An independent photography journal

Photographs are made on the way there.

I am June “Goose” Aldaco, a travel photographer in Albuquerque, New Mexico. This journal is where I write the craft down: how to shoot through an airplane window, which seat the light will visit, and what dawn does over water when ten thousand geese decide to leave at once.

Read Aloft Read Afield

A skein of geese crossing a high-desert dusk, one contrail above them — Dusk over the Rio Grande valley; the evening flight leaves first.Plate 00

Contents — Vol. 1

Ten essays so far, in two sections: Aloft, on making photographs in the air, and Afield, on making them once you land. Each ends with a field note you can carry.

AfieldJune 10, 20266 min read

Blue Hour Arrivals: Photographing a New City on the Night You Land

An evening flight into a strange city is a gift most photographers sleep through.

AfieldMay 27, 20266 min read

The One-Bag Camera Kit: A Week of Photographs from One Small Bag

After years of packing for imaginary photographs, I now travel for a week out of one small bag: a body, two lenses, and a charging kit that fits in a fist.

AloftMay 6, 20266 min read

Flying With Cameras: Getting Your Kit Onto the Plane Intact

A camera survives a flight the same way a photograph survives editing: by deciding early what actually needs to be there.

AloftApril 22, 20266 min read

Aerial Abstracts: Reading the Earth as a Painting from Cruising Altitude

From 35,000 feet the ground stops being scenery and becomes composition — braided rivers, irrigation circles, salt flats, mountain shadow.

AloftApril 1, 20265 min read

The Light in Airports: A Layover Spent Looking

A layover is not dead time; it is hours inside one of the largest light modifiers ever built.

AloftMarch 4, 20266 min read

A Seat on the Sun Side: Choosing Where to Sit Before the Light Happens

Which side of the airplane you sit on decides whether you spend the flight photographing glare or light.

AfieldMarch 18, 20266 min read

Balloon Mornings: Photographing Dawn Ascensions in the Rio Grande Valley

Every October my city fills with balloons, and every October I relearn the same lesson: the picture happens before sunrise, not after.

AfieldFebruary 25, 20266 min read

High-Desert Light: Learning to Photograph the Air Around Albuquerque

At a mile of elevation, New Mexico's air is thin, dry, and mostly empty, and the light behaves accordingly.

AloftFebruary 12, 20266 min read

Shooting Through the Window: Making Honest Photographs from an Airliner Seat

The cabin window is the one lens element you never get to choose.

AfieldJanuary 21, 20266 min read

Dawn With Ten Thousand Geese: The Morning That Named This Journal

Every winter I drive an hour south of Albuquerque in the dark to stand on a frozen deck and wait for the snow geese to leave the water.

Aloft

Making photographs in the air: cabin windows and the physics of shooting through them, picking a seat for the light, airports as subjects, and the earth as abstract art from cruising altitude.

Afield

Working on the ground: dawn shoots in the bosque, high-desert light, balloon mornings, one-bag camera kits, and the first night in an unfamiliar city.