Fine Art Photography Blog

As you’ve probably noticed, many of the photos on this blog are from my home city, Seattle. Most, if not all, have grown out of local hikes. I live toward the bottom of Queen Anne hill, and make frequent hikes to Kerry Park. Late last week I found a lost cat on one of these hikes; I coaxed it away from the road, and it began to follow me.

With little choice, I took the cat in for the night, then to a veterinarian the next day to find its owner, putting up local classified ads and posters. The cat has a microchip - and, according to it, his name is Michael; he’s 14 years old - but, sadly, the vet found his owner, who dumped him.

Naturally this meant a return trip for Michael to the vet. Between his eye, low weight, and insatiable thirst, a lot of testing was in order. Michael is in good shape overall, but has weak kidneys ( and needs special food because of it ). The medical attention was quite expensive - roughly $500 - but necessary given the situation. Regrettably, I need to ask any of my readers who feel so inclined to make a small donation toward repaying the vet for Michael’s care.

A friend of mine loves one of my photos of the city because it shows a crane … a constant fixture in our skyline. Typically the crane would be a minor distraction, but it strikes a chord, at least with recent Seattle residents. Until the 1970s we were a sleepy hamlet in the northwest, a parochial stop between Vancouver and San Francisco. Boeing and Microsoft changed all of this … along with the passing of time in general.

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By tradition, we like to ring in the New Year with a fireworks show from the beloved Space Needle.

Living in Queen Anne, I hiked up to Kerry Park for the show. Near the top of the hill, and situated directly opposite both downtown, in the background, and the Space Needle; this is the one place in the city where the Needle looks like it could be standing next to other sky scrapers.

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Sitting in the northwestern-most corner of the continental United States, Olympic National Park is a vast swatch of pristine wilderness across the Sound from Seattle. The park itself occupies much but not all of the peninsula, generally surrounded by national forest, rivers, sloughs, and archipelago.

Half the reason I moved to Seattle was these mountains, and as beautiful as they are from a distance, I had been waiting too long to actually hike here.

Crescent Lake

Like Glacier’s Lake McDonald, Crescent Lake is a nearly endless pool bound in by mountains at the edge of a national park. Roadside along US 101, the seemingly endless aquifer is easily accessible to anyone intrepid enough to venture this far.

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This is a very different kind of Christmas story.

Years ago, a good friend of mine called me with an urgent invitation to read a short story in his brother’s American literature text. This is one of the most moving things I’ve ever read; sadly it’s also virtually unknown outside of university classes. And yet the visual imagery, masterful use of language, and story anyone can relate to continue to inspire my travels after nearly a decade since my first encounter with this work of genius.

Those are never lonely who love the snow and the pines; never lonely when the pines are wearing white shawls and snow crunches coldly underfoot.

Blue Winds Dancing

By Tom Whitecloud

There is a moon out tonight. Moon and stars and clouds tipped with moonlight. And there is a fall wind blowing in my heart. Ever since this evening, when against a fading sky I saw geese wedge southward. They were going home…. Now I try to study, but against the pages I see them again, driving southward. Going home.

Across the valley there are heavy mountains holding up the night sky, and beyond the mountains there is home. Home, and peace, and the beat of drums, and blue winds dancing over snow fields. The Indian lodge will fill with my people, and our gods will come and sit among them. I should be there then. I should be at home.

But home is beyond the mountains, and I am here. Here where fall hides in the valleys, and winter never comes down from the mountains. Here where all the trees grow in rows; the palms stand stiffly by the roadsides, and in the groves of the orange trees line in military rows, and endlessly bear fruit. Beautiful, yes; there is always beauty in order, in rows of growing things! But it is the beauty of captivity. A pine fighting for existence on a windy knoll is much more beautiful.

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Becoming an old man of 30 forces a person to stop and reflect on the last burning embers of their youth.

Much like Stephen Dedalus who outgrew his Dubliner past, Connecticut proved too confining for your correspondent. Having driven coast to coast across the surface of a continent from one great ocean to the other … America’s own versions of Tierra del Fuego ( literally “Land of Fire,” with a much older meaning “The End of the Earth” ) call out to be seen. Having been born in Denver and straddled the Continental Divide a week into life, wanderlust has since consumed me.

Daedalus, in Greek mythology, was hired by Crete’s king to build a labyrinth to imprison the Minotaur. The story goes that an Athenian hero was able to slay the beast, angering Poseidon who trapped Daedalus and his son, Icarus, in a tower. The cunning artisan built wings from wax and the feathers of birds that flew by … we all know the rest.

James Joyce created his alter ego Stephen Hero, Phoenix-like, from this myth. The artist constructed such great work, he nearly lost himself in it. Creating the gift of flight with his bare hands, his son lost sight and plummeted into the sea. Perhaps the labyrinthine artifice of writing code also relates to this myth? Our hero survived his son not because of his genius, but out of simple balance.

Or, perhaps, could the allure of the open road, the timeless search for meaning, be more of a warning to the New York Times’ dystopian review: even the most frantic of Kerouac’s writings were really the sagas of a solitary seeker: poor, sad Jack, adrift in a world without mercy when he’d rather be ’safe in Heaven dead.’ On the Road detailed the gritty, not always pleasant reality of modern, “western” nomad life; still, life beckons onward.

Steven Bradley “tagged” me with a blog meme: What I Do When I’m Not Working; the answer is remarkably simple. The map above hasn’t changed significantly in the few years I’ve been living here in Seattle. The one on the left, quite obviously, has seen a remarkable transformation.

I decided to move here based on the spent few hours I’d spent in Seattle, and few weeks in the camping up and down the Cascades. This was in the midst of a two month road trip from San Francisco to New England.

So, how do I spend my free time? I’ll be celebrating the new era in Olympic National Park, woefully underrepresented in my travels. The Columbia River Gorge deserves another visit while the mountains are covered in snow, as does North Cascades Nat’l Park. It seems almost negligent to see that I have yet to see the San Juan islands or Victoria.

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter - tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther … and one fine morning -

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

Like the Siberian Highway, travel through America’s trans-continental freeways is subject to approval from the weather. This weights heavy on our minds given the recent flooding along I-5 and the official state of emergency that ensued. Of course this has been a tragic, highly unusual storm; ordinarily the mountain roads can be treacherous, but far more predictable.

To Seattlites, Snoqualmie Pass and the Mountains to Sound Greenway can easily become old hat. Taking a step back, though, there are few similarly breathtaking freeway landscapes in the continental United States. Donner Pass is another example, crossing through the Sierra Nevada at more than 7,000 feet.

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Last week, for Thanksgiving, I went down to The Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area, a roughly 75 mile stretch of water and land reaching up toward the heavens. The river begins in Montana’s Rockies, at Triple Divide Peak, along the Backbone of the World, or, in less poetic terms, the Continental Divide. The Snake River heads south, through Idaho, while the Columbia traverses Washington State, a desert river for most of its path, until it finally crosses the Cascade Mountain Range.

The mountains quite literally form islands in the sky, creating an oasis in the desert pulling moisture out of the clouds. Multnomah Falls is America’s second tallest year-round waterfall; half an hour to the east, The Dalles stands with one foot in the desert. Micro-climates are readily apparent here - driving west you’ll see sagebrush slowly give way to ferns and peat moss.

While superlatives like the second tallest sound impressive, The Gorge is known for the countless tributaries rushing down cliffs and the sides of mountains to join the Columbia on its way to the sea.

Benson Bridge, above and to the right, lets visitors see the plumage up close. Trails lead for miles in both directions, guiding hikers between parks, waterfalls, and camp grounds, forming a network much like Big Sur. Read the rest of this entry »

The mountains that hold up the sky above the Columbia River are beginning the long, sluggish process of donning their winter coats. Mount Hood, true to its image, looks like a gargantuan tepee covered in what could well be permafrost. Other peaks are dusted in white along the tops of their ridges, growing large snowfields for the season, but less stark than Hood’s glaciated peak.

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Fuji makes slide film in two renowned flavors: Velvia, for intensely colored landscape, and Provia, a more true to life but less break-taking color rendition. Before people debated whether or not Photoshop is cheating, photographers have been choosing their film ( and shutter speed, and aperture ) to suit their tastes. Galen Rowell famously praised Velvia, asking “Who wants to take dull pictures that will last a hundred years?”

Less people these days are using slide film; photography is a digital art now. And while the biggest influence on color saturation is still lighting, we use Photoshop instead of a favorite type of film and darkroom wizardry now. To that end, how does one recreate a digital Velvia?

There are a number of options, actually. Most people use the Hue / Saturation command. Like most approaches in life, this works in moderation, but will only get you so far. Anything beyond a small dose begins to look overly colorized, like a neon sign in Las Vegas or Disney Land. Curves offers the opposite extreme: a little too cumbersome in its power and flexibility, although it makes a good color balancing tool.

Beyond vivacious color, balance is an important part of a stunning visual impression. Read the rest of this entry »