It’s unfortunate that I’ve been remiss in adding new postings, but the reason is plain - I’ve been running ragged simply taking care of things.  And that has not given me much opportunity for creative endeavors (which I hope will change this weekend with a trip to Bandon to take advantage of the low tides/full moon).  As part of my taking care of business, I’ve finally completed transferring my Lightroom images into Capture One.  Creative for me the past couple of weeks has been to periodically glance at images while they’re loading into Capture One, while I’m working on something else (like a brief to LUBA).  So for lack of something better to post, I leave you with one of the images that caught my eye!

Perhaps I should have titled this “photographing to see,” but to be honest, I’m not quite sure how to best describe it.  As you know, I’ve written a couple of posts about “working” an image - when you see something that strikes you and you keep working to make the best image of it that you can.  Sometimes this means (un)subtle shifts in camera placement or lens selection, sometimes it means moving around an object to finally realize what you see.  The thing about that process is that you see something first, and then you have to figure out how to photograph it.  But I’m talking of something slightly different here.  That is, you don’t see it until you start photographing it.  I love the sense of discovery and fascination I feel when I see things this way.

Two weekends ago Ann and I headed out to the Painted Hills for a long weekend.  It had been raining pretty much non-stop for a week, both here and at the Painted Hills, but the forecast was for partly cloudy skies with a chance of showers for a couple of days, so we decided to take a chance on getting some interesting conditions.  As luck would have it, we stayed dry . . . at least for the most part.

Our July adventure had me in an abstract frame of mind.  Blame it on studying Brett Weston that month, or on the photography gods, but I decided to visit my Painted Hills images in black and white much like I had the Palouse images.  I think I was smart to do so.

I’ve been pretty bad about transferring my library of images into Capture One catalogs.  In-between still dealing with the fall-out from our winter storm and flood of other things life has thrown our way, I stopped importing images into Capture One quite a while ago.  However, with the renewal of my Lightroom subscription coming next month, I decided I needed to at least get all of my images into Capture One before then and have started the importing process again.  The other day I was importing some images from 2015 and when I walked back into my office to begin the next import, the image I saw on the screen flashed the memory of making it in my mind and I saw what I needed to do to realize it on the screen.  I was supposed to start making dinner but . . . dinner could wait!

Last weekend Ann and I needed to do some printing.  Ann wasn’t sure which images she wanted to print,  so she asked me if I’d help her pick a couple.  Given she’s been working on a variety of images from our recent trips, there were several to pick from.  Pleased that she had been working a lot in black and white, and knowing that I’d been working on a couple of B&W images, I said, “Well, why don’t we narrow it down to just black and white this weekend.”  So that’s what we did! 

A couple of weekends ago Ann and I finally made it to the Portland Japanese Garden, in part to photograph and in part to see a joint exhibit of Michael Kenna’s photographs and Japanese Viewing Stones being held at the Garden.  With no winter snow storm warning in the forecast this time, we got up nice and early and made the drive up to Portland so we would arrive right as the garden opened for members hours.  That gave us two hours to photograph before the crowds started arriving.  And, it gave Ann an opportunity to make one of the more unusual Shooting the Shooter images she’s made.

You would be excused for wondering if we actually photographed any redwoods during our Redwoods trip.  Well, we did, of course, but not because the world made it easy on us.  As I’d hinted at previously, the Newton B.  Drury Scenic Parkway (the main parkway to access many of the redwood sites) was closed due to downfall from the winter storms that had recently passed through.  And our trip to Stout Grove in the Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park to the north ran into complications when the backroads route into the park had a locked gate (we later found out because . . . of downfall from the recent winter storms  [are you noticing a pattern here?]), which required us to backtrack and go around through Crescent City and try to approach Stout Grove from the NE.  Fortunately, that route had been cleared a couple of days earlier, which leads us to our next segment of shooting the shooter.

This is a bad paraphrasing of a story, but someone once asked Alberto Giacometti why he always sketched people.  Giacometti’s response was because it was impossible to sketch a tree.  If he could sketch a tree, then he’d be really good.  But until he could do that, he would have to settle for people.  Charlie Waite recently had a blog post about photographers’ (including him) fascination with trees.  He’s right, at least for me.  And while we were frequently immersed in forests during our trip to the Redwoods and surrounding area, it was all too often the individual tree that grabbed my attention. 

It must have looked hilarious, Ann and me on the Beach that morning in Bandon.  Well, that is if someone had been watching from a distance.  Fortunately, it was about 6:30 in the morning, and in winter, that means it was still a half-hour before sunrise.  So it was still dark.  I doubt anyone was watching.  We knew we wanted to photograph one of Bandon’s well known rock formations and had tromped directly from the parking area steps the quarter mile or so to the spires.  We had stayed on the upland side of the shore, not wanting to make footprints in the sand, smooth from the receding tide.  As we approached the rocks, we both stopped to give a good look around, and then the comedy began.

We ended our February excursion at one of our go-to photo locations - Bandon.  We knew another storm was heading our way and the forecast seemed to change daily - rain, no rain, rain, clear, partly cloudy - but we decided to spend the night and hope for the best.  While it wound up not presenting ideal conditions - the clouds did some really funky things that morning - it was a lovely morning of photographing.  And best of all, Ann made one of her shooting-the-shooter photographs that make for an easy blog post.  Except this time, it was an accident!

I should be writing about our recent trip that took advantage of the President’s Day holiday.  But events have overwhelmed us since we returned, so I’ve decided to start with our chaotic week and work backwards in my posts.  I knew it was going to be a hectic one upon our return, given I had an oral argument at LUBA on Tuesday.  Little did I know snow storms would hit before and after my trip up to Salem.

The other night Ann and I were (I thought) unwinding on the couch after a long day’s work.  I think we were watching the Daily Show, or Grand Tour - something fairly light and entertaining.  What was on TV had my attention, and Ann was sitting there with her feet up on the couch, playing with her iPad and periodically laughing at what was on the screen.  At the end of the show, Ann hands me her iPad and says, “What do you think of that?”