Mark Hemleben in His Studio

I was traveling across Arizona on my way to the IAPP/IVRPA Panoramic Photography Conference in Albuquerque. There is a lot of great country between my home near San Francisco and New Mexico, so I allowed myself a week to drive there, camping in the desert and mountains and taking VR panoramas.

Jerome is an old mining town - said to have produced a billion dollars of copper, gold and silver. The mines were worked for seventy years before they played out, and a substantial town was built, clinging to the steep slopes and running out along the ridgelines of Cleopatra Hill. When the mines closed down the town slowly emptied, then revived as a tourist attraction and art center. The old High School was turned into studios and galleries - nothing fancy, but a great location.

I heard music as I wandered around the old building and tracked it down to artist Mark Hemleben's studio gallery on the first floor. He had a painting in progress on the easel and was relaxing in a comfy looking chair, reading and listening to Brahms. The room was filled with his excellent plein air paintings, light streaming in the windows. I was impressed with the idyllic scene.

Learn more about Mark and his art on his website.

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USA-Canada / USA-Arizona

Lat: 34° 45' 4" N
Long: 113° 7' 20" W

Elevation: 1495 meters

→ maps.google.com [EXT]

Precision is: High. Pinpoints the exact spot.

Photographed with an Olympus E-3 digital SLR with an 8mm Zuiko fisheye lens, on a Nodal Ninja VR mount, Really Right Stuff ballhead, and Velbon carbon-fiber tripod.Stitched with PTGui Pro 8.3 on a Macintosh Intel Core 2 Duo iMac, retouched with Photoshop CS3.