Delve into a photographic love letter to New Mexico

Jul. 30—Brett Nelson's recent book "Where the Light Is" carries the subtitle "A New Mexico Photographic Memoir."

The subtitle could easily be renamed "A Photographic Love Letter to New Mexico." For that is the feeling Nelson, an Albuquerque resident, conveys for the state that has enchanted him since 1978.

The natural world in central New Mexico is at the heart of the book's color photographs. Trees are the subject of the 50-page first chapter.

One impressive photograph Nelson took is of the trunk of an alligator juniper along Spruce Spring Trail in the Manzano Mountains. He thinks the bark "looks like a Texas rancher's dress boot."

Another photo is of a stand of stately, stout aspen above 9,000 feet in a thick growth of ferns in the Pecos Wilderness.

The most common tree throughout the area of New Mexico where Nelson lives is the juniper, with five species up to 7,500 feet in the Sandia Mountains and foothills, he writes. From about 7,000 feet and higher, he notes, are pi?on pine, ponderosa pine, white and Douglas fir, quaking aspen and Engelmann spruce. Corkbark fir and limber pine grow near the crest.

A group of photographs depict the long, twisted branches of cottonwoods in the bosque along the Rio Grande in Bernalillo County.

The second chapter, "Mountains and Trails," is filled with images of peaks and lakes, many in the Pecos Wilderness.

A few photographs in this chapter are of the Manzano Mountains, the Apache Kid Wilderness in the San Mateo Mountains, and one image of the Organ Mountains above Las Cruces.

In the chapter on flowers, Nelson focuses on the Sandia Mountains and foothills. He offers up flowers of varied colors on prickly pear, barrel, pin cushion and cholla cacti, zinnia, globe mallow, verbena, wavyleaf thistle, datura, Indian blanket, Palmer penstemon, geranium, prairie coneflower, red skyrocket, mariposa lily and ox-eye.

Other chapters are on leaves (nine pages), botanical images (e.g. mushrooms, fungus, buffalo gourd, Apache plume), skies and clouds, unusual rock formations, and wildlife (butterflies, Canada geese, horned toads, tarantula, bumblebees and a doe at the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge during the Festival of the Cranes).

Another chapter, on "Ruins and Rock Art," doesn't seem to fit with the book's focus on nature. But it does fit in with Nelson's reasons for loving New Mexico. Ruins include Chaco Culture National Historical Park, Aztec Ruins National Monument and Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument.

Nelson was born and raised in Illinois. He moved to Indiana, where he took up photography, then came to Albuquerque, where he had worked as a counselor and psychotherapist for 31 years.

"I was here 14 years before I realized what was around me. Then I started to hike and backpack like crazy, in the Sandias, the Manzanos and the Pecos Wilderness," he said.

"I love the Pecos Wilderness. To me, it's spectacular. ... It seems that you're standing on top of the world."

For many years on his hikes he used a single-lens reflex camera and a digital single-lens reflex. More recently, Nelson began taking photos with an iPhone — "I found it was good and easy to use" — and a point-and-shoot Canon with a long zoom lens.

When he was backpacking with cameras in the late 1990s and early 2000s, he estimated that he walked over 400 miles a year for about 10 years.

"But then I had heart problems and I couldn't carry a heavy pack. These days I hike about four times a week, usually two to three miles, in the Sandia foothills or on south New Mexico 14 in the Manzanos," he said.

"Where the Light Is" is Nelson's second photography book. The first was "Wild in the Southwest: A Photographic Odyssey in Canyon Country," which considers the landscape of the Colorado Plateau.

Nelson, who is 76, said he's been inspired by a number of well-known photographers, among them Eliot Porter, Edward Weston, Ansel Adams and Galen Rowell.

Nelson is also a published poet. His poetry covers a broad range of subjects, including nature and spirituality with a nonreligious bent.

To buy a copy of "Where the Light Is," email Nelson at [email protected] or contact Organic Books in Nob Hill.

His website is bluedotoutpost.com.