Day One Hundred One: Skies Ablaze in the Morning

Woke up at daybreak one morning in early December, 

took a look from my window and ran outside 

to capture the most colorful sky of the year.

Most of the broad-leaf trees were open and bare 

with dark trunks in the early morning light.  

Conifers looked closed and secretive.  

If you were a bird, where would you shelter?

 Yellows, oranges and pinks contrast 

with purples, greys and charcoal blues. 

 The winter solstice was approaching 

with changes in color, temperature and darkness.  

Eye-opening and heart-opening. 

Day One Hundred: The Queen in All Her Glory

When I first visited Bryan Texas to see Dean and Adrienne, I was immediately taken with this old movie palace, The Queen.  It was weathered, even decrepit.  It showed colors and details revealed by aging in the hot sun and heavy rainstorms.  Here are two photos from 2009 and one from just last week, ten years later in October 2019.

There is beauty and mystery here.  What has this building seen in it's 100+ years?

The Marquee was bare and nothing had been shown here since the mid-seventies.  Then in 2010 through 2018, renovation [link] renewed this icon of entertainment.

Just last week, the Queen in all her glory celebrated Fright Fest.  We went to a screening of The Birds, perfect for Bryan with its flocks of grackles.  

[Part of me fleetingly misses the old Queen with all her mysteries and links to the past.] 

Day Ninety-Nine: Geology Walk Downtown North

Love the geology walks in down Portland, sponsored and led by folks from the Geology Society of the Oregon Country (GSOC). 

This green-grey slate building is my favorite skyscraper. 

These markings in the slate patio floor show how deep pressures forced a softer rock material to buckle, illustrating geologic forces.

Sandstone buildings show exfoliation from rainfall  and temperature changes.

Day Ninety-Eight: Along the Springwater Corridor

Grey afternoon along the trail, looking for a way to see Johnson
Creek up close.  Our first Fall rain day, albeit more of a drizzle.  Great Blue Heron wading in the creek, why not me?  

Day Ninety-Seven: After Sally Mann

From her book, What Remains

Day Ninety-Six: Neat Little Dogwood at Powell Butte

"Small heads of inconspicuous flowers surrounded by an involucre of large, typically white petal-like bracts."  These look like bracts but not "petal-like bracts."

Wikipedia

"Dogwoods have simple, untoothed leaves with the veins curving distinctively as they approach the leaf margins."  This description fits what we saw on the butte.

 Wikipedia

Day Ninety-Five: Trees, trees, trees.

 Emil the forester came to visit and all we did was trees.  Day One Friday:  visit to the park site where we were going to participate in a citizen science tree inventory for the PPR Urban Forestry project.  Between us, we saw many trees we knew and quite a few that seemed transplanted from my days in Virginia.  Or were hiding secret forest creatures.

How many faces do you see here?  

Abstraction of tree bark #1

Abstraction of tree bark #2

Day Two:  Tree Inventory at Sellwood Park. Emil was transported back to his forester days after graduating Humboldt State.  Diameter breast height, clinometer for overall height, eyeballing the tree's general health, etc.

 

Day Three:  We did a tour of four outstanding trees in the neighborhood, a Coulter Pine heritage tree* on SE 37th and three Sequoiadendron giganteum at "Save the Giants" park on SE Martins.  

Coulter Pine Heritage Tree

These three sequoiadendron dominate the skyline; just look up

Want to know more about street and park trees in your Portland neighborhood?  Check out this PPR urban forestry site.  



 *I am in search of a Coulter pine cone to add to my collection of cones....no luck that day and who knows, collection from a heritage tree may not be wise anyway.

Day Ninety-Four: On the Reed Canyon Bridge

Color, Texture, Depth

Day Ninety-Three: Paint Leaves Ink

Learning paint, collage and ink techniques has been high on my agenda lately, not to mention developing color palettes and using worn, holey and browning leaves.  Last year I used whole and pretty leaves for several projects; right now I like the grizzled and insect-chewn specimens.  Leaves that have gone through gelli printing are tough and fun to play with.  Here is what is evolving on my worktable now.  

Day Ninety-Two: Oscar in Black and White: One Hot Day

 Just having some fun with shapes and lines
during the mini-heatwave. 

Day Ninety-One: Looking Closely In Macro Mode, Harvest

Berries on the Refuge

Berries in the Hood

Edges in the Hood

Edges On the Refuge

Bedstraw in Fruit, My Favorite

Day Ninety: Rugby on a Hot Day

Day Eighty-Nine: On the 45th Parallel

After a ten-day break from posting photos, here was an irresistible opportunity on the 45th parallel while hiking in southern Washington.  Wildflowers were still out in this woodsy area and we heard a Flicker call out a warning as we trekked by.   

 It was great to be on the trail again. 

The 45th parallel north is a circle of latitude that is 45 degrees north of Earth's equator. It crosses Europe, Asia, the Pacific Ocean, North America, and the Atlantic Ocean. The 45th parallel north is often called the halfway point between the Equator and the North Pole, but the true halfway point is actually 16.0 km (9.9 mi) north of the 45th parallel because Earth is an oblate spheroid; that is, it bulges at the equator and is flattened at the poles.  Wikipedia

Day Eighty-Eight: Rowers on the Willamette with View of Downtown

Day Eighty-Seven: Belmont Street Sunday Afternoon

Day Eighty-Six: Ethereal Oregano

Very small flower, macro mode Canon Powershot; 
mostly beautiful, some depth of field problems.  
Perhaps the Nikon can do better. 

Day Eighty-Five: Morning Walk & What I Saw

Dogs say:  we love the park

Cat says: I never go near that park; too many dogs.

Cones and needles say:  Let's just make some pretty symmetry

Day Eighty-Four: The Pineapple Mint Begins to Show Flower Buds

Pineapple mint purchased in May to entice the local hummingbirds.  Finally a vibrant bud

appears, 2mm in length.  Just could not get the bud in focus with the Canon in macro setting.  Do like other features of this shot:  leaf veins and hairs, striking color.   

Looking forward to when the plant is covered in blooms and hummers abound.

The first flower bud blossoms out, 5 days later. 

Day Eighty-Three: Orange Collage after Dennis Hopper

This was such a fun project, developed over the month of June.  Hopper's collage is at least twice as large as mine so I had to choose which elements to include.

Wish I could see his piece in real life; mine has a

lot of dimensionality; expect his does as well.   

Hopper collage from the book, Collage, the Making of 
Modern Art. 2004.

My collage, after Dennis Hopper.

Day Eighty-Two: At Otto's

Day Eighty-One: On My Way Home I Saw a Mountain

Northbound, in the air, this mountain appeared in the east before we saw Mount Hood.

So lovely to be back in the PNW. 

Taken with iPhone out the airplane window

Day Eighty: Green and Right Angles

Day Seventy-Nine: The Canon G10 Steps Right Up

This point & shoot is eleven years old, fits in my pocket and sometimes it blows me away.