Becky Thatcher didn't share all her secrets with Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Like all good fisherfolk, she kept the location of her favorite fishing hole quite to herself. There, on a summer afternoon when the water was warm, she could catch bass and perch to her heart's content, or linger into the evening hours to bait up a big catfish from its lair below a fallen tree. Oh, she was cautious of the boys, always checking behind her as she made her way through the tall meadow grass and into the forest verge. It was no easy bushwhack, two miles or more, and that in a skirt she'd promised to keep clean for school. With a basket packed with a lunch of cookies and a jar of wriggling angleworms, Becky was set to stay until suppertime. "Just one more cast," she'd say, in the manner of the true fisherman who knows you can't go home when the bite is on.
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Pufferbelly Smokestack
"Down by the station, early in the morning,
See the little pufferbellies, all in a row.
See the stationmaster pull the little handle.
Chug-chug, toot-toot, off they go!"
This one isn't going anywhere, unfortunately, but it sits outside the tiny Elbe depot owned by Mt. Rainier Scenic Railroad to encourage people to take a ride. Passengers travel between Elbe and Mineral, crossing the Nisqually River on a new bridge which replaced the one washed out in the floods of 1996. The tour was suspended for a number of years as Tacoma Rail considered the economic feasibility of repairs. The line had only one other client, a lumber mill in Morton, and they'd discovered that trucking their product was no more expensive than shipping it by train. Evenutally, the potential for tourist trade prevailed and the area received a minor economic boost when the line reopened. Ironically, residents take the train for granted, and few of us have ever ridden it ourselves.
Saturday, March 3, 2012
Hot Tamales
Here's an exploration into a colorful monochrome! I wanted this to be a "hot" shot, and wasn't getting good results from anything I tried until I accidentally put the camera on an automatic setting for "beach" instead of "selective color" as I'd intended. Suddenly, the spices leapt out of the gloom of my kitchen just as they attack anyone who attempts to eat Spanish rice made to my specifications. A little posterizing and a "glamour" filter to soften the focus, and I had exactly what I wanted. And if you should happen to survive my Spanish rice, you can try a curry next!
Sunday, February 26, 2012
The Yab-yum depicts Shiva and Parvati in "dalliance," and some say it was in this moment that the Universe was created. Shiva is known as both Creator and Destroyer, a masculine deity both benevolent and malevolent, subject to moods and whims similar to those of ordinary humans. Parvati is the source of enlivening energy, a counterpart to Shiva and also the mother of all other gods and goddesses, a symbol of utmost femininity. The pair gave birth to Ganesha and his brother Skanda, the latter being the least well-known of the family.
This brass sculpture was one of many representations of Hindu deities collected by my mother whose theology tended toward the Eastern style. In accord with the energy represented by this legendary pair, I gave the image an infrared treatment to provide a mystical glow around the figures. I think it would please my mom to see them so.
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Orchid's Heart
Watson's Nursery is one of my favorite places to shop, and the clerks are accustomed to the sight of me wandering around with the camera both indoors and out. The shop is a riot of color at any time of year, so much that the eye becomes befuddled with input and fails to notice the fascinating structures overwhelmed by the intensity of hues. Translated to black and white, the intricate and delicate heart of an orchid becomes the focal point, each dot distinct and each curve outlined by light or shadow. The monochrome allows us to enter another dimension of this exotic plant's beauty, seeing it as an essay of shaded greys as indeed it is seen by many creatures closer to Nature than ourselves.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Crow's Eye
Most of my self-portraits involve one of three things, a) my relationship with the outdoors, b) costumery or c) a galloping fit of the sillies. In the first case, I have posed on trail in every season of the year or in my Park Service uniform. In the second case, I have appeared variously as a schoolmarm from the md-1800s, a belly-dancer, a pirate, a member of the crew of the starship Enterprise D, a desperado on a wanted poster, and a variety of other different disguises. Admittedly, the b) category could largely be put into the same file as the c) category, but I generally reserve c) for such things as the madwoman behind the bathroom door or the head isolated on a fencepost. The one thing I had not done yet was a shot which I have admired in other photographers' portfolios: a high-key artsy shot with the camera half-concealing the face. There is nothing of the outdoors, silliness or costumery in this image (seriously, there is NO costumery, if you take my meaning) and post-processing saved the day by rescuing an otherwise lacklustre shot.
Pushing beyond your comfort zone...that's what photography is all about. Without a willingness to explore new ideas and techniques, you can have no growth as a photographer.
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Broad Side Of A Barn
Buffalo Bob the Banker doesn't live there any more. The buffalo are gone. The sign saying, "Is there life after death? Trespass and you'll find out" is gone. The barn is tumbling down, no longer used for Boy Scout retreats or a Hallowe'en "haunted house." No longer are the windows decorated with blue and red bandannas or wreaths of flowers. Nothing remains but four walls and half a roof, the other half having succumbed to our recent ice storm. The windows now are like blank eyes staring out across an empty pasture, and beneath them hangs a repeating smile of electrical cord, as if the barn wistfully remembers Scouts building catapults and grain-fed buffalo roaming in the valley below.