutorials, and also by individual donors and corporate sponsors. In all $20,000 was raised during the initial funding period.
More than 200 applications were received, and the judging panel found selecting just a handful of photographers and their projects a most difficult task. The applications selected were, in each case, put forward by at least two of the judges.
Of the 200 applications received, 8 of us were awarded the grants for our projects.
Project Synopsis
A photographic exploration of Santa Elena Canyon in Big Bend National Park located in west Texas. The exploration will focus on the intrinsic beauty and solitude of this remote canyon of the Rio Grande River. The trip will require using local river guide services to safely navigate the waters of the Rio Grande from the put-in point near Lajitas to the take-out point 5-miles upstream of Castolon. The trip will cover a distance of 20 river miles over three days.
This project would best be accomplished between late fall and early to mid-spring due to flash-flood and temperature concerns. Five days will be required to complete the project with 2 days spent traveling and 3 days on location.
The anticipated outcome is to create 20+ fine art quality photographs representing the journey of the river through the desert canyon environment. These images will be usedto create a limited-edition portfolio and book with a print run limited to 25 of each.