A few days ago we were driving down our hill on our way up to Portland to take care of some business and, as we passed a corner, Ann chuckled.  I asked Ann, “What’s so funny?”  She replied, “Oh just remembering . . . that time when . . . .”   I finished her sentence, “The 3-legged dog?”  And we both burst out laughing.  “Hans and the three-legged dog” is one of my favorite stories.  I love telling it and given that Ann and I spent the next 5 or so minutes talking about Hans and feeling so good remembering him it warrants an on-line recounting.  He deserves no less.

It had been a long morning of printing and the last blog post was just the beginning of our output.  Ann’s next image came from our stint at Capitol Reef National Park last fall, just before the hurricane rains came.

Ann had a 4 day weekend over the Fourth of July, and we took advantage of the extra time to wok on some images and, more importantly, print some images.  So many images, in fact, I’ve decided to break it up into two blog posts.

The last blog post left off with me unsatisfied with the sky in the black and white image.  Well, once something like that gets in your brain, it’s hard to let go of, so the easiest thing for me was to take some time with the image and to see if I could improve it.  And this is the result.

I’ve posted about this before, but it’s come up again so it’s time to think about it again.  That is how does one treat the question of whether an image is better in color or in black and white?

I’ve been juggling a lot of balls this year, and just as I began to feel like I was up on things and can add a couple of more (ones that I take pleasure in), I go and drop a couple.  Thank goodness they weren’t eggs.  So this morning, when I read something while eating breakfast, I decided there’s something I can do for pleasure, and get it done in one quick swoop.  So . . . .

It was Father’s Day last weekend and Devon came down to celebrate it with us.  When they asked me what I wanted to do to celebrate I came up with an innovative idea - let’s print some images!  In part because Devon deserved to not return to Seattle empty handed, and in part because Ann has been working on some images from our trip last fall in anticipation for our trip this fall.  And given that my desk computer was in the shop, it was an all-Ann printing session!

It’s been too long since I’ve posted, in part because we haven’t been on any real adventures, though it’s not for lack of wanting.  Life, it seems, wants to take all of our time this year and . . . to put it bluntly, life is succeeding.  Not all of it has been burdensome.  We recently visited Dad and family in Arizona, which was a relaxing break from way too busy work schedules.  Only for me to return to a hard drive that was dropping sectors and is now in the shop.  That has thrown a wrench not only into my work life, but my photography life - I can’t even work on images, or print, or . . . .  Two weekends ago Ann was working on images from our trip last year and it gave me an idea, why not write about our planning?  There’s a lot of it!

This weekend is the Champions League final between Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspurs (yeah, 2 English teams).  I read an article the other day about Jurgen Klopp, Liverpool’s manager, who has managed to not win the last 6 finals he’s been in.  When asked if he thought he was unlucky and hoped number 7 would be lucky for him, his response was, if you look at it not as having lost 6 finals, but of being the best coach over the last decade to win semifinals to get to the finals, things look very different.  Well, this week I can’t figure out whether I’m lucky or unlucky.

Last weekend Ann and I had to make a trip up to Portland.  Of course, whenever we do, we try our best to get up early so we can swing by the Portland Japanese Garden during members hours for a bit of photography.  Spring is certainly in the air and not only was everything in bloom, the sun was up and out even before the gates opened!

I guess I didn’t fully cover the “Working the Subject” topic discussed in my last post.  After writing the story, I thought a bit more about the images and decided to take a bit of time to see how a couple of the images looked in black and white.  Thus, working the subject even more.  I think it was time well spent.

I’ve posted before about working an image - how one often has to struggle with different ways of photographing a subject before you’re able to get an image that really stands out.  There’s a somewhat similar but quite different aspect to our photography that comes in to play for Ann and me, and that’s working an subject.  If you’ve been reading the blog for some time, you’ll realize that we often return to the same locations and therefore the same subject - you’ll recognize the same rock or tree from our Japanese garden trips, or the same formations from our Yosemite trips.  There’s a learning process, an understanding that comes from returning to the same place and subject again and again that can’t be obtained in a single visit.  In part, that comes from photographing the same subject under a variety of conditions.  During our trip to Bandon, that idea was front and center for me.

On that first morning during our trip to Bandon it took Ann a long while to finally see a composition that really excited her.  Compositionally, it wasn’t easy and she had to really work the image - finding the right framing, what to include, what to exclude.  As it often does, it means moving forwards or, as in this case backwards, until everything is just right.  It takes time, focus, and decision making skills.  And sometimes, as you’ve finally figured out the right composition, a Jackass comes walking into your field of view! 

It’s been way too long since Ann and I have printed.  Fortunately, we didn’t have any issues such as clogged printer heads and were able to get right to printing after the printer took an unusually long period to warm up and go through its cleaning/maintenance cycle.  Ann decided to go with one of her recent Bandon images; me, I went with two - one from our recent Painted Hills trip, and an oldies composition that turned out splendidly!

Sometimes words fail me.  How does one pay one’s respects when words seem so inadequate to the task?  Everything I can think to say falls so terribly short of what I feel.