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Team Dry Heat is doing it again!  This year’s Make Strides Against Breast Cancer event will be held on Sunday May 1, 2011 at the Cottonwood Mall in Albuquerque.  We invite everyone to join Team Dry Heat, make a donation and walk with us!

Thank you for your support!

-DeAnna Dimmitt and Rick Meiers

Dry Heat Photography

Introducing part 1 of the Lo-Fi Digital Series: Cell Phone Cameras

This is a call to artists, of sorts.  We use the term “artist” loosely.

In a rebellious and blatantly flippant move we are stepping away from the technical, turning our backs on high end glass, putting an end to name dropping conversations, and absolutely refusing to engage in discourse involving the moral debate of film vs. digital.  Instead, we issue this challenge: Put down the breadbox, leave your tripod in the car, and working within the limitations of a tiny camera with a tiny lens that also tweets, texts, surfs, navigates and even makes the occasional phone call, hit me with your best shot.

The rules are as follows:

Images must be created with cell phone cameras and must be printed on  8.5″ x 11″ paper (even if the image itself is smaller)  Prints do not need to be framed but do need to have a white boarder around the outside to leave room for inserting the thumbtacks we’re going to use as a hanging device. You may use whatever cell phone apps you like and subject matter can be anything not deemed offensive.  Who will determine what is offensive? We will. So basically anything short of bestiality or snuff film stills will be acceptable.  This gives a big playground of people, places and things for everyone to romp in so use your own common sense here.  What we want: scenes from your life as you interpret them.  What we don’t want: boredom.   Uninhibited photographers think hard, or don’t, get creative, make it interesting, show us something only you would see in the way only you see it, show us your visions.

Submission policy:

If you would like to participate please email up to three images to info@dryheatphotography.com There is no jury fee nor do we make any promises about accepting your images.  I don’t mean that to be discouraging but I’m just saying, make ‘em good!

Images must be submitted by Sunday March 6th

Prints must be delivered to the Dry Heat Gallery by Wednesday March 9th (If you need to ship your prints please inquire about shipping address and instructions)

Opening reception will be Tuesday March 15th from 6:00pm to 9:00pm

At the opening reception, we will hang out, enjoy the photos, consume wine, cheese and mini cupcakes from Costco, talk to each other like real people and not partake in stiflingly ridiculous conversations that sound like this “say there Bob, did you use your Canon 300mm 2.8 IS USM LMNOP Refrigerator Carburetor lens for this image?” “Why yes, Hank, and on my 1D MarkIV 16MP Jefferson Starship body to boot! These two items I took a 2nd mortgage on my house and sacrificed my retirement for have transformed me into a brilliant arteest”. Oh god… you know what I mean.  Anti-snobbery is the new black, so show me whatcha got.

A little over 3 years ago Rick and I both quit our jobs on the same day.  Wait, it gets worse.  We were in a sickening amount of debt, had no other jobs lined up, and walked away from 10 years of portfolio work that was owned by another studio.   In other words, we were broke and empty handed; having nothing to show for the time we had already invested into our photography careers.  The only asset we had was the loyalty of our friends.  (you know who you are!)  We had a plan that, at best, could be called suicidally stupid.   If someone were to ask me if I thought that leveraging relationship equity was, in and of itself,  a good strategy for starting a business I would say emphatically, “NO”.    However, being well past the point of no return and with no safety net or plan B, success was the only option.   We built a 6 figure business in one year.  And for helping us pull this off I have to thank all of you: our clients, friends, colleagues and family members.  No success is achieved overnight, or independent of a support network.  What I didn’t realize going into it was that the loyalty and support of our friends was actually a far more valuable asset for successful business building than was having 6 months worth of savings in the bank.

As most of you are already aware I am putting the word on the street that my PiYo classes will be starting next month. (see previous post – Something New Is Coming To Dry Heat Photography) I intend for this to be not only a good side business for me but, most of all, a beneficial endeavor for those of you who choose to participate.  You know, the tools we need to do whatever we want are all around us.  They are right there in plain sight and all we have to do is pick them up and use them.   Most of us, myself included at times, have become so blinded by the routine and workload of our lives that we forget to look around at where we’re headed or to even consider if we’re going where we want to go or just trudging along the path we think we have to take.  Do you look and feel the way you want to look and feel, are you doing what you want to do?  Do the things that matter to you get set aside for the things you think you have to do?   Am I gonna get to the point sooner or later?  Yeah, now would be a good time.

So I have this vision and here it is.  There is a company called Beachbody.  You may or may not have heard of it but you have most likely seen an infomercial for some of their better known products like P90X or Turbo Jam.  They also sell nutritional products like Shakeology and the P90X Results and Recovery Formula.  I’ve been turning to Beachbody for my fitness products for years.  Only recently did it really sink in that Beachbody is an MLM corporation meaning that I could open my very own online Beachbody storefront and sell their products for a commission.  <light bulb!>  With my recent decision to add “fitness instructor” to my job title, becoming a Beachbody “Coach” seemed only natural.  I already use a ton of their products and now if I order them through my Coaching website I can save 25% and if other people order from me I make 25%.  Well, that seems like a good deal right? But hold on now, that’s only part of it.  I have a vision that is bigger than just me convincing you to buy Shakeology.  For all of you who are considering joining me on this fitness journey I say to you “think big, pay it forward” and by that I mean embrace the new lifestyle by getting fit and by signing up for your own Beachbody Coach account so that you will have access to the nutritional products that will help you along the way (at a substantial discount) and so that you too can use it as a means to make some extra cash.  You don’t have to be a fitness instructor to be a Beachbody Coach, you just have to believe in the products you use and share them with others.  If you discover that you have a burning desire to teach your own fitness classes then I can help get you going on that as well but I want to clarify that you don’t have to do that.  So this is the vision: #1 we all work together to get fit and to bring fitness to those around us.  #2 as an added bonus we all have the opportunity to start a home business that requires no inventory but that has the potential be hugely profitable.  All of us working together have the potential to be far more effective, and profitable, than any one of us working alone.

Be ready to tackle your New Year’s fitness resolutions.  Sign up to be a Beachbody Coach now, it’s free until December 31st!  If you have any questions or would like to talk to me personally about being a Beachbody Coach, taking PiYo Classes, or your wedding photography please feel to call or email using the Contact Form at the top of the page.  I look forward to hearing from you!

-DeAnna Dimmitt

Dry Heat Photography

One final thought -  I have photographed thousands of brides; all kinds of women from all walks of life.  There is one quality that is universally appealing and attractive on everyone and that shines through in the photographs more than anything else : confidence.

So maybe the real question is why did you select the photographer you hired? Was it because you trusted them?  Was it because the quality of their work spoke to you?  Was it because you had faith in their ability to “see” and the technical know how to execute?  If you answered “no” to any of these questions then my next question is why in the world did you hire that person?!?! If you answered “yes” to all of the above then why do you feel the need to micro manage?

Now before everyone gets all up in arms saying “but how do I make sure my photographer knows what photos are important to me?” Let me say that by all means, please make it clear who the key players are and what friends and family members you want to be included. This is not a discussion about family portraits. What I’m talking about is giving an artist a list of fabricated moments and expecting them to produce an organic product as if these items on a list, e.g., “mom fixing bride’s veil” and “bride pinning boutonniere on her father” somehow, in and of themselves, have meaning.  The truth is what gives meaning to these moments is the event itself and the spontaneity with which these little bits of magic occur.  You can’t fabricate life and you can’t fabricate love, which is what I assume you hired a photographer to capture for you, so why then would you attempt to quantify both with a list?  All of our lives are an ongoing process, your wedding is a process and your photographer is there both to facilitate and observe, to see and to react, to have their finger on the pulse of the moment – the real moment, not the one on the list.

Do you see where this is going?  Let’s just say that, hypothetically, you’ve given your photographer an impossibly long list of contrived “special moments”, how do you expect them to prioritize? Should they spend the whole day creating the shots on the list or should they spend the whole day paying attention to what is actually occurring?  Do you want your photos to reflect the real wedding or the staged wedding?  Most importantly, do you want to spend the day having a real wedding or a staged wedding?  Spending the day performing items on a list just so the photographer can get shots that were appropriate in 1974 is probably not what you had in mind right?  Right?

So what to do then? How do you effectively convey your priorities to your photographer without stifling their ability to do the job you hired them to do?  Well first of all, you refer back to the questions in the 2nd paragraph and you hire that person.  Once you’ve commissioned the photographer whom you feel is the most qualified, you have meetings and conversations with them, you get to know them and allow yourself to be known by them.  Whoa! Sounds scary right? But it’s not, really.  Think about it, who would understand you better, an intuitive friend or a stranger with a list?  Lastly, you plan the day around your photographic priorities.   If you want more getting ready photos then plan the time for it, if you want lots and lots of posed family photos then plan it that way, if photos of you and the groom together are the most important thing then plan with the photographer to make this aspect a key point in the day.  There’s no right or wrong set of priorities.  It IS your wedding after all and it should be how you want it to be but just be sure that your actions reflect your intentions.   If you want the organic and real deal then have faith in the process and the magic moments will happen of their own accord.

-DeAnna Dimmitt

Dry Heat Photography

For years I would work like a machine, executing each shot of each event with precision and clarity.  Also like a machine I was calm, cool, and collected, always.  Sharing in my client’s emotions was not allowed.  I was there to work, not to have feelings.  Furthermore, I frequently suspected that the emotions being displayed by others were more theatrical than sincere.   This was not entirely a bad thing but I think being emotionally detached from the event showed in my otherwise spot on work.  In addition, I was not really committed to continuing down the path of photographing weddings.  Then one day about 5 or 6 years ago I was photographing a small wedding at a beautiful resort and something different happened.   I’ll come back to that.

So often life changing events sneak up on us and we don’t see them coming.  We don’t know that we may be enjoying the last moments of normality, peace, contentedness or a loved one’s presence.  We don’t always know that this time may be the last time.  The event horizon doesn’t always have warning signs.  We aren’t aware of the value in a moment until it’s over.

I was photographing a wedding.  The bride’s dad was terminally ill.  No one actually said that but it didn’t need saying.  He could barely walk and his breathing was laborious.  I shot all the photos that involved her dad in the lobby of the hotel because he could not walk outside.  Everything else about the wedding was normal; beautiful bride, great location, all was as it should be.  During the reception they had all the normal events; toast, cake cutting, first dance but during the father/daughter dance something happened that changed all of us who were there.  The bride was dancing with her father, I forget the song but it doesn’t matter.  The bride starts to cry, which is typical and then she starts to really cry, not typical.  I’m watching and shooting and she is weeping, clinging to her father.  I look around and see other people in the room having the same reaction and it hits me; she is saying goodbye to him.  She sees that this is the moment, the moment we all say we wish we had after it’s too late.  She sees it and she knows it and she’s having it right then, right in front of me.   As the song continues the bride’s mom comes up and joins them followed by the rest of the family.  All of them weeping, all of them embracing each other.  Now even a machine like me can’t hide the fact that I’m getting caught up in the moment and I too am getting emotional.   All of a sudden I realize why I’m there.   Maybe they (and I) didn’t foresee it when they came in to sign a contract and put down a deposit but they were entrusting me to record this moment for them.   So, tears running down my face or not, this was no time to drop the ball, to look away or to grab for a kleenex.  A family was saying goodbye to their father and husband and I was there to record it for them.  I must have shot 200 photos in about 3 minutes.  It seemed like eternity.   We were all there together, aware of what was unfolding, and seeing this time as the last of it’s kind.  I think those photos were probably the last ones they had of themselves all together and before the past became the future.  We were all there, in the present.

I don’t want to mention names or locations as this story is obviously very personal but I would like to thank this family for giving me a reason to see real value in what I do and for helping me to embrace wedding photography as a life long passion.

-DeAnna Dimmitt

Dry Heat Photography

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

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.