the Blog

Sometimes a picture is worth an entire week's worth of vacation memories. During our recent 10 day vacation to South East Alaska I took well over 1000 captures. Many were dramatic bubble feeding Humpback Whale images. But this image, a silhouette of my daughter admiring Juneau from 5000 feet, is a perfect bookend on a near perfect family vacation.

My eye is drawn to this image. It was captured a couple years ago and has just bounced around my filesystem ever since. My critical sensibilities tell me it is nothing special. But my 'art eyes' are continually appreciative of it.

Using Sigma's 12-24mm lens allows average photographers to make interesting images our of ordinary scenes. Interesting to this average photographer, anyway.

My eye was drawn by how the orderless sky contrasts with the arrays of lines on the cement steps. This shot comes from one of my photo-bike trips to the new beach access bridge at Chambers Bay Properties.

Patrons of the University Place, WA library are well aware that the new library building has finally opened. Some locals bristle a bit when discussing the city's 'Town Center' project so I won't touch that with my ten meter pole. But I will say that the building and grounds are impressive. The library is a wonderful upgrade from its previous temporary location. The Bridgeport Way side ground floor has an open atrium that serves as an entryway to the library and is flanked by retail spaces that, as of this writing, are not yet occupied.

Patience. The Canon S95 digital has taught me patience. Actually, the process of choosing, saving, and then waiting for its arrival was the source of the lesson. The camera itself was the reward.

My schedule has been busy since my new toy arrived three days ago and I've barely even used it. But I did get away for a thirty minute bike ride with my daughter and made the image shown below. I did a fair amount of post processing of the original raw image so this is _not_ typical color/contrast for this camera.

A Konica C35 rangefinder, stoked with expired print film, was my 'In Truck' camera for a couple years. I hardly ever used it.

But on a blustery afternoon, driving my daughter home from school, the sunshine found it's way onto our little road. The warm sunshine warmed up our tiny part of Grandview Avenue while the ominous clouds sailed overhead. We stopped in the middle of the road and I rolled down the window. This was the first frame of the first roll that the C35 exposed. And it turned out to be one of my favorites.

A recent January bicycle ride on Anderson Island caused the image above. The temperture was 30 ish with lots of frost still hiding in the shadows. Cycling in such weather is all about keeping my feet warm and keeping my tires away from ice. On this frigid day I couldn't help but to first notice and then stop at this little park.

Western Washing winter time bicycle riding can sometimes be a challenge. I'm told that, because of the Puget Sound's temperate climate, I can always 'dress for the weather'. Probably true but my feet still get wet!