Fleeting Moments

Lately, we have been getting a lot of rain. When that happens, it usually means you can count one thing, a sky full of colors in the evening. When I took this image, I didn't realize children were in the picture until later. I was too busy making sure I didn't drop the camera in the water. In any case, it was a lucky happenstance caused by the wide-angle of the lens. All good things are fleeting and come to an end. But taking photos is a passion for me, partly because it saves a moment to re-experience later. Pictures like this are memory pills that cause neurons to fire, bringing back moments, and sometimes surprises.

Smugglers Beach

I snapped a picture of some houses on Paradise Island. These are not just any houses, but I'm no name-dropper, so I'll leave it at that. It's always fun to look at these fancy houses. But honestly, if I lived in one and tour boats motored by every day, it might lose some of its allure. Nevertheless, it's not a problem I expect to have soon. Paradise Island in Nassau is where The Atlantis resort is. Except for a few houses, it's mostly resorts, timeshares, and a golf course. It's a fun place to visit, and having a home here is just for that, to visit once in a while.

Urban Beach

Here is another image I took on the beach in Barcelona. I photoshopped out most of the people, and believe me; there were a lot. We stayed at the hotel in one of the tall buildings for a couple of days before a cruise. Walking up and down the beach is entertaining, especially with all the outdoor restaurants and bars. There are so many it's hard to choose. Nevertheless, the heat forced us into the shade of a bistro that served icy pitchers of Sangria. And there we sat the rest of the day, savoring the flavors, recovering from jet lag and enjoying the sights and sounds.

Passage of Time

Everything that has ever happened is in the past; we only have the present. Smarter people than I have put a lot of thought into this, the prevailing wisdom is that time is not real; it's just something we made up to record or coordinate. I agree with this intellectually, but when I'm waiting, time seems genuine, if not slow. Attention is like a sail. When focusing on something, we move through time quickly. Maybe that's why time seems to move faster as we get older. The more our attention is focused, the more time seems faster. If now is all we really have, it stands to reason that awareness at the moment is more precious than we think.

Sunday Reflections

Most Sundays, I take a drive along country roads. Sometimes the most significant thing to see is the river, clouds, and reflections. With all the urban growth, I started driving further out. The funny thing is that if I drive far enough, I'll end up approaching the outskirts of another metropolis. Open spaces are dwindling. I'd like to think other places are still wide open. Like maybe some of the western states, or the prairies. But in reality, every little inch of space from coast to coast is owned. Or at least we like to think so. But I am reminded that the land is much older than our relatively new claims upon it.

Pacific Trail

The Wild Pacific Trail is just as it sounds, on the Pacific and wild. Wild, as in hiking or trekking in BC's Vancouver Island. The image uses HDR techniques, meaning I combined three frames of different exposures and blended them. Also, I used f10, so most everything is in focus. I love trail shots for the sense it creates of going somewhere and, a natural desire to know what's just around the corner. This trail, in particular, is especially good for that; it has hundreds of turnouts that open on amazing views of the pacific.

Shady Oak

If I lived in a pasture, I'd spend most of the summer sitting under the shade of an oak, and that's no bull. I took this on a drive through the country here in Florida. Contrary to popular belief, most of the state is agriculture. All you have to do is drive from one coast to the other to see what I mean. The drive takes about two hours and passes through a lot of cattle country. It's no wonder rodeos are big here. I'm an indoor weeny, depending on air conditioning to make it through the summer. If you lose your air-conditioning here, you may as well live on Mars or, under a tree.

Below Rainbow Falls

This photo is just below Rainbow Falls in North Carolina. It's on a trail with a waterfall payoff at the end. I think the word rainbow sums up those fall colors. North Carolina is famous for its autumn tones, which, as I write this, is still a couple of months away. It was nice to hike in the mountains and get a break from the humidity back home. This is another old photo I pulled from the archives. Old images are veritable breadcrumbs leading back to forgotten details. For instance, from the picture, I recall the hike took longer than expected and, was a little more strenuous. So when we got back to the hotel, we ate pasta and dinner rolls, leaving only, ...you guessed it, breadcrumbs.

Cool W

This is a fashionable hotel at the end of the beach in Barcelona. It's a cool beach with a cool hotel and cool people walking cool dogs. It's so cool that I was starting to feel a little self-conscious. But I know that's silly because the people in Barcelona are not so pretentious. They just have that way about them that seems fashionable to me. By the way, this photo is heavily Photoshopped. There were hundreds of people here. But, I picked out the most interesting and turned the rest to sand. If you zoom in, you'll see some quirkiness. That's just me and my less-than-cool sense of humor.

In Motion

I can't remember if I was at the front or back of the train. I'm going to guess the end, but it's not my final answer. In Vancouver, the SkyTrain is fully automated so you can sit at the front or back and watch the tracks through the windshield. I would often stand at the end of the platform and, once in a while, get the end seat. Sometimes I'd take videos with my iPhone, here's one from 2013. I'm all for self-driving and can't wait to get one. I would rather sit as a passenger and watch the scenery than pay attention to mind-numbing traffic.

Boat Life

These marinas are cities within cities. People in them live semi-nomadic lives and form communities; coming and going with the wind. The marina in Barcelona reminds me of similar ones close to home. I'm heading back and have been looking at my photos from there. Marinas are enormous along the Mediterranean. We have many in Florida, but I think they are generally not as big as the ones in Europe. Maybe boat life is more prevalent there. Anyway, I know an American teacher who leads on-line courses remotely from her boat in Spain or Italy, depending on the season. No house required; have a boat, laptop, and internet connection; and the world is your oyster.

Hidden Gem

Mulholland road in Parrish, oddly enough, dead-ends at a bridge. Because of that, it feels remote, even though it's in the middle of a housing boom. Living in suburbia as I do, the trick to doing local landscape photography is finding gems tucked away in plain sight. Even though I think I've found most, I'm pretty sure there are more. They are, by their very nature, not easy to find. I took this photo about five years ago, and today, as I drove by, the road is under construction. That means it's probably going to get more traffic and, extend past the bridge; meaning no longer hidden. But I'll keep searching for more spots like this in the suburban jungle.

Bodacious Sky

I took this from the Green Bridge in Bradenton on a particularly bodacious evening. Does anyone use that word anymore? Bodacious is a west coast word, but I'm from there, so I get a pass. For some reason, a lot of new words come from California. When I was ten, I made up the word "bad" to mean awesome. I actually thought I invented that. Imagine my surprise when I heard it on TV. Surely I picked it up subconsciously somewhere. My vocabulary is not particularly great, enough to get by. But I do get impressed by words all the time. I love the dictionary feature in Kindle. Depending on the author, I might just spend a lot of time in there. It's not as easy as making up my own words, though.

Point Lobos Sky

When I was here, I went a little snap-happy and took way too many shots of the sky. But that's a known hazard of watching the sunset in San Fran. As I look at this, I think if not for the photos, I would've forgotten all about it. These are not the kinds of things that stick in my memory very well. However, the picture brings back many details of that night, now nearly five years later. It may sound conceded, but I like looking at my own photos. In part, that's because they bring back memories of the experience. Maybe it's a sense of nostalgia because often the memory exceeds reality. I think we reconstruct memories to build a better story. I'm not sure that makes sense, but those are my thoughts.

Multnomah Falls

No trip to the Portland area is complete without visiting Multnomah Falls. Here is a lie; there was nobody here when I took this shot. In fact, to get this, I had to elbow my way through layers of Instagrammers holding phones aloft with their backs to the falls. I should have known better, it was July 4th, but I went anyway. I Photoshoped all the people off the bridge except for one. In the end, this edit is not far from the scene I imagined in my head. If I did have the place to myself, I would have taken more shots, but I like this shot, so maybe that would have been a waste. Anyhow, when I go back, even if it's winter, I'll come early to try my luck again. But it's all good; I ended up hiking to the top to see even more waterfalls and a lot fewer people. It ended up being an excellent day, for Instagram and me.

Gate at Dusk

I took this about five years ago on one of my visits back to where I grew up. But as they say, home is where the heart is. Never in a million years would I have imagined I'd end up in Florida. But here I am, and the longer I'm out here, the more I need to go back to the Pacific for little trips to recharge. Maybe I miss the mountains and evergreens which we don't have in the sunshine state. This image is my favorite from that trip, but I waited until now to process it. For whatever reason, it needed to age like a good California wine.

Out With the Tide

Waves washed in on this remote stretch of beach. Then egressed, and wash back out into the oncoming storm. My idea was to use a wide-angle and capture the motion. To do that I used a small aperture to get a long exposure; about one-quarter of a second to get this effect. One little tip about shooting waves at the shore is tripod legs sink when the water washes over. So, if the exposure is too long, objects get blurred. Another tip is to wash off the tripod legs in freshwater as soon as possible. A couple of helpful pointers for you photo bugs.

Venice on the Brain

I almost didn't go down to Venice Beach because I knew if I did, I'd end up retaking pictures of the pier. But I went anyway, and I did it anyway. I have this internal dialog in my brain. One side plans, decides, and weighs; the other does the opposite. In the end, all the noise is just that, noise. So this is the pier in Venice, it's a shot I've done before, but each time is a little different. This time I included only the sun's edge, so its presence is felt without becoming the scene's focus. At least that's how my left brain explains what the right brain did without asking permission.

Dee Wright Observatory

This spot is from a massive lava flow, surrounded by volcanoes on all sides. I wouldn't want to be here when the next one blows. Living in Florida, it's easy to forget there is a healthy amount of volcanic activity in the pacific northwest. It wasn't my plan to visit volcanoes, but little did I realize, most of the mountains in Oregon are. If I recall, Oregon and Hawaii are in the "ring of fire," and we all know Hawaii is quite active. When I first arrived at this spot, I was struck by how fresh the flows looked; I thought maybe they were ten years old. It was more like fifteen-hundred years, which, as we all know, is just a blink of an eye in geological terms. As amazing as it was, I was still glad to leave before mother nature decided to blink again.

Old Church

I took a picture of this church along one of the lesser-known highways in Florida. I just thought it looked kind of old-school. When driving in the country, I look for things that stand out; this fit the bill. It was, in fact, a Sunday but late enough that it was empty. It doesn't look to me like it has airconditioning so, on a summer day in Florida, it's probably as hot as purgatory inside, give or take a few degrees. Not long after this stop, I started entering the suburbs of Orlando, and from that point on, everything is new-school. The only things that look old are facades made to look that way. So, getting out of the city to see throw-backs is pretty cool, even if it is hotter than the devil's den.