Buzz Bros

A blistering summer evening in Borrego Springs. I’d ridden my motorcycle out late one afternoon. As I dropped into Borrego the heat wave was like opening a furnace door, even in the early evening. I’d been wrestling with the idea of transforming one of Ricardo Breceda’s metal sculptures using a “Wide and Tight” capture technique in a new way.

“DEER HUNTER HUNTER” Work-in-progress w/managed perspective control

The technique’s superpowers normally come from using slightly longer lenses to compress captures and maintain perspectives. But I’d captured one of Breceda’s T-Rex metal monsters using the technique up close with a wide angle lens and been happy with the managed sense of distortion.

I had hoped to capture his three-piece dragon, but partying kids interrupted my fun, so I moved on.

Breceda’s sculpture, “Indian Head” is situated just outside the community of the same name’s entrance. photo: Boortz47

Not far to the north he had another, larger-than-life piece, depicting a First-Peoples chief. It had been titled, “Indian Head” before it was uncool to do so. His wasn’t the first indiscretion. The most prominent peak in the area, a scathing, jagged cactus covered climb just outside of town had been given the same name many years before. And a private community to the north had adopted the name, after the peak.

There are several interesting elements I incorporated into this piece. 

• All the natives were variations on the original Wide and Tight capture methods of the statue.

• The buzzards I captured in the Eastern Sierra Nevada. They are everywhere up there.

• The tiny figures on the mountain were selfies of myself standing on top of my car while storm chasing in Joshua Tree. 

• The baby possum I rescued from the nursery I live on after its mother had been killed by coyotes one night.