Chicago Gun Control law bites the dust.

Heavily armed Texans at Camp Perry. We broke lots of state laws just transporting our rifles to the National Matches in Ohio. Hopefully, some of that will be past.

CMP Rack-grade Garand.

Colt with shoulder stock. Illegal by BATF rules. In the A&M firearms museum.

Columbia in Ivory, (now illegal), leaning on spear with shield and laurel wreath.

Colt Revolver shotgun.

I'd be all for a constitutional reset by tossing out all case law and going back to the original documents. Congress shall make NO law and all that.

Happy day. Klansman Senator Robert Byrd goes to his reward, (should part of his reward be renaming all of the projects, bridges, roads and monuments he named after himself? All paid for with public money? Wouldn't that be a wonderful idea?), at the same time that the racist, un-American Chicago gun law is tossed.

Gun control advocates have lots of innocent blood on their hands. Think of the crime caused and lives lost by disarming the law abiding over the last 50 years. May God have mercy on those gun control folks. But on Earth they ought to be called to account.

Few more vacation snapshots:

Deardorff at Point Imperial.

Point Imperial with smoke from the forest fire.

Anasazi grainery at North Rim.

Katie liked Shiprock. I need another long weekend there. Looked through all my negs and proofs today. I've had a Shiprock show but have enough knockout negatives for another.

Bright Angel Canyon. I have a very sharp 5X7 neg of this, both at dusk and dawn. One of them ought to make a terrific print.

Desert between Ganado and Chinle, Az.

Raven in flight at Canyon de Chelly.

White House Ruin at Canyon de Chelly from the overlook.

White House Ruin.

Indian Dog.

The pulpit at Shiprock.

Katie at Shiprock with the South Dike in background.

Digital version of an image I was very excited about.

Car camping in the desert at Shiprock.

West Dike early morn.

Katie and cell phone on Bright Angel Point at the North Rim.

Point Imperial drive. The light was too late but I hated not to at least look through the camera.

Mural of Spanish horsemen.

White House Ruin.

Kaite sitting in the Grand Lodge at North Rim.

I didn't get to see a Condor, though we kept an eye peeled. I did go to a Condor lecture and bought the best book about the Condor conservation program.

In Albuquerque.

I always make a beeline for the Double Rainbow coffeeshop. Of course, it hasn't been the Double Rainbow in this century. Its now the Flying Star. Great snacks and coffee. Diverse magazine collection on the racks. Unisex bathrooms. I used to get to New Mexico, pack the rent SUV at the airport, head for the Double Rainbow and start calling people and mocking them: "I'm at the Double Rainbow in Albuquerque and you aren't."

Across Central Avenue from Kurt's Camera Corral where I pick through old camera stuff. I've bought several old lenses there. Got a good cable release in a blister pack right off the rack this trip. Needed a back-up. Wandered down the block to Camera & Darkroom to look and bought two nice 5X7 holders. Also hit a gun store that has a big used selection. On Central Ave a few blocks farther East. Always worth a look.

Back from vacation.

Looking to the South from our little campsite at Shiprock.

Car camping in the desert.

Road up the West dike at Shiprock.

Shiprock and the West Dike.

The Transept from Bright Angel Point on the North Rim of the Grand.

Katie said she wanted to see the West. I'm the wrong person to talk carelessly around about the West, so she found herself in the middle of a vast expanse of hot dirt in a timely fashion. Cadillac Ranch at Amarillo. Albuquerque. Canyon de Chelly, Az. Shiprock. Lee's Ferry. North Rim of the Grand Canyon.

I didn't have to shoot once, though I was armed after a fashion. Browning Highpower, a 1961 Buenos Aires police contract gun went along. Not really a gun for the West with it's long distances...but, there you go.

Glad to be home.

Bought the best two 5X7 film holders out of an old box at Camera & Darkroom in Albuquerque. 20$ each. Should have bargained, I guess. I was the last customer they will ever see for that format.

Calendar Video up.

The Good Doctor and I photographing the A&M Firearms collection for the Texas State Rifle Association.

For some reason this was set on "private".

13-Club Lake Destruction

Epic freshwater mussels. These are smallish.

Dam in the background.

Bass that didn't make good decisions.

Overtopped and cut.

Upstream from the boathouse.

I don't use the lake much, but that doesn't mean I don't expect it to BE there. The lake upstream had a dam failure during an epic rainstorm today. (13 inches). Our dam failed when the water overtopped it.

I walked the muck looking at stranded little perch who headed for the edges when the current picked up and Boone and Crockett sized fresh water mussels, many of which were trying to drag themselves to the water 50 yards away. Since I'm a fool, I spent a little time tossing them in. Also a struggling salamander. Several stranded big fish and assorted bottles, batteries, anchors, gear on the bottom.

Spillway is intact. I'm assuming we will repair and rebuild. 15 shareholders on the lake, most of them residents.

Update: I'm a big fan and supporter and most of the time he does a hell of a job. Sometimes though, I think God drinks.

2010 TSRA Highpower Rifle Championship

Just got the video up. On the Blackfork6 Channel on Youtube.

LeMat Madness.

Went back into the archives for the ones that didn't make it last year. I worked a lot on the LeMat photos, but never got one I really loved. These are all from the 2010 calendar shoot...in 2009.

A&M Sanders Collection.

.50 cal Confederate Sniper Rifle.

The Good Doctor and I had a hard time resisting shouldering the rifles and sighting the pistols here and there. So we didn't. We deferred attempting to cycle the actions, but it was quite an experience to weigh these old firearms in our hands. This rifle is a single shot Civil War Confederate .50 cal sniper rifle. Weighs about 30 pounds. I couldn't resist trying to see through the old tube scope. Couldn't see a thing. Black from both ends. I took a little borescope light I keep in my camera bag and had Sneed hold it on one end and looked through the other......and saw a magnified dead dirt dauber from about 1870 silhouetted against the light.

Rejects.

A Big Pistol.

Winchester. One of One Thousand. I was impressed that someone who owned the "One of One Thousand" would actually use it as a working rifle. This beauty had been shot a lot.

Too strange an angle. Needed one more reflector to light up that big peepsight. Got the reflector in the peepsight on the final files. The Good Doctor is holding this rifle while it stands muzzle down on a piece of foamcore.

Background too lit. Old Mexican rug in the background, side-lit. Rifles on tape covered bricks on one end and more wood blocks and clamps on the other. Sneed handholding the barrel end of the rear rifle and monitoring both.

Too much or not enough something. Background a new wool army blanket liberated from the mop closet at Camp Swift during the Highpower Championship. Pistols on dowel rods. Rods in a 2X8 wood block with various angle holes drilled all over.

A perfectly good steampunk Volcanic. Pistol sitting on small squares of black foamcore, not the rock. They had three Volcanics. I don't know why I didn't shoot a group of three. Next year. I like this photo but didn't send it. Sent the pair on red deerhide instead.

Not making the cut. Pistols vertical on wooden dowel rods in holes in a 2X8 block. Old 500 yard rifle target background.

I shoot a lot more than we ever use and edit until the end. I try not to send too much...keep it simpler for everyone.

Steam Punk LeMats.

Same pistol, slightly color corrected, cropped and retouched. Nikon 300 shoots a little warm. I was using Dynalite flashes and no tripod, just freehanding the camera. Used all the F-stop I could get. I use this old deerhide from a 1988 lake buck in every calendar it seems. Tried to cut my time agonizing over every shot and keep moving. We finished 16 different weapons between 9am and 4pm with an hour off for lunch. Most of the set-ups are one main light in a Chimera diffuser and silver card reflectors. Sometimes a background light. Lotta tape-covered bricks, clamps, et, just out of the frame. Sent 15 files to the calendar printer. Couldn't have done so many without Sneed. He was working in every shot.

LeMat. You don't notice it much, but nearly every pistol is elevated slightly off the background with chunks of tacki-wax or squares of foamcore....or a very hard working wooden clothespin.

Pair of LeMats.

I love LeMats. This collection has five, including a Civil War veteran. I'm putting this up just for Tam.

If they made a reproduction of the lower early LeMat, I swear thats all I would carry for CCL.

These photos didn't make the cut but it sure was fun to be able to handle these pistols.

Update: Lower silver LeMat is a later model. There may have even been some modifications to make some shoot brass cartridge ammunition. You can buy a Lemat anytime, as a repro or original. Confederacy got 2500 or so. It's rare, but available on gunbroker. You can even buy a non-firing replica for about 90 bucks.