Category: Travel

Umpqua River Lighthouse

UmpquaRiverLightw

Finally finding some time to process images from the April trip to the coast. I was playing with this one as a possible black and white and after cloning out some trees I like the simple effect but I missed the color. Tried some blend modes to bring it back a little and found that luminosity did just what I wanted.

This particular lighthouse is hard to photograph because it is so accessible. There is no photographing it from a distance as a landscape element. But up close there are lots of fences and signs to contend with. Not to mention the trees I photoshopped out. So I’m pretty happy with this intimate portrait feel of just the top of the lighthouse with some sky showing in the background.

Baby Whale

Baby3w

I’ve been slacking again on the image of the week. But in my own defense wi-fi in Baja California is sketchy at best and since returning I have been hard at work sifting through the images I made there. This one of a baby whale coming to the surface is one of my favorites. This baby and his mama hung out with our boats for quite awhile, and no, I didn’t use a telephoto lens.

Water Bucket Bodie

WaterBucketw

I’ve been neglecting the image of the week again as I have been working furiously on a scrapbook of images from 2018. Ten more pages to go. But I challenged myself as I go along to find images that would look good processed in black and white. I really like how this one turned out. In color the bucket kind of got lost in the building. This was captured in Bodie, California.

Japanese Lantern

SnowLanternw

They called this a snow viewing lantern. I don’t know why. I have been neglecting my image of the week postings because I am still up to my ears in processing photos from Japan and creating a scrapbook of the trip. But when I came across this photo I thought it deserved special recognition. Of course I am always a sucker for Japanese Lanterns. This was one of 15 in a garden crammed into a site less than a half acre in area. Paradise.

Fans

Fans

I’ve been falling down on the job of getting my weekly blog done. But I have been doing a daily blog of my travels in Japan so I think that more than makes up for it. I came home with over 2000 images so it was hard to narrow it down to one. But, a lot of the images are more about telling the story than being artistic. And some of the best images have already appeared in the blog. But I managed to narrow it down to these fans I saw in a souvenir shop on the way to a temple or some fabrics I photographed in the market. I only chose the fans because I am jet lagged and they were in front of me. So it goes. They have just been sharpened and denoised with a little added saturation. I thought about hiding the price tags but since there are not too many of them and they are in Japanese I decided they could stay.

Day 51 – Bicyclist

Bicyclist

Maybe Alone on my Bike

I listen, and the mountain lakes
hear snowflakes come on those winter wings
only the owls are awake to see,
their radar gaze and furred ears
alert. In that stillness a meaning shakes;

And I have thought (maybe alone
on my bike, quaintly on a cold
evening pedaling home), Think!–
the splendor of our life, its current unknown
as those mountains, the scene no one sees.

O citizens of our great amnesty:
we might have died. We live. Marvels
coast by, great veers and swoops of air
so bright the lamps waver in tears,
and I hear in the chain a chuckle I like to hear.

-William Stafford

A friend requested twenty assorted note cards. I don’t think she realized I don’t have a stock of them printed up but just print out whatever strikes my fancy at the time. So, I was hunting around this morning for images that would look good on note cards and came across this one I took in Vermont at the Shelburne Museum of a poster in the circus portion of the museum. Since clouds and the chance of rain have put a damper on my planned trip to the Applegate Valley I decided to just use this one instead. And imagine my excitement in finding a poem about riding a bike by Oregon’s own former poet laureate.

Day 43 – Rescue Barn

Barnsidew

Weathered

Weathered and worn
But oh so proudly
The old barn preened in the summer
Mid-day sun

He had seen her earlier,
Noticed her shape, angles
On the drive to his desk and cube

But now she shown
The aged wood, elephant skin
Or maybe the skin of a Burmese elder
Lit at the edge of the cut field

Tawny, creosote, browns in varied hues
Tingled his fancy, his synapses
Starkness of the vertical and horizontal lines
Breaking the field and forests
Softer edges

Ready for a picture or two
To catch the eye, the imagination
Of the traveler of the byway
Proud in its skin
In the light

 – Raymond A. Foss

One of the many awesome places we visited in Vermont was a farm where they rescue, among other things, old barns. This was just one of the many very cool barns on the property. I am almost done editing images from New England so I felt like since that is where most of my energy went today it was appropriate to dip into those files for today’s post. I reviewed a number of poems about old barns but most of them seemed so negative. I liked this one because it spoke of the majesty of the old barn rather than decadence as I hope my photo does too.

Day 36 – Books and Bakery

BooksandBakeryw

There is no Frigate Like a Book

There is no Frigate like a Book 
To take us Lands away 
Nor any Coursers like a Page 
Of prancing Poetry – 
This Traverse may the poorest take 
Without oppress of Toll – 
How frugal is the Chariot 
That bears the Human Soul –
– Emily Dickinson
I was feeling more painterly today and came across this image taken in Vermont. It had a lot of power lines in the original so I gave it the full Photoshop treatment. And what better combination than books and a bakery, and a poem by Emily Dickinson.