Category: Photography

The Oregonian recently used a photo of mine, on the front page, without permission. Was this an accident caused by staff stretched too thin in a failing publishing industry? Or ignorance of how to find digital content, legally, to use commercially? The situation has been rectified with an apology and offer of compensation, but leaves me concerned that this might be happening more often than I’d like to think.

Help me choose which of these photos from last weekend I should make a nice print of for the parents of this lovely young lady (my goddaughter). I’ll print and frame the winning photograph.

Choose from attentive and realistic, gleeful, LOG POND WITH FISH!!! or weird/blurry but cute.

Everyone knows that there is weird scummy stuff on the beach. Sometimes it gets opalescent and piles up in a way that looks like it might make a good desktop background for one’s computer.

My goddaughter, Kea and daddy Kes at the beach (well, indoors) last weekend. Kea is old enough to be extraordinarily into the beach. “BEEECH? BEEEEEACH, P’LEASE?!” She grew gravely concerned when it grew dark. Where was the beach? It was sleeping.

I don’t like to use the word “pussywillows”, but it would have been appropriate here. Chasing tsunamis, spending time at the coast with nice people.

Still feeling peculiar, dispirited. But so as the earth awakens for something springlike, so shall I, ultimately, get my stripe of inspiration back. Here is a photo of a tree, emphasizing negative space. I had to adjust my route to work to find something new. So I did.

One of the Great Things I struggle with in life is balance. I get enough exercise, but I never see my friends. I read 75 books in one year, but never write anything. Sometimes I take reams of photographs, in spurts of expression; sometimes I am dry as a summer gully in this respect.

Currently it’s the latter.

About two weeks ago, I came down with photographer’s ennui. Though I still walk the same route to work, with the same, often insane visual entertainments, my camera dangles heavily at my hip.

Winter in the high desert. Juniper trees don’t get berries every year, but when they get them, they are tenacious little guys. Cute and blue-purple, I like the way they smell. Taken at Arnold Ice Cave, Central Oregon.

It had been my hope to merge my current site theme (The Heavens) with a winter weekend in Sunriver, Oregon. The high desert resort community usually has cold, clear weather at this time of year, and is far away from significant light pollution. That is, the stars can be heavenly, and I have in the past dabbled with entry-level astrophotography there with somewhat acceptable results.

I wanted to write for you about taking photos of stars. Alas, lingering between me and said celestial objects was a stubborn and weepy slab of clouds and mist that did not lift for the entire four days I was out there.

After plan B failed, too, I just had to make something up. Enjoy this latest post in my “heavens” theme series.

Life is more interesting because of things like this. The surreal name of this restaurant was an amusing mystery in Southeast Portland until the Portland Tribune tracked down exactly how this strip mall restaurant on SE Powell Blvd got its strange moniker.