Monday Mountain #2

Moon over Mt. Jefferson.  Hope you are all well and blooming in your stay at home time.  Click on the image for a larger and I think more pleasant view.

Monday Mountains

Monday Mountain #1 — I plan on posting a new image of a mountain every Monday until this all has passed. I may have to dig into my older files to do it, hopefully not too deep.  This is summer buildup over Mt. Bachelor from last summer.  Stay well and all the best to all y’all.

 

Shotgun Creek Solitary

Drove up the Shotgun Creek watershed east of Springfield this morning just for a little solitary forest renewal time. Took the image below with a Circular Polarizer to cut down the glare on the water and in so doing was able to bring out the swirl at the edge of the stream.  These short, rather local trips really do help to renew my spirit and I am glad to live close to the streams and forests I do love.  Practiced Social Distancing and made no contacts with others altho I did see a number of others – group of about a dozen 20-30 years old – who seemed to be ignoring that advisory.

Potential Pears

As many of you may know and in the past been recipients of fresh pears in August, I have a pear tree in my backyard.  It is currently in bloom and I think about the blooms being potential pears.  Here is one – perhaps a couple.  Hope you are all well and taking care of yourselves and your communities.  All the best

A Spring Morning…

… in the garden in the backyard.  I kinda jumped the gun yesterday wishing y’all a Happy First Day of Spring but I think today really is the start of longer days and warmer weather.  The image below is a composite of 6 images – stacked.  Took a while to gather a sequence that was still enough to composite.  I have seen a lot of traditional color Daffodil images and they are lovely but I think B&W brings out the classic, simple beauty in these blooms.

Comments always welcome

Social Distancing

It is my understanding that Social Distancing is the catch phrase of the month so in that regard I headed up to Delta CG along the S. Fork of the McKenzie River.  Fresh snow over night added to the interest and in the keeping with the phrase of the month I distanced myself and did not see another soul when I was out wandering.  It was not really very cold, freezing, but it was great to see the sun lighting up the frozen landscape.

I just want to include one more image of a place I have photographed many times with moderate success.  Such was the case again on the snowy morning.

Additionally I got this poem via my Bend friend Krayna and it seems so appropriate to be included in this post and was on my mind this morning.  My thanks to her for sharing it with me.

The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Bandon Beach

As I mentioned in a post yesterday I noticed a dark cloud mass coming in while shooting at Cape Arago.  I drove down to Bandon and had a very nice connective visit with friends Steve and Susan Dimock – both amazingly gifted photographers – and stayed at their lovely little boutique motel — La Kris Inn.  Always a pleasure to see them and get caught up.  I asked if either wanted to go out to the beach for an evening shoot and Susan said she mite be interested.  As the evening went on the heavy moisture laden sky thickened and while Susan made the right choice not to go out I wandered down to the beach and shot for about 1.5 hours.  Nothing much.  No amazing sunset.  The image below gives you an idea of what I found and it did not get better as the evening went on.

Went back early the next morning and found a clearing sky and some morning light coming on.  The second image of the two below contains Face Rock – hope you can see it – may have to click on the image for a larger view.

It was fun trip and perhaps the next one with be east bound.

Shore Acres stop

Went to the Oregon Coast mostly to just get away for a while and to enjoy what always seems to be a wonderful trip with great photographic opportunities.  Such was the case this time but so different than previous visits.  I stopped at Shore Acres on the way down to Bandon to see what was happening with the surf.  Not much, but still nice to be out there.

I know that people hawk the surf prediction websites looking for that day and time when the predicted swells are in the 15-20 foot range which results in booming waves that break on the jagged cliffs at Shore Acres resulting in towering jets of water and make for very dramatic photographs.  That was not the case for me on this visit.  I tried to get creative and decided to see if I could slow down the incoming surf in my images so I employed a 10 stop ND filter (almost black) on my wide angle lens and took some very long exposures – 30+ seconds at f22.  The one below is looking south.

After spending about an hour trying my best to figure out how to capture what was going on I drove a bit south to Cape Arago.  Wonderful overview – storm coming in – should have known it would wipe out evening light on the beach at Bandon which was where I was headed.  More on that in the next post.

As always I welcome your comments and if you would like a larger view just click on the image.

For Ardis…

.. who asked me the other day if the flowers were in bloom.  I do believe it is almost full on Spring. Breaking out all over the Valley.

A Look Back …

In my youth I worked on a US Forest Service trail maintenance crew consisting of myself and a friend, Bill Chase.  We were located out of Packwood, WA. The packer was named Don Bowen and the image below shows him leading the pack string across Goat Creek in the Goat Rocks Wilderness.  My thanks to old friend Dick Wilker, the wilderness guard, for sending along this image.  Either Bill and I were stumbling along behind or were up on the trail with Dick when he took this image.  Sure brings back memories of a great summer.