Archive for January, 2009

I have told you about the desert in two ways: how Millican Valley tried to kill me, and how a glen of meaninglessness in the desert led to the most important thing I’ve known. Now I’ll tell you about how they start to connect end-to-end in the ring that is my story and then I’ll [...]

Ten or twelve long miles south of Bend, Ore., on US 97 is a resort community called Sunriver, which most of you know already because you have been there with me, at times. Sunriver is one of those places that lacks its own meaning and is instead a pastiche of things that happen between people [...]

If I am to continue this thing of talking about 2008, or really about anything, as it is about me, I’m going to have to stop and tell you about this thing with the desert. The first time I knew of the Millican Valley was when it tried to kill me. Descriptively, the valley is [...]

A book that could easily have read like a laundry list of towns and rivers is instead an adventure. Stewart comes across as one of the last of a dying breed: born in the 19th century, he projects an aura of pith helmets and wooden drawers full of collected specimens. He recaps centuries of expanding frontiers from a vantage (the first edition came out between the wars) where those frontiers had finally bumped up against oceans. The age of heady exploration and gentlemanly academic pursuit was waning. Stewart’s tone is both poetic and wistful. It imparts an engaging enthusiasm.

The tubes are giving me a walloping so I do not have the stamina to correct all of the photographs I shot this weekend, traveling in (frigid) Central Oregon. But here is a sneak preview: p.s. This is a two-shot composite: first shot exposed for sky, second for foreground. Digital imitation of graduated neutral density [...]

This is what ISO 25600 looks like. No, that’s not a typo. Consider my mind blown.

After some reservation, I think I’m ready to commit to some sort of daily photograph regime. After all, I just sunk about a year’s discretionary income into a piece of camera gear. Sure, I’m not doing anything new here; I’m not breaking new ground. Every bellybutton-gazer or aspirant photographer has pulled this trick. It’s predictable [...]

The weather in Portland today is dreadful. It’s frigid. It’s dim. It’s foggy. Not in any way photography weather. But still. I had to try. I took a short walk today and took photographs, mostly of trees and walls. I’m not proud of my initial results but they did give me a chance to learn [...]

My new Canon 5D Mark II came yesterday. The one I’ve been saving for for months. It’s here. It’s been essentially dark or freezing since it arrived, so I have not had time to get outside and really run it through its paces. But I will say one thing: DAMN. I wish I had better [...]

The other night, one of the members of my book club asked me what my favorite books of 2008 were. I stopped chewing on my lovingly-prepared salad roll and gaped across the table. I realized I did not know. I had not taken the time to sort them out yet. So frantic I’d been to [...]