TAKING IT ALL IN

This post is not about a specific place or an idea, instead, it’s about what I’ve seen in the last two weeks. We’re always looking, aren’t we? Seeing takes little effort, it just happens. How we feel about what we see, what we think about it and what we do about it all depend on our personality and unique set of experiences. Walking through a field, we all see the grass but we each respond to it differently. I’m endlessly curious about what I see and I take pleasure in playing with visual material, so a camera is at my side when I take a walk. If I don’t have the camera I may use my phone to exercise the possibilities I see. It’s what I do.

Eight days in September:

1. A sunny September day on neighboring Whidbey Island, at Ebey’s Landing National Historical Reserve.

2. More grass seedheads, this time on Fidalgo Island.

3. This dune grass *(Elymus mollis)* has a beautiful blue-green hue and drapes in wide, graceful arcs.

4. A hop, skip and jump away from the dune grass, beach sand at low tide displays an arc of its own.

5. Polished by countless footsteps, a few rocks on a park path gleam in a beam of sunlight.

6. It’s taken me a while to see the poetry in what lies scattered on the ground.

7. The beauty of Madrone bark, however, was something I recognized immediately.

8. This is a dry spot on a very dry island; we are in a drought and hardly had a drop of rain all summer. Even in this parched state, tree roots snaking through beds of lichen retain their beauty.

9. Brittle tangles of dead Seaside juniper branches present a compelling picture on a late September afternoon. The pale green poufs of Reindeer lichen on the ground are soft when moist, but now, a heavy foot here can shatter the lichens’ tiny branches.

10. This old, split-trunk Madrone tree has lived through fire and drought. Over many seasons its base has been sculpted into bulging waves of wood.

11. An experiment at home: a bell, an astronomical drawing cut from an old schoolbook, and a pencil drawing I made of a lily many years ago. I was just seeing what different things look like together.

12. It’s been so dry that many Douglas fir needles shed from branches high overhead won’t reach the ground – they’re caught in hundreds of spider webs festooned throughout the trees. The sight made me uncomfortable but I knew it could make an interesting photo.

13. Finally, in a spasm of joy, rain arrived and drenched our parched island. The intoxicating smell awakened memories that seemed distant.

15. When the rain subsided I climbed up Goose Rock, admiring raindrop-sprinkled lichens along the path.

16. From the top of the rock the view was peaceful as the sky began to refresh itself over the Salish Sea.

17. The day before, after the rain began I drove to a lake, parked at the edge and photographed Purple loosestrife flowers under a willow tree through the car window.

19. I changed up the colors on this one. (1/100th sec. at f3.2, manual focus somewhere between the window and the plants).

20. The wildflowers are almost gone, but asters are blooming. This one caught a few raindrops from a barely-there sprinkle that teased us on the 5th of the month.

21. Let’s not forget coffee. I’ve been enjoying sitting outside Pelican Bay Books and Cafe and reading the NY Times – the physical, papery one. It’s just not the same on a phone. Two shots of espresso with a little cream and a just-baked treat make the day complete.

***

DEPARTURE

Having departed from Bainbridge Island a half hour earlier, the M/V Tacoma, a 460 foot ferry capable of carrying over 200 cars and 2000 passengers, is about to arrive in Seattle. I’m watching from the sidewalk next to the Four Seasons Hotel downtown, a few blocks from Pike Place Market.

It’s spitting rain out there. The sky is changeable today, morphing through rain and sun-break, and back to rain again. I don’t mind – it’s a nice departure from the blank, featureless grays that typify northwest winters. I’ve just been to the Seattle Art Museum and I’m headed to Pike Place for coffee at Le Panier, with a stop along the way to take in the view.

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Looking at art can have the effect of making the most mundane objects around you look new. Museum and gallery walls expand to encompass the street, and everyday objects take on the guise of “art.” Recognizing patterns, color and form in new ways, you interact differently with the world. Neurologists might say this phenomenon is an opening up of neural pathways that, once activated, start to repeat themselves in grooved loops of pleasure. OK, that’s fuzzy science, but whatever the explanation, spending time with painting and sculpture can energize the way you look at the world.

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No doubt many people would recognize the sculptural quality of this construction site near the waterfront, but after studying a beautiful steel and glass Christopher Wilmarth piece at the museum, I find the industrial duct work alive with formal possibilities.

Wilmarth, a minimalist sculptor who died in 1987, bent heavy sheets of roughly finished steel and thick slabs of plate glass like you might fold a piece of cardboard, juxtaposing their contrasting properties with apparent ease. His work caught my eye at a 1970 Whitney Museum sculpture exhibit – I still have the catalog. I’d forgotten about him, so it was exciting to see his sculpture commanding the floor in a museum show about Light and Space.

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Another work that stayed with me the rest of the day was a large white painting by an artist I wasn’t familiar with, Mary Corse. Her minimalist work, especially the all white painting series, doesn’t reproduce well, but it’s very intriguing to be around. Corse uses the tiny glass beads that make road signs reflective to lend a changeable quality to the light that hits and emanates from her paintings. As I walked around her paintings the surface shifted, a pleasant, meditative experience.

One painting brought to mind a Puget Sound fog, though she would reject that characterization. For her, the paintings don’t reference landscapes or anything else in the outer world. Rather, they’re perceptual tools to make us understand reality in a new way, generating “new meaning, or presence, or state of being.”

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On to the market. The press of tourists is intense even in January, so we don’t dally too long. But yes, the espresso and baguette sandwich were great. Sorry you weren’t there!

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One way to deal with the crowds is to go down an alley behind the buildings, across from the main market. It’s only slightly quieter, but at least I can admire the bulging brick walls and generous windows at the old buildings’ backs.

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On the way home I take the camera out again when rain-slicked skies turn the street lights into compositions of intense, luscious color.

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It’s been a departure for me today – no images of leaves or trees, buds or branches. A refreshing change of pace.

Five Day Black and White Challenge: Day Four

August downpour

under the Highline.

New York.

Take cover?

take advantage?

Just a month earlier my son had returned from Afghanistan, safe and – well maybe not entirely sound, but certainly safe. It was time to celebrate. “Let’s take a walk on the Highline!” Then, a sudden summer downpour. We scrambled for shelter… perfect! Under the Highline we found a beer garden and a food truck selling dumplings. Most of us took cover, but not this man – I didn’t know who he was, but he sure made everyone smile, and does to this day, thanks to a lucky break with the camera. That’s my son in the background (3rd Battalion, 9th Marines; safe and sound today).

For day Four of the Five Day Black and White Challenge I thought something light would make a nice break in the routine – hence the handstand-in-the-rain photo – enough seriousness! 🙂

I invite Brandon Brasseaux to join the challenge today. I just found his blog, When This Becomes There, via FATman Photos, another great blog. Brandon, if you want to do it, just post five black and white photos, and each time you post, invite someone else (this could go on, and on…). If you can’t do five days running, well, neither could I. I’m just doing them as often as I can. If you hate blog challenges, I understand!

One more day to go for me, with the black and whites – after that, I’m eager to post photos of the incredible pinks I’m seeing here, as spring blossoms early.

PLENTY TO SEE

So many rainy days.

But still

much

beauty.

It’s important

on rainy days

to punctuate

with

coffee.

Photos taken with a Samsung S4, near Seattle.

Unique AND Universal: Daily Post Weekly Photo Challenge

This week’s Daily Post Weekly Photo challenge is to express the concept, “Unique”. I was struck by the thought that many of the images below, of people engaged in what must have felt like unique situations, at the same time express universal themes: play and self-expression, love, work, journeys, death.

A toddler throws pebbles into a lake, fascinated by each splash and ripple, his own creation. Standing on tiptoes to kiss a statue, a young woman expresses the unique possibilities of love. A man belts out tunes on a piano, singing his own song, for love and money.

In pouring rain on a warm summer evening another man’s handstand expresses the sheer joy in shared experience. A neighborhood eccentric leans across his porch to tell you a personal, intricate story about his house. What unique stories the contents of a Marine’s rucksack, fresh from an Afghanistan deployment, must hold. And finally, graves in a rural cemetery bear flower and pottery offerings – visitors’ unique, yet universal expressions of honor and commitment.

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