Smitten

I was in Ohio last week, visiting my mother, and, when I returned to the Pacific Northwest,  it was as if the forests and big trees went out of their way to welcome me back home with stunning shows of beauty and photographic opportunity.

"Remember us?" the trees whispered, kind of like an old girlfriend temptress. "We missed you. Did you miss us?"  The trees did not even pretend to be shy.

One day the dog and I were out for our early-morning stroll. The sun was rising and cast beams of yellow light through a thin veil of fog in the trees.  The scene practically shouted "photograph me!"
Another day I took some visiting friends for a hike on a trail in the nearby Olympic National Forest. Rhododendrons were blooming, adding striking splashes of pink in an otherwise green-green-green scene.

My knees buckled and my old girlfriend smiled, knowing I was a goner for her. I'd buy her dinner, take her dancing, anything she wanted. The old flame was rekindled,  and, even if I had wanted to, it was useless to resist.

Dames

The witch hazel plant just off our back deck is a bit wacky,  if you ask me.
Every year, right around Christmas, the crazy thing blooms, apparently oblivious to the seasonal fact of life that it is Winter.

I shot the above image this morning with a macro lens, getting up close to witchy woman's sensuous, golden curls. Though the weather today does happen to be sunny with temperatures nudging 50 degrees, the witch, Hazel,  blooms at this time,  even in years when there is snow and ice around.

As I put this morning's photographs on a backup drive, I noticed that it was just 10 days ago that I shot the images I'm now posting below. It doesn't snow often at our house -- most of the snow we get in Western Washington falls in our mountains, not in the lowlands -- so when white stuff does cover our local landscape,  I venture out with a camera, looking here and there, hoping to find an image or two to document the Big Event.

Forgive me if I sound a bit paranoid, but I think Hazel the Witch and her girlfriend, Mother Nature,  might secretly be working together: Two dames in cahoots…intent, as women often are, in keeping a photographer fella like me off-balance.

Horse Treats

The woman who for years has pastured her horse Rusty just down the lane from our place told me about a month ago that she was going to move him to a farm several miles from here, and last week a big pickup truck and horse trailer showed up and took my horse friend away.

Nearly every day it’s been part of my routine to put horse treats or an apple in my pocket and our dog Pax and I would walk down to visit Rusty.

Rusty’s owner knows what buds her horse and I are, and she kindly told me I could go visit him whenever I want.  I’ll do that, of course, but for now I really miss having Rusty close by.

Speechless Babble

I did a three-day, two-night backpack trip in the North Cascades last week, and the 22-mile round trip outing humbled me -- not because the hike was too difficult for me (it wasn’t,) or because I did not make good photographs (I came away with a number of images I like very much.)

I was humbled, rather, because I was in the kind of environment that made me feel small and insignificant.  It was BIG country that I visited, with towering, cathedral-like peaks,  and deep, heavily forested valleys.  There were spectacularly beautiful larch trees, too, their needles brilliant yellow and gold in Fall color.  At every turn in the trail, every time I crested a rise or dropped into a lake basin, there was something visually stunning.

I spent three days, often speechless, sometimes babbling to myself like a crazy person: “Wow. Wow. Wow.”

Gone 'Round the Bend

Two friends and I made a trip to Bend, Oregon last weekend, a Pacific Northwest outdoor mecca I had never visited before, which is weird, because that North Central Oregon locale is My Kind of Place. There are a b'zillion trails and beautiful, snowy peaks in the Bend area, so that one can hike, mountain bike, or climb by day. And by night, Bend has enough brewpubs to keep a thirsty outdoor guy or gal smiling for a lifetime.

It is a six-hour drive from Seattle to Bend, so the area is much further afield than I prefer to travel when I have a hankerin’ to play outside. I try to be aware of my carbon footprint, you see, so North Central Oregon is not a place I’ll visit too often.  But, if you look at the pictures I’m posting today...well,  you’ll perhaps understand why this photographer does hope one day to go back.

I shot the above image on Sunday on the rim of the summit crater of South Sister, which, at 10, 358 feet of elevation,  is the third highest peak in Oregon. The first picture, below, is sunset that same evening in Bend.

The other images were made Monday morning at Smith Rock, a place that one could spend years and years photographing and still barely do it justice.

What a weekend!

Three Events

I joked in this space last week about how my end-of-summer wedding work has been keeping me busy and cutting into my hiking time, and the same wisecrack could be made about the volunteer shooting I do for the Seattle-area Tibetan community.

In all seriousness, however, this work is most definitely a labor of love, and the Tibetans have become like family to me. I'll gladly sacrifice hiking time for them.

Today I thought I’d post excerpts from three shoots I’ve done recently for the Tibetan Association of Washington.

The first five pictures are from Tibet Fest, held annually the last weekend in August at the Seattle Center.  It’s an event where the local Tibetan community shares its culture of food, dance,  and song with the city of Seattle. I do lots of pictures of the various on-stage performances,  and the Tibetans post those images on their web site and Facebook page.

What I’m posting here, however,  are off-stage and behind-the-scenes moments from Tibet Fest -- a few of my personal faves from the two-day event.

A couple of Saturdays ago,  one of my Tibetan monk friends was giving a teaching, but it happened that I was booked to shoot a wedding that day. Fortunately,  the timing of my “work” shoot was such that, on the way to the wedding,  I was able to first make a stop at the Tibetan monastery,  listen to at least a little of my friend’s teaching, and quietly shoot a few pictures,  which I later emailed to him.

Because Tibet Fest was such a success, a celebration dinner was held last weekend so that the Tibetan community as a whole could thank the many individuals who had volunteered at Tibet Fest (myself included.)

Seventeen monks from the Namgyal Monastery in northern India, currently on tour in the US, happened to be visiting Seattle that day.  The monks were invited to the dinner and enthusiastically took part in the laughter and celebration. At the end of the evening, a ceremonial scarf was presented to the monks, who, in turn, offered a prayer to the community.

 

 

Whole Milk

After spending most of July in and around the very high mountains of Northern India and Nepal, returning to Seattle and sea level made August my Superman Month.  Everything physical that I have done now that I’m home --  like running trails near my house, or even hiking in the Cascades -- has felt so ridiculously easy.  The air here is like rich, fat-filled whole milk, compared to the non-fat, skim milk atmosphere of the Himalayas.

I lost weight on our trip,  but feel now like I’m gaining it back, just by breathing.

The pictures I’m posting today are images I’ve shot on hikes in the Cascades during Superman August.  Above is Sherman Peak on Mt. Baker as seen from the Ptarmigan Ridge Trail. Below are wildflowers along Lost Creek Ridge near Glacier Peak.

I miss the adventure and excitement of India and Nepal, but, at the same time, it does feel good to be home and enjoying a Pacific Northwest summertime (oh yes, the living is easy.)

 

Afloat?

(Leah and I recently returned from a three week trip to India and Nepal. This is the 15th of 16 daily posts I will do, sharing photos and journal notes I made as we traveled.)

Kathmandu, Nepal
July 19, 2014


Our Nepali hosts took us to Kathmandu's ancient and amazing Pashupati Temple today, our last full day of this trip, and, if there is a place on this planet where the Human Experience is more in-your-face, I am pretty sure I am not enough of a stoic to handle it.

As I walked around the temple grounds, I was part of a crowd of people so diverse -- beggars, the affluent, individuals who are faithful, and I'd guess some who are not -- that I couldn't help but think about that famous newsreel film clip of the crashing of the Hindenburg, where the announcer keeps exclaiming "Oh, the humanity! Oh, the humanity!"

The temple's recorded history dates back to the time of the birth of Christ, and today it  is sacred to Hindus, Buddhists, and others.  It is a place for prayer and meditation, for very public funerals and cremations -- smoke from the burning bodies hangs in the air over the temple -- as well as a market where visitors can shop for candles and flowers to leave at the temple as offerings, or buy gifts to take back home.

As always, I wanted to be a humble --and I hope respectful -- visitor and observer,  while trying my best to stay emotionally afloat and positive in that sea of humanity.