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.