As most of our friends know, Rick and I have many furry friends at the Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary. For those of you who are not familiar, The Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary is located in Ramah, NM.  The mission of the sanctuary is as follows:

1. To operate and manage a lifetime sanctuary for displaced, unwanted, and un-releasable captive-bred wolves, wolf-dogs, and other related species, utilizing such resources as may be available from local, city, state, and private entities or individuals;
2. To educate the general public about wolves, wolf-dogs, and other related species and our environmental and ecological issues related to wildlife;
3. To generate self-supporting, sustainable revenue resources to assist in the financial support of the sanctuary.

Wild Spirit is a non-profit organization that operates entirely off donations from people like you who recognize the value and importance of having such an organization.  To learn more about Wild Spirit and to make a donation please click here.

All donations go towards the care and upkeep of the many animals that call Wild Spirit their home.

Another casualty of Route 66, I don’t think Twin Arrows is a town so much as it’s a roadside attraction.  At one time it was a gas station with a diner that just so happened to have two huge arrows protruding up from the parking lot.  Another similar arrow can be seen at the corner of Carlisle and Indian School here in Albuquerque.

Two Guns

I don’t believe this KOA camp ground is actually part of Two Guns but it just so happens to be right behind it.

A lot of people ask us where the name Dry Heat Photography came from.  For those of you who don’t know the whole story; once upon a time Rick and I managed a different studio here in Albuquerque and we had a side project that was our collective works from all the ghost towns and old cemeteries that we would shoot, usually on the way to somewhere else, like a wedding.  Eventually, we amassed a large body of this work and began to seek gallery representation for it.  In order to this we needed a name and a website and, after much deliberation, Dry Heat Photography was born.  Later on, when we decided to open our wedding studio, the name was already in place and people knew Dry Heat Photography meant Rick and DeAnna so we just decided to keep it.

Anyway, we don’t get out to these places as often as we used to but last fall we went camping with our friends Jessica and Kemp.  They have a boat and like to hang out at Ute Lake near Tucumcari.  There are several ghost towns along this stretch of I-40 (between Albuquerque and Tucumcari) that once thrived on the motorists traveling Route 66.  Unfortunately, when I-40 was built most of these towns declined and fell into ruin.  Cuervo was never really a booming metropolis.  At it’s height it boasted a population of about 300.  Today, the population is less than 50 but what Cuervo does have is an abundance on semi intact, creepy looking structures that are a ghost town photographer’s ideal playground.

These first 14 shots are from another little ghost town that is just west of Cuervo.  I believe the name of it is Montoya.  Montoya boasts a tiny gas station that just might have the most repugnant bathroom this side of the Mississippi. The remainder of the town is comprised mostly of abandoned buildings.

If you want to visit Cuervo I strongly suggest not going alone.  There ARE people around who ARE watching you and sometimes it feels a little uncomfortable in a The Hills Have Eyes kind of way.  In addition there are partially covered wells and most of the structures are not sound.  All I’m saying is – pay attention to your surroundings and make sure you tell someone where you’re going.  If you disappeared it would be a long time before anyone figured out what happened.

-DeAnna Dimmitt

Dry Heat Photography

P.S. Here are a couple links to some past trips down the Mother Road

Seligman, Arizona

Ashfork, Arizona

Cuervo starts here

David Cramer (on left) with his partner, Avi.  Photo dated November 8, 2008

Last week the Dry Heat Gallery lost an artist and a dear friend.  On the evening of Thursday, March 25, 2010, photographer David Cramer was in the field heading an expedition to photograph wild horses when he suffered a massive heart attack.  He passed away later that night.  David was widely known for his fine art nature photography and his advocacy for the preservation and freedom of wild horses in the American southwest.  David was also an active member of the New Mexican Horse Project, New Mexico’s largest wild horse sanctuary and genealogical study.  When Rick and I wanted to start photographing wild horses, it was David that volunteered to help us and he chaperoned us on several outings, always knowing right where the horses were likely to be.   We thought of David as a kind and generous soul, we are so thankful for the time we shared his friendship and we will remember him through his many photographic works.  You may learn more about David Cramer and view more of his photography on his personal website.

-DeAnna Dimmitt and Rick Meiers

Dry Heat Photography

Please feel free to leave to leave your thoughts for David in the comment space below or by clicking the “comments” link at the top of this post.

In response to the recent and devastating earthquake in Haiti, starting January 14th we will donate $25 from every wedding booked until February 28, 2010 to the American Red Cross International Response Fund.  Your wedding can provide aid for others in need!

To check availability and to schedule a consultation call 505-730-8576

We look forward to hearing from you!

-DeAnna Dimmitt and Rick Meiers

Dry Heat Photography

Just now I was checking up on my facebook wall and right away the status update of a friend of mine caught my attention and sent my brain off on another one of my benders.   I know I’m not always the most popular kid on the block because I speak my mind, and I do it for two reasons.  One, because some things just need saying and two because deep down I feel the need to be an advocate for my peers in the photography industry and especially to be an advocate for the most important people of all, my clients both current and future.  So here goes nothin’; speaking up about something that has been weighing heavily on my mind lately.  By the way, the aforementioned status update read Don’t chase success, chase excellence.  Success will follow.

January is the time of year commonly known to wedding professionals as bridal fair season.  We all pack up everything we own and schlep it across town to various venues that host huge trade shows catering to the newly engaged bride who is just embarking on her wedding planning journey.  Bridal fairs can be hugely valuable in that regard because it is an excellent marketing opportunity.  You go, you meet people, make connections and ultimately close deals, at least that’s the plan.   We’ve done quite well with the shows this year and I am pleased with our success, as it were.    The thing that eats at me is when I see other mass produced photog studios actually bragging about their numbers and not only that but bragging about how little they charge and about how big the discounts they offer as booking incentives are.  So they might as well say “your wedding cost less at Wal-Mart” and then show a  touching photo nicely lit with diffused lighting to induce a sense of calm.  I’m sure a lot of brides, not really knowing what’s going on see a deal like that and think to themselves how awesome a find this must be.  Now, to be clear, this is not an essay of shameless self promotion because like I stated earlier I am an advocate of the true professional photographer and I am an advocate of the client who wants the best and needs to know how to find it.  Whether “the best” is Dry Heat or another studio is purely besides the point.

What I actually want to talk about is how we define success.  What does success mean to you?  Well, to me it means seeing a return on an investment, accomplishing a goal, taking pride in my work and knowing that  I act with integrity.  So in a nutshell, I work extremely hard for years to hone my photography skills.  After working for someone else for a considerable amount of time I open my own studio where I actually work even harder to produce an outstanding product and the success of it is that people hire me based on merit to photograph the most important day of their lives.  I am committed to my clients and they know it, they see me working hard for them and they appreciate it.   I am reasonably priced for my demographic and I do believe in fair compensation.  Does this sound like a reasonable definition?  Here’s what I don’t understand; why a photographer would work for well below industry standard wages and then offer a huge discount to boot and brag about it to top it all off.   Let me just turn it around a little bit so that we can see eye to eye.   Let’s say you go to work tomorrow and your boss tells you that your pay will be cut by 40% but don’t worry because your hours are being doubled.  So that means you will now work twice as hard to make only %10 more money than you were in the first place except now you are over taxed, burned out and doing a half assed job on everything because there is simply not enough hours in a day to do any better.  Would you call that success?  Furthermore, how motivated would you feel to actually carry that work load?  Think about it, you know the answer.  So if this scenario is true for everyone else, why would it not also be true for the photographer?  Sure, photography is an incredible career and every working professional feels (or ought to feel) eternally grateful for being able to turn this passion into a legitimate job but make no mistake folks photography, and especially wedding photography is time consuming, physically and mentally demanding, and most of all while it can be taught to an extent, having the ability is something you either do or do not have.    I have to ask, why would you intentionally sell yourself short so that you can run to stand still and let your quality control slip between the cracks and then call that success?  Who wins in this situation?  Not the photographer and most certainly not the bride.

Thus concludes tonight’s edition of me running my mouth in public

-DeAnna Dimmitt

Dry Heat Photography

Today is Day 1 of the year 2010.   It is also the beginning of our 3rd year in business as Dry Heat Photography.  Four years ago this thing did not exist but like any thing conceived of by thought, and manifested by spirit this entity now known as Dry Heat Photography exists and thrives today because we believe in it.  I have always known this but in the hustle and bustle of the day to day it can become so easy to get caught up in all kinds of nonsense and unproductive thought that is prevalent in the wedding industry especially in times when the economy seems precarious and the media does nothing but preach the gospel of fear and lack.  Well friends, today, like every day, is indeed a new day and a new opportunity to think a different kind of thought.  Do we not become what we think about after all?  Starting today let us only give creative power to those thoughts that we wish to see become manifest in our lives.

I come from a back ground where every waking moment was spent worrying about “the competition” and fearing that my business would somehow be outdone by someone with lower prices or some better gimmick.  Sound ridiculous?  Well it is but for years I was completely immersed in and inundated with these types of thoughts.  I know with absolute certainty and from first hand experience that these thoughts create alienation and bring upon the thinker that which is feared.    I made a conscious decision to walk away from that environment to create my own path based on a different set of values.    I made that decision but it is not a one time thing.  Old habits are persistent and the new choice must be made again and again, every day.  I will not allow my business to be driven by fear.

So, starting again, today and every day, Dry Heat Photography is a business unlike any other.  It makes no difference to us what other photographers do, they are not our competition and we need only concern ourselves with what we do, how we perform and what we bring to the table.  There is no need to compare ourselves with others because that would be to imply that others make the rules and set the bar by which we gauge ourselves.   Our intention is to be ourselves and to promote our values of quality, integrity, environmental stewardship, sincerity and creativity.  There is no need to compete with others in the classic sense because what we do speaks for itself and those who are moved by and attracted to it will be drawn to us of their own accord.  Like attracts like and that is the truth in it’s simplest form.

Here’s to being present in the moment and to a happy and prosperous new year.

-DeAnna Dimmitt

Dry Heat Photography

Over Christmas some of our clients, Rebecca and Matthew Gooden, sent me the nicest bouquet of orchids! Unfortunately there was a little mix up with Fed-Ex and I didn’t receive them until after Christmas but surprisingly the flowers fared very well and still looked perfect when they came out of the box!

Every year my numerous Christmas Cacti put on stunning display of holiday cheer! I have two cacti at the gallery that are currently blooming and two more at home that are loaded with buds!

I’ve been feeding the birds for a few days and can’t believe the flocks of them that show up in the back yard now!  I guess once the word gets around they all know where there’s a free meal.  Unfortunately I don’t have a clear shot from the house to photograph the birds without scaring them away but what’s almost as fun as watching the birds is watching my cats watch the birds.  They haven’t moved from the back door all day!

Stay warm  and stay tuned.  More weddings and portraits coming to the blog soon!

With both of our families living in New Mexico, Rick and I have a lot of Christmas festivities.    On Christmas Eve my family gathers for dinner at my mom’s house and then on Christmas morning the family congregates again at my aunt Jerilyn’s house for presents and brunch.  Since my recent discovery of phone blogging I made it a point to take plenty of iPhone photos with which to document the goings on.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Something I thought I’d never see; Paul Adams with a lap dog

Yep, an iguana mirror

It seems that because I do most of the blogging people just assume that I do most of the shooting as well. Well kids, this is not really the case. Rick shoots his fair share of all kinds of things and I have rounded up several photos from my vast archive to illustrate!