Photos 2005

Start the year off fresh

When I first saw one of these signs I thought they were advertising a company that did Thought Cleansing, whatever that was.

In any event, I think a brisk thought cleansing is a pretty good new years' wish for all of you. See you next year!

I must have travelling on my mind

I can't hear an airplane flying by without looking up to see where it is.

Frost

Last week Miz Becky and I took a walk in Carkeek Park to get some late afternoon pre-solstice sun and see the end of the salmon run. Part of the park is in a pretty deep ravine, and down at the bottom of the ravine the morning fog had been collecting and freezing on the picnic tables for the last few icy weeks.

The ice crystals were beautiful in the cold evening light.

White brick always looks good

Scowl

Again with the stalking around at night

Morning Aurora

Chair in a tree!

Seriously, what else could I have called this?

The year in review

For a depressingly complete review of this year's comedy of politics, I recommend Arianna Huffington's 2005: Things I Want To Forget.

A scary pig for the holidays

Because nothing celebrates the two traditions we follow in this household quite like a scary pig.

More lurking

Fortunately our neighborhood is well supplied with this vintage of American cars, so there are plenty of models to shoot. Still haven't had anyone chase me down the street yet, which is a good thing.

What's he building in there?

This one's a little more abstract

But I still think it fits.

Lurking

And here we go

A few days of sketches for this latest Film Noir project. Some work better than others, but they're all interesting to me for one reason or another.

Ooops.

Some photos are all about the dumb joke.

Turning

Rusty shows her distinguished profile

Afternoon light in the house

Plenty of leaves left in the fountain

The hidden story behind this photo is that I saw it from about 15 feet away, and as I was getting close enough to shoot it, I nearly slipped and killed myself on the scunge-covered concrete surface surrounding the fountain.

The lengths I go to bring you beautiful photos, I tell you.

The city abstracts itself in front of my eyes

Kind of a coy look

Night in the city

Still turning a few weeks ago

More from my imaginary film noir

I've started taking pictures on my walk home from the bus, which this time of year is of course in the dark. Hopefully I won't get picked up by the police, but if I do, at least I'll have a couple of pictures up here showing what I'm trying to do.

Film noir still

I can't shake the feeling it's reaching for me

Those clouds are pretty nice in black and white, too.

Nice tribute

Most of our local busses have this sticker on, you guessed it, the left hand seats in the front row. Nicely done, Metro. They also have a page on their Rosa Parks tribute.

It just keeps getting better

Miz Becky and I agree that perhaps next year we should carve pumpkins weeks before hallowe'en so they're at the right state of zombie decrepitude when trick-or-treaters come 'round.

Spectacular clouds at the end of November

And more edges

Edges

Have a seat

Brush painting

This doesn't really show well at this size online -- it looks fantastic at 12 x 18 inches -- but it gives me something to hang this thought on.

After I printed this photo, the afternoon of the day I shot it, I wrote this in the Photography conference on the WELL:

All right, I've had the 5d for a week, shooting a lot (the last shot of today was photo #458 with the camera) but I hadn't printed anything yet.

So I converted one of today's images to black and white, fussed with it a bit, and now it's slowly spooling out on the piezo printer at 12" x 18".

I'm a pretty good printer in the darkroom. My first photo teacher had been an assistant at the Ansel Adams workshops, and she was definitely all about the craft.

I've used a lot of great lenses and fine grained film, carefully shot (middle apertures for maximum sharpness) and developed (calibrated tmax 100 in some fine grained developers).

I say all of this to give some weight to this statement: I have *never* gotten prints like this from another 35mm form factor camera. Incredibly fine branches on this tree are crystal clear. The usual piezography quality of lots of detail in shadows and highlights are in full force here. Edges are crisp. The whole thing is grain free at 12 x 18.

And it was so easy to do. I shot this photo around 10:00 this morning. I downloaded it to the computer this afternoon. I printed a couple of proofs on smaller paper, had dinner, came back and looked at them. Then I kicked the final print off on nice German rag paper.

I'm not sure what all of this means. I doubt I'll use the 5d to shoot on the street (it's still too big for me to feel comfortable using it that way, and I still love the texture of tri-x for that work). But for anything else... I think I've crossed over completely, now.

The back stairs

Storage

Hey look, I found more sandstone

Despite yesterday's "real time" interlude, photographically, we're still on Lummi for a few more days.

What am I thankful for? Well, this morning's sunrise, for starters.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone in the USA, and happy late November to everyone else.

A bit of halo

Miz Becky, part-time angel.

Don't let her fool you

Sure, Anneke looks cute, but don't forget she's also a wee demon.

Morning light again

Passing through

Happy lichen

A bit of white

Drying out for the winter

In the greenhouse

They were still getting tomatoes out at the end of October. Yum.

The sky was on fire over the Cascades this morning

Yum, Tuscan black kale

At the previously mentioned Nettles Farm.

Well, good morning.

On Lummi Island we stayed at the Willows Inn, a fantastic bed and breakfast/delicious dinner sort of place -- they get most of their produce locally, either from their own small farm (photos coming) or from other local farmers.

And occasionally one of the neighbors wanders by to check things out.

Rusty and I hung out this afternoon

How about a bit more red?

Not sure what these are called

But I'm sure Miz Becky will be able to tell us.

A last holdout

To everyone's surprise, the weather seemed to cooperate, mostly. It poured at night, and some in the afternoons, but we got some good weather each day.

Breakfast

Weekend before last we took a long weekend and stayed on Whidbey and Lummi islands up in the San Juans, north of Seattle. Naturally I ended up with a few pictures to share. Eighteen or so, actually, which means I'll be spreading that weekend out over nearly three weeks of posts. Time, you know, eet eez a funny thing.

Urban mycology

Deep forest? No, this toadstool was outside of my office, next to the street. I liked this photo better in black and white but unfortunately you don't get the effect of the bright red cap.

Update: Predictably, popular demand kicked in. Apparently many of you want to see the original color image, too.

Get the chandelier!*

Early morning fog on the street

OK, I can see the files from here

Caution

The punch

This sequence requires a bit of explanation... JT (maybe? J something, anyway; Stacy probably remembers) was kidding me about always being around, taking pictures, and we started to evolve this Sean Penn story where he would kick my ass in front of the rest of the crew and develop a reputation for being a hardass. Of course, we needed some photographic evidence.

Direction

There's Stacy again, in the middle, giving some notes.

Waiting

If I remember correctly, this guy didn't actually make it into the film, but he was there at the rehearsal, looking pensive.

Early

My old friend Stacy, there on the left, recently pinged me out of the blue, which reminded me how nice it always is to hear from friends you haven't heard from in a while. And it also reminded me of the photos I shot on the set of her short film, back in 1998.

So, a short walk down memory lane for the next few days while I remember how much I liked these photos, and how much fun we had hanging out together in the midst of craziness both software and cinematic.

Someone's lurking mysteriously

OK, so it's actually the brown cat, not the black one, but what the hey. Happy Hallowe'en.

Home

La via

Light

Shadows 2

Shadows 1

My favorite shrub

This is my official favorite of the shrubs at the new house. In the spring, just after we moved in, it had a wonderful sweet-spicy smell that immediately made me homesick. And now, as you can see, it's putting on a pretty decent display of fall colors.

Opinions vary as to what it is. Azalea? Rhododendron? Something else entirely? Nobody's quite sure.

On a nerd note, this is from the shiny new Canon 5d. Check out the close-up for a sample of how many damn pixels this thing really has, and how crisp it is.

Same sunrise, even more outrageous colors

Not too far from reality, really. There I was, standing on the lanai in my pajamas, shooting frame after frame, until I started getting too damn cold to hold the camera straight.

Nice sunrise last week

Stray banana leaves from a couple of years ago

More sea stacks

I shouldn't complain about not getting any fog. The morning light really was beautiful.

Nice light through the rhodies

Sea stacks

Since I never got the morning fog I was looking for, I had to make some myself.

Of course, the harder edges can be fun to shoot, too.

No, I really do love it.

I love the softness of the windblown sandstone

Rat City Rollergirls baby!!!!

Tonight we went to the final bout of the first season of the Rat City Rollergirls roller derby league. Tim, who has been doing sound for the events, had been telling us we had to come to a bout, and after seeing the semifinals a month ago or so, we knew we would be back for the season finale.

As you can probably tell, it was a hell of a lot of fun. Season tickets next year? Could be!

Update: Joe has some great pictures of the roller derby up as well.

William Coupon

A friend sent me a link this morning to the beautiful portfolio of portrait photographer William Coupon.

Aside from being a long series of lovely images (seriously, he must have hundreds on his site), studying these photos is also a mini-seminar in the masterful use of single-light technique (one strobe, mostly in a softbox), which happens to be my favorite technique for studio portraiture. So I'm happy, obviously, to get a chance to sit at his virtual feet and stare at every damn photo.

And now for some more black and whites from the coast

Grimacing rock

It's just like the face on Mars! Alert the flakes!

Insect Palimpsest

Nobody would go out on a day like this

Except Miz Becky and her parents. Go figure. Me, I stayed back and read Dhalgren.

Last light on Floras Lake

Light and water

Sand and not so much light

Not sandstone yet

In order to ease the transition away from sandstone, I'll throw in a few that are just sand. Oh, and light.

Some people used the sandstone to communicate

More layers

Sandstone bellybuttons

Layers in sandstone

I have no idea what would cause the different textures here, but perhaps one of the geology geeks has an opinion?

Different colors of sandstone

I love how the different layers and colors come together. There are some explorations of the different textures across the layers coming your way. Because, you know, there's a lot of sandstone coming.

Flaking sandstone

The great wave of sandstone begins

Remember the red dirt photos? Yeah, here comes the sandstone series.

Sandstone ships rise from the sandy sea

Man, that is one overwrought title for this post.

And now, reporting from Floras Lake

Miz Becky and I spent last weekend with her parents in southern Oregon, mostly on and around their property at Floras Lake and Port Orford.

It was beautiful -- I hiked on the beach at Port Orford every morning and took pictures, we watched Orcas hunt in the shallows one day over lunch, and we spent a lot of time on the lake.

More photos, obviously, to come. Are you surprised?

On my walk home

The text, unfortunately, is a little hard to read here... it says "Crystal, come back, Richard needs you".

On the ferry

Time for some street work

Enough of this tropical paradise crap. Let's return to my regularly scheduled dark street photography stuff.

More banana

I knew I left that hat somewhere

Super cool frog skeleton!

Morning light #2

Morning light #1

Nice light #2

Sure, it's a picture of me in a public restroom...

... but you should really blame Calvin.

Nice light #1

Just another scenic trail

A geology nerd interlude

I was surprised to find the soil near a high point of the Powerline trail was... not red! It also had a lot of clay in it, which is peculiar in a place that's so geologically young -- although Kaua'i is much older than the other Hawaiian islands.

Further down the trail, the soil was more the expected color, with some veins of even more iron-rich material.

Mornings were pretty nice on the beach in front of our hotel

Another view of beautiful Hanalei Valley

A birthday present to you

Happy birthday to me! And here's my present for you: click the picture above to get a desktop-sized image of beautiful Manoa valley.

A cliché hibiscus shot

Ha ha hah, more red dirt

These colors aren't tweaked at all... it really looks like that.

That doesn't look too comfortable

Morning on Wailua Beach, Kaua'i

Banana plant at the end of the Moalepe trail

Ti leaves on the Moalepe trail

Of course I brought film. Represent!

Hawai'i or Mars? There sure was a lot of red dirt.

OK, last one for a while. I promise.

Even still more red dirt, plus a boulder to break up the ongoing red dirt theme

More red dirt and clay on the Powerline Trail

Ferns and flowers on the Powerline trail

Palm tree by moonlight

A 15 second exposure, on a tripod, but everything was blowing slightly so it's still blurry.

Sunset over the Hanalei valley

Red dirt and pohuehue leaves on the Kealia trail

The red dirt tends to stain everything, including the rocks.

Even the rain is more beautiful in Hawai'i

Yes, that's right, Miz Becky and I have just returned from ten glorious days in my happy homeland. And although it did rain briefly Friday morning, it was otherwise aggressively beautiful the whole time. I got to see my parents and hang out with old friends, swim in the ocean, hike, and of course eat onolicious grinds, yeah brah?

More stories and photos to come, of course.

For some reason these make me want an omelette.

As a change of pace, how about some nice shadows?

All of these color images I've been posting are still from our trip to Whidbey Island at the end of July. It was an outrageously beautiful week...

They're making headlines!

(Have you heard about the new courduroy pillows?)

Why, thank you!

Even still more nice light

Layers

It's nice they have a list

If I go to hell, this is what it will look like.

Up

Yet more leaves

It's full of... uh... green, I guess.

More street

Waiting

Got some film back

The light was so beautiful on the dry sponges

Sometimes, beautiful light elevates even the most pedestrian subject.

Again with the curtains

Or, maybe, "it's curtains for you"?

Miz Becky looks at plants, I make photos

Yes, Miz Becky couldn't resist going to her favorite nursery on Whidbey Island. No, I can't remember the name of it ("look, another place to buy plants."), so she'll have to fill us in.

It's full of stars

We're back...

OK, so week before last I was super busy with some last minute stuff for the Virtual Earth launch (more on that later), and then last week we were on a long-awaited vacation -- my first real time off since the beginning of the year. No, "taking the weekend off" doesn't count, as it turns out.

Anyway. We were on Whidbey Island all week, where I made a friend:

Yes, the little critter really does look that odd:

The best part was that after it flew into my chest, and then I plucked it off my shirt and it crawled onto my thumb, it stayed there while I reached over with the hand it was sitting on and took my lens cap off. It's always nice to have a cooperative model.

UPDATE: Turns out, according to a few different sources, that it's a 10-lined June Beetle.

A little contrasting textures study

Yep, comments still broken. Working on it.

Leaves and fence

Heather and Tim's back yard, yesterday afternoon.

Yet again, cats and sun

Rusty carefully calibrates her sun usage:

Meanwhile, Mr. Still-has-plenty-of-spunk Edgar once again demonstrates "graphically strong":

The cats engage in their version of a tense standoff

Yesterday's fire alarm was a nice excuse to stand in the sun and look for photos

Little bit of a lamppost obsession this weekend

Edgar lurks

Ah, beautiful summer in Seattle

Lovely, no?

The above picture is a still from a video I shot this morning, testing out the widescreen mode on Miz Becky's late birthday present.

Why yes, you can see the very conceptual video as well (8mb Windows Media).

Surely something is about to happen

Day was here

This way and that

Uh, oh... he's getting graphic again. Time to hide the t-squares.

Caulk art

More folklife

I managed to make it back to Folklife on Monday, after dithering most of the morning about whether I was too lazy to leave the house or not. Of course once I got down there I had a great time.

Which is some kind of life lesson, but I can't be bothered to figure out what it might be. Moving right along to the photos...

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My god, it's full of clouds

Folklife 2005

Well, after weeks and weeks of working my tail off, I decided I was taking this holiday weekend off come hell or high water. Partly my resolve was based on the fact that this weekend is our annual Folklife festival, always a great time. I may make it back for a while on Monday, but if not, I still packed a lot in today. Saw a bunch of friends, listened to a lot of great music, and managed to take a few photos while I was there. Imagine.

Sun means shadows

Still smiling

Hilarity ensues

We had brunch with J & Janel Sunday morning, after they had survived a night of debauchery prior to J's taking vows preventing her from nights of debauchery. The mood was still silly, though.

First, Miz Becky had to try on one of J's hair clips.

Later, outside, we noticed that the J's and I all had brightly-colored footwear.

Miz Becky was feeling left out, so we let her black shoes join in.

A couple of pictures from the Circus

Last Saturday the Circus had their second annual fundraiser, Strip Joint II, and naturally I was on hand with camera. I don't have clearance yet to post any of the faux-strip acts, or the saucy aerialists, but here's a couple of innocuous photos of the band in action.

Maybe later I'll talk about my week and why I've been absent... it's been a long week.

This morning's dogwood blossom

Again with the clouds

Cheery and... not so cheery

Reaching

Looks suspiciously like the rays of something bright and yellow setting

No particular clouds yesterday

What is with these clouds lately, anyway?

Seriously, folks. Is it just the weird weather patterns of spring? Or what?

Click on the image above for a larger version.

From this morning's dawn to this afternoon's gathering clouds

Ordinarily I'd have tried harder to crop out the trees and light post, but losing that much of the image diminished the layered effect... ah well. When you shoot from your office window you take what you can get.

Yeah, the sunrises are still beautiful at the new house

Not too shabby.

Light on the bridge

Can you tell that I got a pile of film back from the lab?

Somehow I don't think it's working

The cats enjoy the sun

I stayed home today, after having inevitably caught the nasty cold that's going around. In between naps and working from home, I stalked the cats.

Apparently I'm placing the subject in the right-hand side of the frame this week.

Dreamtime woods

What it looked like at work at 11:30 last night

Special project... big presentation by our management today... cab ride home after the last bus left.

More light in the new house

Morning light in the new house

Spring has apparently arrived at my office

Is it too sad to admit that I've been stuck inside for a week and a half and just noticed yesterday?

Today's sunrise at the new house

Reinterpretation

This image was originally shot in color. I always wanted to interpret it in black and white, and I've poked at it every once in a while, but it never really worked for me until this morning.

Yesterday's sunset from my office window

I'm not sure that's quite right

Then again... maybe that's what they meant.

In which I welcome Miz Becky home

Miz Becky was in Oregon this weekend, you see... and I had lots of free time...

Every once in a while I like to welcome her home in a style that's completely out of scale to the time she's been away. Just to keep her guessing.

And having the first thing she saw when she came through the door be a 1.5m (60") wide leering photo of her husband... yeah, that'll keep her guessing.

Enough words

Time for a photo.

Last week's morning dusting

You know I want one.

Yes, it's the new Mac Mini. $499 or $599 of pure Mac goodness.

I wonder if the folks at Apple have decided that their true mission is to be the Anti-Microsoft. Instead of trying to compete with Microsoft, they're going in the opposite direction from the big M; for every clumsy, noisy, technology focused product Microsoft releases, they're going to release a simple, stylish, and beautiful one.

I predict that a significant chunk of people who are currently plugging their iPod into a Windows machine will be plugging them into a Mac Mini by the end of the year.

The iron bones of the city reveal themselves

A bit of yesterday's snow

More photos from Italy

It's true. I've been holding out on you. Can you forgive me?

Here's the first set of scans from the slides I shot in Italy. Remember those?

Still to come: The second set of slides, and of course the long-awaited black and white photos. Well, I honestly don't know if you're waiting for them, but ta hell with ya, I'm gonna post 'em anyway.

OK, everyone, sing along with me!

Frosty, the front yard
And an air temp of 24
At least it's sunny and there ain't no snow
Or you'd be a whiney damn island boy as usual.

That last line needs a little work, I know.