Away, and Home

My hiking buds cooked up a plan to climb Mt. St Helens this past weekend. And, though my reaction to any proposed outdoor adventure is typically "count me in!", my feeling about slogging up St. Helens for the umpteenth time was:  "Been there, done that (too often!)"

What I'm posting here today, then,  are my What I Did With My Weekend (Not Hiking or Climbing) pictures.

On Saturday Leah and I made a little one-day road trip to Central Washington and to Yakima. Above is a picture I shot from a ridge high above Ellensburg -- Mt. Stuart and her sister peaks (Sherpa, Argonaut, Dragontail) under a dramatic, Ansel Adams-esque sky. The first two pictures below are from our drive through the rocky landscape of the Yakima River Canyon.

The last two pictures are from Sunday, back at home in Western Washington,  as Leah, Pax and and I worked at gardening and other outdoor chores…the payback labor I had promised my mate who, other weekends,  lets me run off and play in the mountains with my ne'er-do-well friends.

Side Trips

For those of us who are photographers, a visit to New York City entails a number of must-do side trips: The Modern Museum of Art, the International Center of Photography, and the Leica Gallery are always high on my list.

Additionally, as a photographer/human of the Cameras Consumeras species, I simply have to spend a few hours in B&H Photo, the camera store equivalent of Paradise, in my humble opinion.

I was in NYC recently  (also called Juh Ci-tay by a four-year-old I met on the plane who cannot pronounce "New York, " and, for some reason, that hipster-ish name tickled me. ) I went to photograph one of the global celebrations of the 80th birthday of the Dalai Lama, but I was so busy shooting that I didn't have time to gallery-hop and see the work of others. I did, however, find a few moments to stop at B&H Photo (it was only three blocks from the Javits Center, where the Dalai Lama event was held.) I shot a phone selfie (above) with a street photographer outside the store.

Once the two-day Dalai Lama celebration had concluded, a Tibetan lama friend and I also made a trip out to Long Island, where my friend gave a talk about meditation. The images below were shot that day.

I'm back in Seattle now, readjusting to life in the land where everyone carries a daypack, even suit-wearing lawyers headed to the office,  or cultured types on their way to a symphony concert.  But I must admit that I am kind of missing Juh City.

A return trip MUST be scheduled.

Diary of Days

A couple of mornings this week I walked into the kitchen with the intention of making tea, but instead happened upon the pictures you see here.

--Amazing and angular Spring light was streaming in the window, creating striking shadows of Leah's Christmas Cactus plant,  and the hand-crocheted curtain she made.

--Another day,  sunshine illuminated bits of surf-smoothed glass we've gathered on walks on the beach over the years.  My mate has put that glass in a vase, and to me she has made art.

I wrote her a note. "I see your heart," I said.

Wow Moments

A photographer friend of mine, someone quite well-known as an artist, teacher, and author, often talks about the way images "present themselves" in his life.  And I must say that those two words -- present themselves -- ring oh-so-true for me as well.

The two photographs I'm posting today are perfect examples of images that came my way this week, not because I sought them out, but because they just appeared -- voila -- in front of me, kinda magically. And while I enjoy and practice many kinds of photography, these are perhaps my favorite kinds of pictures: Personal and diary-like.

The image above was something that I saw when I stepped into the bathroom early one morning to brush my teeth. The photograph below was made on our front porch, just before sunset, as I was splitting wood for our evening fire.  These photographic moments were not planned, or arranged. They simply appeared, in passing.

Are they high art?
Not necessarily. Maybe. Who knows?
Do I care? Not at all.

They're moments when I was going about my business, looked up, and thought: Wow!

Sweet Sunshine

Despite what you might have heard, it does not rain all the time in the Pacific Northwest (our summers here are actually quite nice.)  Why, in the months of July through September,  we often have at least two or three days when the sun comes out and those of us who live here dig around in junk drawers, trying to remember what it was that we did with our sunglasses.

I joke.

Our winter season, however, is a different (grayer and wetter ) matter. It IS true that our days now are cloudy and rainy often enough that, when the sun makes an appearance, we PNW -ers do take notice.

A number of times recently I have walked into our kitchen and have seen wonderful light -- light that seemed worthy of a photographic journal notation.

Some people use a pen and paper to keep a diary, and I even know folks who make beautiful journals using watercolors. I, of course, have used a camera my whole adult life to record the News, and these days the news is sweet, welcome sunshine.

Man with a sign

Walking on the streets of downtown Seattle, it is unfortunately a common, everyday thing that one encounters people who appear to be homeless, have some kind of sign asking for money, or both.

A couple of weeks ago I was walking through downtown and I saw the man in the photograph I'm posting today.  As I passed the man, I glanced at his sign, and his face. I kept walking, but then I stopped. I went back to the man.

"I like your sign," I said. "I grew up in the 60's. I remember when Life Magazine did news stories about people who were called 'hippies.'  Could I take your picture?"

"Sure,"  he said.

In the years I worked as a newspaper photographer,  I never gave money to someone so that I could take their photograph (that would not have been journalistically ethical.) Furthermore, it is said (I can't exactly say by whom) that, if one gives money to a street person, our gesture somehow encourages people to live on the streets.

The fellow did not ask for money, but I felt I should give him something. I only had $3 in my pocket and I gave it to him.

"Good luck to you, brother," I said, and I continued on my way.

It occurred to me then that, like many of those who live on the streets, I now had no money in my pocket...though, for me, that situation was only temporary. I walked on, mindful of my good fortune.

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.

Thankful

The Thanksgiving meal is in the oven and our guests will be here in about an hour.  The house is warm and cozy. It feels like a holiday.

I got up early this morning and drove to Bainbridge Island where I ran in a 5k Turkey Trot. I know how fortunate I am to have good health, and that, most every day, I’m able to get out and go for a run or head to the mountains for a hike. I am appreciative of the life I have.

What I’m really thankful for, however, is what you see in the photographs I made recently and have posted here: The Three Girls in my life. Leah, my mom, and Paxie.

A photographer sometimes needs a muse, and I am thankful that I have three.