I Didn't Take His Advice

 

Galen Rowell, as you may have read, below, advised against taking pictures of the sunset. He said turn around and take pictures of the people/buildings/landscape/detritus that are illuminated by the sunset. I forsook his advice on Friday night at the beach, and took this picture. It's a cliche, but it's my cliche, darn it.

I like it.

Mountain Light

Galen Rowell was a hero of my youth. He died in 2002. I learned about this tonight, when blogging on Elizabethtown. Kind of a shocker.

Rowell was awesome. He was primarily a photographer, but also a writer, and an "outdoorsman" -- a sort of generic term to encompass his various outdoor activities, but mainly he was a rock-climber. He said more than once that although he was known for his photographs, he spent 75% of his professional life writing, and 25% taking pictures.

He was a good writer. However, his pictures were incredible.

I got turned on to Rowell through his 1984 best-seller Mountain Light. I was very much into photography at the time and was duly amazed at what this guy could achieve with a Nikon FM2, a 28mm lens, and Kodachrome 25. This very evening I was showing Aaron HDR photos on Flickr. (He didn't know what HDR was, so I was trying to edify.) After learning of Galen Rowell's death, I reviewed some of his photos and realized that what he achieved with his brain, very basic camera, excellent film (and a neutral density filter) was comparable to what HDR is attempting to get now.

He and his wife Barbara died in a small plane crash. Guy was 62, so not a spring chicken, but he was a healthy bastard, one of those California types that made the type famous the world 'round. Point being, if the pilot hadn't crashed, he probably would have lived to 92, vigorously.

Rowell's best piece of advice to me, as a photographer, was: turn away from the sunset and photograph what it is illuminating.

My best advice to you, in two parts: 1) learn more about Galen Rowell; 2) avoid small aircraft.

Spiders II

Perhaps you thought I was exaggerating about the spider situation? It's friggin' out of control! They're everywhere!!

Illness or Prediliction?

 

I wonder, when you see this picture, is your first thought, "Bloody toddler... vampire toddler, psychopath toddler... satanic toddler."

Maybe I was warped by movies in my developmental stage, but those are my thoughts. If you see this picture and think, "Awwww... toddler really loves cherries." I can only say, More power to you, good citizen.

I'd Like To Do This To My House

I wonder how much it costs... .

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Spider Season

There's a William Shatner movie from the seventies in which a town is overrun with spiders. In typically bleak seventies style, the heroes lose: the haunting last shot of the movie is an overhead of the small town completely blanketed by the snow-white webs of the freakish arachnids.

Portland at this time of year is like the first reel of that movie. Spiders and their horrible webs are everywhere.

Yep, we're experiencing Spider Weather.

Set a glass of water down on the picnic table, and next time you pick it up for a sip there's a strand of webbing across the mouth of the glass. Set your bike against the fence and two minutes later it's a vital structural support for a bug-catching web.

Every single day I blunder through at least two webs, often ending up with a recently evicted and none too happy eight legged freak in my hair, or rampaging across the lenses of my glasses. Yesterday, my flailing reaction to this ocular horror sent spectacles and spider sailing from my head. Luckily, both found a soft landing on the welcome mat and the glasses didn't break.

As summer transitions to fall, nature will resolve the issue as it always does, sending the spiders back to wherever they go when it's too rainy to spin a nine foot web across my back yard.

I hope.

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Bossman in the Dunk Tank

 

I've been in management for eighteen months, give or take, but nothing has driven home (to me) my status as the boss as much as sitting in the dunk tank at the company picnic, watching wild-eyed employees heave softballs at the target that would put me in the drink.

It's just something I would never have done if I didn't feel like it was the right thing to do. It wasn't fun. There's the unpleasant expecation of the dunk with each thrown ball, then the always physically jarring dunk itself, and the shockingly cold water. The dunk tank machinery was broken, too, so the damn thing dumped me even when a thrower missed the target. Sometimes it dunked me even though no ball had been thrown. Irritating.

Although not an experience I enjoyed, I'm glad I did it.

A Good Day

Today was a good day. Nothing spectacular. Just a good day.

Barb made pancakes for breakfast. I had a brief but good phone conversation with Mark. We spent a couple of hours at the Adult Soapbox Derby at Mt. Tabor, seeing some friends we haven't seen in a while.

Elizabeth wouldn't nap, so I spent the afternoon doing some little 'nesting' chores, like putting up the spice-rack, setting up the microwave, and hanging a produce basket from the kitchen ceiling. In the evening the whole family did yard work until storytime. I got the second camellia pruned, which was extremely satisfying.

Nothing special, just a good day.

(Hot as a mo-fo, though.)

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Flagger Fail

I was amused by this flagger encountered at SE 11th and Hawthorne on my ride home from work today. She kept her STOP/SLOW sign upside down the whole time I was at the intersection, which was like ten minutes. Quite a lot of cyclists built up. I think the guy talking to her may have been her boss trying to figure out what the heck she was doing, because shortly after he showed up we were allowed to roll.

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Portland Signposts

Portland has got a very planned cityscape, which entails the creation and use of some pretty funky signs. I'll present more in the coming days (or weeks), but this one will do for starters.

Plus, this entire post, including the photo, are the product of my (disappointing; but that's a tale for a different post) Motorola Droid X.

Why couldn't there be a Motorola Droog?

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Updated: Typos edited out on the laptop.