SAN JUANS NOCTURNAL SCENE

This week I would like to discuss just three images that I discovered on yet another recent trip through my archives. These forays are usually an uncertain effort to save more images that I lose in rationalizing the organization of thousands of images from the past forty years. As they say in the Naked City, these are just a few of their stories.

The first image is a moody landscape across the cove taken from the extravagant porch of a vacation rental a few miles from Friday Harbor on San Juan Island. We stayed there for ten days, and I captured many versions of this scene. I had just purchased a new tripod, and spent many early evenings experimenting with capturing photographs that were essentially taken in the dark. The exposures allowed by the tripod allowed the camera lens to gather in so much light that the darkness of twilight could reveal shapes and colors hidden to the naked eye. In some ways these are mystery images since the photographer often does not even truly see what is in the frame, just a memory of what was there a half hour before. The tripod allows exposures of several seconds to several minutes, all of which would be impossible to hand-hold.

What is interesting is that because I didn't really see what I was "seeing", it allows for an even broader interpretation of the scene once the camera reveals what was "there." It's so hard to say what you really saw that it is hard to discount a subsequent interpretation as "unrealistic."  The moon was certainly out, the sea was very calm, and the derelict fishing plant and pier were certainly reflected in the water. But while the overall blue tint of twilight was apparent to my naked eye, the richness of the blues and the gradations of purples were only caught by the camera.

                                                                  ORIGINAL EFFORT

This is the original scene caught by the sensor. The camera has already rendered the scene lighter than reality, as shown by the brightness of the moon, complete with its reflection, which was not perceived anywhere near as bright from off the balcony. There are no lights on in the building - the lights in the windows are caused by the same setting sun that is lighting the moon above.

The first thing to do is to crop the scene to a square to get rid of the boring sky above the moon. Fortunately the square crop still allows for both the moon and its reflection to stay in the frame. In order to maintain any degree of integrity as a landscape photographer, i then straightened the horizon by following the water line at the island opposite my location.

Any post-processing beyond these initial moves are a subjective matter of interpretation. One could certainly hold the opinion that I have overemphasized the blue and purple tones, except for the fact that they were all there in the original. Their power was revealed not by the saturation slider, but by merely raising the shadows to reveal more details in the ruins. I think I successfully resisted raising the exposure too much, a natural tendency which spoils the reality of how dark the scene really was - you don't want to replace night with day. In looking at the history of my post-processing, I actually subtly lowered the overall exposure, raised the shadows and the white point, and drastically lowered the highlights to keep the moon in check. Most of the blue shift was the result of correcting the overall white balance, which operator error had allowed to be "daylight" which it obviously wasn't at the time. I then raised the brightness values of the "blues" in the scene, which of course raised the exposure since the only color thaty wasn't mostly blue was black. Lightroom's new Dehaze filter increased detail by cutting through the haze which in this scene was mostly just darkness.

                                       UPON FURTHER REFLECTION

I frequently tell my students to let things lie overnight so that you can look at your image with refreshed eyes and see where you might have gone too far. While writing this essay I decided to revisit the "after" image and to lessen the "realistic" blue tint in the one place that it bothered me - the fish house ruin. Using the masking tool, I adjusted the white balance, the exposure, and the saturation of just the warehouse to render it far closer to gray. It is still a cool gray to be sure, but it is not blue, and now looks more realistic to me, despite what the computer might think. I also added a little sharpness to the warehouse wall, which might not show up at this enlargement size. These are the only changes between the first image and the third. You can certainly disagree with my interpretation, but just remember that this image was captured essentially in the dark.

                SPACE NEEDLE DETAIL

This next photo was much more straightforward. It is another example of my tendency to capture snippets of things rather than the whole. This certainly allows me to concentrate on the details that are important to me at the risk of losing so much context that a typical viewer might not know what they are looking at. Unless you are a resident of the Pacific Northwest, you would be forgiven if you didn't immediately realize that this was a portion of the Space Needle in Seattle.

                ANAL SPACE NEEDLE DETAIL

You also might be forgiven if you are not bowled over by efforts to "improve" this image in post-processing, but remember that I am an anal retired architect, and that it is my image and not yours. It was important to me, and maybe to no one else to do a few subtle things to the image. I couldn't crop to a square as is my usual wo0nt, but I could crop to eliminate those pesky violations of my inner circle at the outer borders on the upper edge. I also straightened the verticals at the center of the tower and placed them in the exact center of the image. Big deal. More to the point, I raised the whites, lowered the blacks to make the initial grays black, and then darkened the remaining shadows to make the image more graphic than realistic. I resisted the urge to convert to black and white out of maybe an undo fascination with the orange lights in the center of the tower.

                BLACK AND WHITE SPACE NEEDLE DETAIL

I know that I really do like orange, but I converted to black and white anyway. Black and white allowed me to further deepen the real blacks and to further darken the shadows to up the graphic nature of the image. I utilized Lightroom's new "Texture" tool to bring out the joints, dirt, and discolorations in the lighter portion of the tower to return a note of realism to the image.

                                                                  AUTO EXHIBIT

A few years ago I attended an art exhibit at the Portland Art Museum that explored the art of classic auto design. While the vintage cars were certainly beautiful, the exhibit was really an excuse for auto enthusiasts and photographers to salivate over the possibility of capturing images of this incredibly sexy sheet metal. In addition to the usual classic car suspects, and the always embarrassing "forgotten years" of Mercedes models, there were cars exhibited that i had never even heard of, much less seen in the flesh.

Taking images of automobiles, classic or not is very hard. It is one of the subjects that separates artists like me from photographers who actually know what they are doing. Automobiles are such a specialty that certain photographers make an entire career of the subject, whether for advertisers or classic car owners who will pay really good money for a portrait of their automotive children. To say that a packed museum exhibition was not a good venue would be an understatement. The white balance of the museum lighting was so wrong that even a person who didn't even understand that light has "color" would realize that something was terribly wrong. It was very hard to take a photograph that didn't include other museum goers. The cars were so polished that it was even hard not to include your own reflections in the image. Overall views of any car were impossible unless you were in the market to show an image of the exhibit itself for the museum brochure. It is easy to see why there are special studios and lighting for automotive imaging, as well as trips to national parks and deserted roads for suitable backgrounds.

I tried to make the best of the situation, and this image was characteristic of what I achieved in the museum. I needed to straighten the image, crop it further to eliminate messy details at the edges of the frame, and to make some sense of the color balance - I swore the car was silver rather than the gold the camera rendered.

                                                             STRAIGHTEN UP AND FLY RIGHT

The "real" Graham is now revealed. I have never heard of Graham either. Yet you've got to love all of those vertical and horizontal vents on one small portion of a vintage nose, and while you might not agree, it certainly seems time to grab the old fedora and go for a drive with your gal. Cue up the score from Guys and Dolls!

I hope that you have enjoyed another short journey into the archives, and I encourage you to see if you can discover any forgotten gems in your own photo folder. You might be surprised at what you have overlooked and the images that can be coaxed out with your post-processing skills.

                RED UMBRELLA

This week I would like to discuss how to use color as a graphic element. My readers know that I am a big fan of black and white photography, which can usually bring out textures, tonal variations and other aspects of composition which can benefit from the absence of color. But what happens if color is the entire point of the image? I'm not talking about a beautiful landscape image where the photographer stereotypically placed his wife, clad with a National Geographic regulation red jacket into the scene at an intersection provided by the "rule of thirds." I love graphic images, and color is one way to certainly bring out the nature of an image without necessarily caring about the "subject." Even though photography is a realistic medium, I think you can emphasize the power of color so that the color becomes the real subject of the photograph - even if the viewer is not aware of what you are up to.

It helps considerably if you can include other graphic elements - lines, shapes, repetitive elements - that can play off the color that you have chosen to feature in your image. Silhouettes can be very powerful in this regard, since their near black rendering can provide a visual element that will subdivide the areas of color and provide an element of realism without really competing with the color you are trying to celebrate. An example is this first image, which comments on the structure of an absolutely wonderful contraption whose beauty is frequently overlooked by its emergency function to keep the rain or the sun off our heads. The graphic nature of the image is preserved because the entire field of view is the RED umbrella, with no sky or humans involved. Even though the subject is red, whose power caused me to pay attention, the image could  work with a yellow, or a blue umbrella as well, without getting involved with a discussion of color emotions as such - as long as the color was light enough to set off the black ribs. This red umbrella, back lit by the sun, didn't need any help with the saturation slider, but of course anything goes since we aren't trying to sell red umbrellas.

                                                        BEN'S WINDOW

This image was all about the color in an elaborate fan light above an entry door at Benjamin Franklin High School in Portland. Centered and cropped to a square per coaster requirements, it is converted to another semi-abstract image by a total disregard for context. In this case the pretty gray Portland sky didn't do much for me, so I upped the saturation considerably without changing the hue. The following two examples show that Lightroom can completely change the hue, or color, as long as you generally keep to the blue side of the color wheel. If you need to change it to orange or such, you've got to go to Photoshop. When you change the color, you can also affect the saturation and the brightness.

                                                       A MUCH LIGHTER BLUE - DON'T ASK ME WHERE THE BROWN CAME FROM

                                                       A ROYAL PURPLE

                                       A LONG VIEW OF A BROKEN PIER

We are heading toward realism here, but not really, since this wreck of a pier is pretty obscure even with a reflection in the waves. The blue is heightened by my not correcting the overwhelming blue color cast present in the camera's reality - our eyes and brains bring this much closer to gray, but who says I have to?

                                       GOLDEN EIGHT

Here i noticed another hint of realism surrounded by a color field of water. The Willamette was of course gray, not blue, but when I changed the white balance to "cloudy", this beautiful light gold tone appeared out of nowhere. The "real" image started out almost black and white. Such is the power of the monochrome image that this gold water is perfectly acceptable as reality even though we know it can't be true in the Portland we know and love.

                                      REALLY GOLDEN EIGHT

Oh, if that gold is not floating your boat, so to speak, then you can certainly change "cloudy"  to "shade" which will achieve the sunset glow of your dreams. The silhouette of the racing skiff gives the viewer something to focus on, but  the subject is really the color.

                                                        SAN JUAN SUNSET

Here is another silhouette, but just barely. As in astrophotography, a small sliver of the earth provides the "grounding" required for this sky study which can certainly be entered as "skyporn" on Instagram. It doesn't matter to anyone else but me and my memories that this took place in the San Juan Islands, but I can honestly say that the atmosphere provided the colors without any help from Lightroom.

                                                                  SERRA RUST

These colors are almost all my invention. I focused on only a small section of a Richard Serra Corten Steel curving wall sculpture. Corten steel naturally rusts to shades of red and orange that actually serve to protect the steel below from really rusting. I brought out the variations in color which were certainly "there" but nowhere near the levels of contrast and saturation that I gave the pretty muted sculpture. Thus working with color allowed me to comment on another artist's artwork, achieving a level of abstraction that allows me to "paint" my own abstract, without a lot in common with the reality of a ten-foot tall curving steel wall.

                                      BANANA RAYS

Even nature images can be converted into color abstracts if you allow that to be your intent. This section of a banana leaf is ripped from its context in a greenhouse to become a study in pattern and shades of green. All I had to do line up the lines, restrict the field of view, and heighten the contrast to bring out the varieties of green.

                OTHER WORLDLY BEACH

This panorama is almost totally abstract, since it is an example of both long exposure and intentional camera movement on my part at the end of a week starring out at a featureless North Carolina beach - no sea stacks here! While the viewer might recognize this as a series of waves, it is not apparent that this body of water is on our planet, not with those colors. But if you like yellow, how can you complain?

                                      THE REAL WORLD, BUT IT IS KAUAI

Finally we come to another seascape which I swear is the spitting image of reality. Of course it helps that these stripes of paradise are on a beach in Kauai. All I did was make sure the horizon was straight, even though that brought out fact that the beachfront was in fact a little hilly. I might have darkened the sky a little to bring out the clouds, but that was it. The image is all about color, even if the four or five shades of the sea can seem unreal.

                                      KAUAI IN BLACK AND WHITE, ONLY BECAUSE I CAN

I had to work much, much harder to make this black and white version come close to working at rendering this scene. I am actually pleased with the result, although it still seems to be the answer to a challenge that nobody else would take on. Although it might work as part of a black and white portfolio, most would wonder what the hell was the point. If the color moves you to say wow, then do not be afraid to communicate that with your audience. Someth=imes color is the whole point of an image.

                                                                  ORIGINAL FISH POND LANDSCAPE

This week I'd like to continue the discussion of adjusting to new software in post-processing our images. This is a two-edged sword, balancing the frustrations of having to abandon or modify habitual and comfortable ways of working with the opportunity to try and learn something new. In the real world there are no magic bullets and the results attained with new software are usually very similar to your accustomed results. But there can be some advancement, especially if you keep your expectations low. This can ease the pain of learning the quirks of new software, especially if the endless cycle of new hardware and software has forced you into new versions you didn't even ask for.

                                                                  ORIGINAL CLIFF PANORAMA

This is my recent struggle with adjusting to a new version of Lightroom that was forced on me by my new laptop which couldn't bear to deal with my perfectly adequate 15-year old Lightroom version. These two images will hopefully illustrate both the problems and opportunities of learning to do familiar things in new ways. The caveat is that of course there are many ways to achieve the same results, and that the "old" ways are usually hidden within new software. I find it somewhat amusing that the newest software still includes the cascading menus that were state of the art 25 years ago, even though young computer gurus would never even dream of using them. It is also comforting/frustrating that programs like Lightroom will even let you modify the new program to behave like the old one, if you are willing to go to the trouble of modifying the software in ways that will require consultation with a teenager.

These two images were captured in Hawaii four years ago in what seems like the "before" times. I took two walks on successive days on the Big Island, and a journey into my archives yielded these two images which I had previously ignored. the first image is of a Hawaiian's king fish pond, which were cleverly built along the coast to capture and support local fish for harvest right next to their former ocean homes. The second image illustrates how much the coast can vary on one island - these cliffs defy anyone to get close to the ocean unless you are willing to climb down what looks to be a ten-story ladder to get to the surf.

                                                                  NEW LIGHTROOM VERSION

I modified the original to achieve this preferred version using my new version of Lightroom. I cropped the original to reduce amount of foreground and sky. In doing so both the left and right borders also moved in, placing the two outer trees much closer to the edge of the frame and thus placing more attention  on the central palm. This is especially true on the right side, where the crop eliminates the black palm's crossing beyond the striped palm. I'm not sure that this is a plus, but I had to accept it to make the other changes. In the midst of four cockeyed palm trees I found the one horizon in the distance - the path on the other side of the pond - and straightened things out. Boosting the saturation in both the greens and the blues brought life to the pond and the central palm. Sharpening improved the entire image, but special exposure and texture changes on the right pond brought out its "tiger" stripes. Darkening the left palm, especially its left edge, reduced its impact on the entire image and allowed it to just serve as an edge on the left side.

                                                                  "ON ONE'S" TAKE ON THE SAME IMAGE

I then brought the image into my tried and true "plug-in" for Lightroom from a Portland software company called "On One". This software can enhance an image in very specialized ways relating to adding contrast and sharpening to specific areas of the image in ways that are not impossible, but just more difficult, than in Lightroom. Fortunately this plug-in still works with the new Lightroom version, since I am also four years behind in On One as well. The results here are pretty subtle at this level of enlargement, but I think you can see even more emphasis on the right palm's markings and  a subtle increase in the detail in the both the pond and the central palm's foliage. This kind of enhancement can be very tricky, since at low magnification it can be near impossible to see while a large enlargement can reveal ugly artifacts that don't seem to exist in smaller versions.

                                                       A NEW CROP

The small portion of sky remaining still bothered me. I tried to brush out the saturation that resulted when I saturated the pond, but I was still not convinced, and the answer became to change the aspect ratio to 4:5 from the standard 4:6. This brought even more attention to the central palm as the subject, since th was no more jungle, much less sky, at the top. The wider image also seemed to strengthen the two border trees.

                                                       "ON ONE" BLACK AND WHITE

It was time to try black and white to see if heightened contrast and detail could make up for the lack of color contrast. While I usually appreciate this bargain, in this case there were a few things I missed in the monochrome version. The extra detail in the pond made it seem much too crunchy. The right palm was certainly contrasty enough, but for once I missed the beige which seemed much lighter than the white in the black and white version. Finally the variations in the central palm foliage seemed just "dirty" in black and white.

                                                       NEW LIGHTROOM VERSION

Then I tried a black and white conversion in the new Lightroom software, and for some reason I was more taken with this version. The decline in contrast and sharpening in this version seemed to just lighten the whole image. It just goes to show you that just like "on any given Sunday" in football, a certain workflow will suddenly enhance a particular image, even though it might not be the way you usually proceed for most images.

                                                                   NEW LIGHTROOM VERSION, STAGE ONE

The cliff image presented some different problems and shows how different paths might achieve similar end products, especially when compared to the original. What should be a grand vertical panorama seems just a little too dark, way too dull, not nearly sharp enough, and even a bit crooked. I used the small bit of horizon in the distance to straighten out a very crooked cliff. I removed quite a bit of blue color cast which came off of the ocean. By cranking up the contrast by boosting both the black and white points, I revealed a lot of detail in the cliff face. Lightening the shadows also helped a lot, especially in the distant cliff faces. But the overall exposure now seemed a bit too dark.

                                                                   ON ONE GIVES IT A TRY

On One's version tied to achieve contrast and sharpening in some very different ways. It left the white and black points alone, and used a revised white balance that was much warmer to separate the rocks and the sand at the top of the cliff. Notice that the fog in the sky seems a lot more gray rather than purple. But On One's Dynamic contrast, a mid-range contrast control, still seems to have made both the sea and the sand just a little bit too crunchy for my taste.

                                                                   TAKING ADVANTAGE OF "DEHAZE"

The new Lightroom software tries to achieve similar levels of mid-tone contrast enhancement in a different way than Dynamic Contrast. I think it works better on this image. Dynamic Contrast can affect the exposure and white balance in ways that are not immediately noticeable when you are positively stimulated by the increase in perceived sharpness, but they are there. The sky has become purpler again, and the sea is maybe a little bit too saturated and crunchy. Lightroom's new (at least to me) Dehaze control tries to increase contrast in a way that can mimic and alleviate the typical loss of detail in a long distance view. It was seemingly made for a landscape image like this one. For the first time, those windmills on the horizon are coming into view, without making the foreground sand on the cliff too gritty. Real separation on the central part of the cliff is achieved without affecting the overall exposure of the image.

                                                                   ON ONE BLACK AND WHITE

In moving to black and white, my usual strategies of further increasing contrast and sharpening have also seemed to yield a dark and brooding image that is maybe more suited to Scotland than to Hawaii.

                                                                   NEW LIGHTROOM BLACK AND WHITE

Dehaze and raising the shadows have yielded a lot of detail in the cliff face without too much contrast or the storm in the sea in the first version. I seem to like this version better, although I could easily change my mind tomorrow. That is the nature of our visual perception, which can be as fickle as either computer hardware or software. It is frequently very useful to revisit an editing session to see if you've gone too far. Even Goldilocks could be mistaken on the first go-around.

                DIRECTOR PARK PERGOLA, FINAL COLOR VERSION

This week, begging your indulgence, I'd like to present one old image that I rescued from the archives, accompanied by an extended rant about having to adapt to yet another new technological wonder I didn't really want. This photo was taken 13 years ago, when I went to take a look at a new park in Downtown Portland. Director Park is a beautiful example of many things, including design, philanthropy, one family's strong bonds, and a rare public triumph over corporate greed that used to characterize the small world of Portland's urban experiment.

This image is my first attempt to struggle with my new version of "Lightroom" that I finally purchased, much to my dismay, last week. I have been doing just fine with Lightroom 5, which is not even the newest version, Lightroom 6, that Adobe made before they decided to not sell it to anyone anymore. Like some other software companies, Adobe hit upon the idea that they wouldn't sell anything, only "rent" it. Old codgers like me naturally resisted the idea that I would now be forced to rent a new version of software when the older version still met all my needs. I succeeded in avoiding this new "tax" until I had to purchase a new laptop this year. Of course the new Apple miracle would not support the relic Lightroom software, except it did. Until it started to psychiz-out a few weeks ago, and even I had to admit that maybe this "professional" had better not wait until the whole thing came crashing down. The learning curve that I had avoided for nearly 15 years reared its ugly head, and now had to actually pay attention to all of those remarkable "improvements" that I had not seen any need for heretofore.

Of course I will get used to it, but let's just say that is hasn't been a picnic. As Fran always says, it's only "intuitive" to the idiot that designed it. Tools that I have used for a decade are now hidden four layers down, and I must say that this old dog is pretty frustrated. Not to mention that this "book learner" is now faced with the fact that books on software have gone the way of the dinosaur. God willing, if I live another ten years I will have to pay Adobe more than $1200.00 to not own their product, assuming that the price doesn't go up, which of course it will. I have had to violate the only correct economic advice I have ever taught Benjamin - to resist subscriptions or any other recurring payments at all costs! Of course the $10.00 a month  will not break me, and since it is a business expense, all of you are pitching in 3 bucks or so, but it's the principle of the thing! Why? Why? Why?

Director Park is yet another example of how well the urban design of Portland as a "miniature city", composed of a grid of very small 200' square blocks, can be adapted to create pocket parks that enliven the cityscape. Since our blocks are so small compared to most American grids, it is easier to 'leave one out" without destroying more economic growth than Portland can afford to lose. There are numerous examples of this strategy around Downtown, since it has been employed almost since the grid was first laid over a virgin Old Growth forest by the city's founders in 1850. This idea started with the original Park Blocks, was employed to set aside parks, one for men and one for women, at the center of municipal government, and then became the genesis of Portland's "Living Room," Pioneer Courthouse Square in the center of Downtown. It can even be a windfall for developers who are smart enough to listen to urban designers.The Pearl District's series of one block parks that skip along through the new district allowed eight blocks to drastically increase in value because they all now were adjacent to a new public park. Thus two dozen blocks of condo towers were now elevated in value by giving up three blocks to the neighborhood, and to the rest of the city.

Director Park exists in it's present form because of corporate greed, and the overwhelming desire to provide parking in the heart of Downtown despite Portland's efforts to sustain and expand mass transit. The "powers that be" decided that the best use of one block surface parking in the midst of some of the most valuable real estate in Portland was to erect an exceedingly ugly 10-story parking garage. No matter how the architects tried to dress up this pig, the problem of course was the appalling idea of a new parking garage in the first place. This block was adjacent to not one, but two existing 4-story underground parking structures underneath two of Portland's newest towers!

Thus began an almost typical Portland battle royale. I was one of almost 300 citizens who showed up for a public meeting with their pitchforks and testimony. I was one of the usual suspects, and one of the few architects who could engage in such a fight without threatening potential Downtown clients, since of course my outrage was only matched by my lack of business acumen. The only real contribution I made to the debate, based on my overwhelming architectural experience, was when I "innocently" pointed out that the slide of the beautiful professional rendering of the proposed building had somehow left out the title of the drawing - "Nordstrom's Parking Tower" - which let the cat out of the bag. We were giving up a block of Downtown to park cars for a department store whose front door already let in more people every day than anywhere else in town except perhaps the Central branch of the Library. The ultimate irony was that Nordstrom's downtown store, the most successful new free-standing department store in the nation, had been built adjacent to Pioneer Courthouse Square, which had replaced an ugly two-story parking garage in the center of Downtown!

Philanthropy then entered the fray when one of Portland's richest families, the Schnitzer's, engineered a deal to buy the block and donate it to the city for another one-block park, which coincidentally would stand on top of four stories of underground parking that would connect with the existing lots on the adjacent blocks. The park would be named for the other branch of the family, the Director's, complete with a fountain that honored schoolteachers like Mom.

This image and it's variants show the other main feature of the park, a four-story glass pergola that takes up half the block and supposedly answers the question of an identity for an urban hardscape of brick and stone and water, while providing some protection for visitors on most of those days when Portland "sunshine" - in other words, rain, is making an appearance. The pergola is certainly a grand architectural statement, a very well-detailed mass of overlapping glass shingles that covers nearly a half-acre without blocking the occasional sun. I don't really know how well it does block the rain, since it is four stories above the street and our rain is often accompanied by wind, but there you go. Parks throughout history have frequently contained "follies" and is this is ours, so be it. The park has always been well maintained, and "programmed" to make up for the fact that Americans have little piazza experience. It is even one of the few places in Portland where mere citizens can move the chairs around!

The photographic problems with pergola, at least for this photographer, relate to its size, its "hollowness", and its surroundings. The structure's size makes it hard to take in the whole thing without diminishing its actual stature - the usual "wide angle" problem. It is also very hard to photograph a "space" whose boundaries are so porous - open sides, and a glass roof, don't provide much spatial definition. Two dimensional images have a hard time defining three dimensional space. Photographers like myself often avoid this problem by concentrating on the details, since we know that you can only really experience the space by actually being there. But the pergola really suffers by the fact that Paris is not across the street, just some admittedly banal Portland towers and older storefronts. The surroundings of this urban space are just not that inspiring, so its openness seems to work against it, at least in photographs.

                CLOSE TO THE ORIGINAL SNAPSHOT

I tried to deal with this "problem" by concentrating on the glass roof itself. I took this image while walking down the stairs at the adjacent four-story above-ground parking garage(!) which provided this elevated view. I have already cropped out most of the edges of the pavement, but the surroundings are still too apparent for my taste. My solution was to mask out the surroundings and drastically reduce the exposure with brushes and gradient masks; increasing contrast and brightening up the pergola roof itself further highlighted the structure, my real subject. I also straightened the columns since I am an anal retired architect, but you will notice them too in the finished variant.

                STAND UP STRAIGHT! DIM THE LIGHTS IN THE BACK!

Much better, at least for me, but then my prejudice against "sickly" green struck again, so I reached for the magic of black and white. As it is, the image only contains one real color besides that green, the light wood Glulam beams, and I don't think I'll miss them too much either.

                GET RID OF THAT ANNOYING COLOR!

Now we have a picture! The lack of color highlights the details and the shadows on the beams. In my opinion, the dark black surroundings actually look more "realistic" in black and white than in color, since they are just another aspect of the abstraction inherent in a black and white image. Since I have removed so much of the context already, it was time to crop some more and get an even closer look at the roof.

                                      WILL GETTING EVEN CLOSER IMPROVE THE VIEW?

The square crop now makes this image all about the glass roof, with just a little touch of black space thrown in at the top for contrast and to ensure the viewer that this roof doesn't extend to infinity and beyond. What is funny is that the green tint doesn't bother me as much now that I'm closer, and the overlap of the shingles has become even more intriguing even though I still don't see they keep the water out.

                                       BLACK AND WHITE IS JUST FINE, THANK YOU.

But I still like the black and white version a little better, but maybe that's just me. It is my image, after all. Of course I now have to learn a number of "marvelous" new ways to convert my images to black and white. It is really weird to have to learn yet another version of 21st Century software in order to explore black and white imagery that dates to the 19th Century. Have a good week.

TURQUOISE, SAN FRANCISCO

Discussing your art with others can be very interesting, especially if you hope that they might actually bring an example of your work home. I find that even people who profess admiration of my "eye" sometimes seem lost over my artistic intentions. Which is certainly not to say that this disconnect is their fault - it's just that either I have failed to communicate my intent, or that my way of viewing the world is even more foreign than what my viewers thought. As a retired architect, I am naturally drawn towards architecture and the city as a subject, and my training has certainly allowed me to put myself in the designer's shoes. I approach a work of architecture by trying to understand what the architect was trying to accomplish, even though centuries might have past, and that designer certainly wouldn't understand my world. I also must acknowledge that most of the time I am faced with work that is certainly beyond my capability as an architect - I'm just trying to understand it so that I can better appreciate something that I probably couldn't have accomplished myself.

                                                                            ONE OF THE CORNERS OF THE BUILDING. THAT IS A LOT OF GLASS WITHOUT ANY FUNCTION WHATSOEVER.

Two things get in the way of my communication with my viewers. One is that I am very rarely interested in documentation as a my primary goal in creating an image. I understand that I have been priviledged in being able to travel to see buildings and cities in places far beyond what my viewers have seen - but the architecture that I might be focusing on might not be something that they have ever "heard of" or even would notice in the same way if they had had the opportunity to travel to that city. Since I am not really interested in documenting a building, my images tend to ignore the entire building and concentrate on parts of the work or even details that might only interest me. To me images of an entire building are either boring and bland or are just to much trouble to obtain - no one is paying me to provide an overall shot to explain a  building in an architectural magazine. Frankly, I have neither the photographic lenses,  the training, or the budget of both time and money to procure such imagery, so I happily leave it to others. Since I don't want to document a building, I can take it on my own terms, which allows me to use another architect's art to create my own. I hope to create an impression of a whole building as a sum of the parts that have moved my eye. Of course this collage approach only works if my choices make sense to my viewers, but that is my problem, not theirs. If the viewer has not had the opportunity to actually view the building it might be even harder to communicate my take on the subject.

                                                                  AT LEASTFOUR DIFFERENT MATERIALS IN AN ARBITRARY "DIVISION" OF ONE FACADE

Even though I sometimes refer to my approach as a series of "architectural portraits", I have to admit that these portraits are frequently harder for viewers to understand than portraits of humans. No matter how foreign or ancient or weirdly dressed, we can almost always understand that we are viewing a portrait of a human being. This is true even if we are looking at a science fiction "humanoid" whose strange features can't hide the fact that they are members of the actor's union. My architectural portraits can become so abstract that my viewers no longer know what they are looking at. But most of my images do tend to show enough of the whole building that with just a little imagination the viewer can appreciate the subject as a part of the whole.

                                                                            THIS IS ALMOST UNDER CONTROL, BUT ALL THAT RIGGING SEEMS TO HAVE BEEN STOLEN FROM A TALL SHIP IN SAN FRANCISCO BAY

These images are all from an hour's walk around a fairly new building that I went to see in San Francisco on a weekday afternoon in 2009. What is interesting is that this structure, no longer "new" and separated from the present day by the Great Recession, a Worldwide Pandemic, and an urban "doom loop", is still so foreign to most viewers that they can't even decide what to think of it. That this edifice is a Federal Office building is beyond most viewer's understanding. I imagine that even most people who have lived in San Francisco ever since it was built still don't know what to make of  it. All I can say is that it was designed by a firm called Morphosis, which should give you a hint that we aren't in Kansas anymore. Thom Mayne and Michael Rotondi started the firm in 1972 and have been defying architectural conventions ever since. Since this building doesn't even have large elements that actually move while you are standing there dumbfounded, it isn't even part of the more "radical" part of the Morphosis architectural portfolio. This is the kind of building that even architects "confront" rather than just visit, and these images illustrate my personal confrontation fifteen years ago.

                                                                  BRUTE STRUCTURAL GYMNASTICS THAT NO DOUBT CONFUSED THE STRUCTURAL ENGINEERS 

Yes your tax dollars paid for this, so you have more rights to an opinion on the result. More than thirty years ago, observers as varied as architects, bureaucrats, and even Senators began to wonder why Federal architecture seemed so unimaginative and conventional that even those who didn't mind "Classical" design in our Nation's Capitol didn't see why it should be duplicated around the country by mediocre architectural firms that very few people had ever heard of, much less saw in the architectural press. There began a concerted effort to expand the range of firms who could be hired to design government buildings beyond those who had learned to how to fill out the opaque calls for references that seemed to include every criteria except for design excellence. So all bets were off, and staid federal office buildings, court houses, and even "infrastructure" were suddenly open to art beyond the usual "5% for art" that had formerly gotten people's hackles up around the country. The entire building was now a piece of art, and the public was now exposed to much more unusual architectural forms than the Classical Columns they were used to.

                                                                  ZIGS AND ZAGS AND A YELLOW TRANSPARENT BEAM THAT IS HOLDING UP AIR

If you think that this went too far, you wouldn't be alone. All I can say is that it is certainly interesting, well built, heroically detailed, maybe to a fault, and can grab your attention as you skirt the tents on Market Street. Is it overwrought? Yes. Are there parts that are more attractive than others? Yes. Does it make any sense at all? Who knows? All I know is that if you don't like one facade, just turn the corner and you'll find a completely different facade that you might find more attractive or even less understandable. In an age when most architects were at least paying lip service to designing with a recognition of the urban context of their building, Morphosis didn't even acknowledge the context of their own building. To say that it doesn't make sense is certainly a critic's right, but that doesn't even seem to be the point.

                                                                  EVEN THE LANDSCAPING IN THE COURTYARD IS A SOURCE OF CONFUSION. AND WHERE DOES THAT REFLECTION COME FROM?

So this architectural photographer, who tries to treat a building as a collage of images, was confronted by a building that was a collage in itself. Even almost twenty years later, while I don't think that it is an example of the Emperor's new clothes, it is certainly open to question. The talent exhibited in parts of the collage seem completely disconnected from the object as a civic structure. Most of the architectural moves, while certainly picturesque, seem, to have little to do with the actual function of giving office workers a place to be bureaucrats.

                                                                  A GREEN FACADE TOPPED BY A GLASS CORNICE

And like an auto accident, it's pretty hard to turn away. Even architectural critics, who are paid to try to explain this stuff, could only come up with "Deconstructionism" to describe buildings that not only broke the rules, but seemed to have no rules at all. This collage approach, while certainly dynamic, and even more divorced from history than any radical piece of "Modern Architecture" that now populated the history books, proved as short-lived as the "Post Modern" phase that proceeded it. When you are so determined to absolve yourself of any rules beyond the fact that the building should not fall down, it becomes very hard to determine why any decision might be more correct than any other. Architecture that becomes totally arbitrary, with no relationship with function at all, becomes just as straight-jacketed in its own way as any mute rectilinear black and white glass and steel box where "form follows function." The "style" proved very hard to expand beyond the larger commissions that Morphosis continues to get to this day. These sculptural collages make Frank Gehry's sculptural buildings seem positively "conservative" in comparison.

TURQUOISE, SAN FRANCISCO                                                              OH THESE GREEN GLASS FINS ARE ACTUALLY VERTICAL SHADING DEVICES! GO KNOW!

I hope this collection of images provides some understanding of this urban event. I don't know if you will find the architecture compelling or even understandable. But as usual I tried to express my "wow" and hope to communicate it to you, even though I don't know if my "wow" is just a very complicated reaction to such a confrontational piece of art.

TURQUOISE, SAN FRANCISCO                                        I HAD FUN WITH THE SQUARE CROP THAT FURTHER OBSCURED THE REALIZATION THAT THIS WAS A COLLECTION OF ONE-STORY HIGH EXTERNAL SHADES ON AN OFFICE BUILDING. THIS IS ACTUALLY THE CALMEST FACADE OF THE BUILDING, AND THE ONLY ONE THAT "MAKES SENSE." MOST OF MY VIEWERS LOVE THE COLOR, BUT THE MOST COMMON GUESS IS AN ASSEMBLAGE OF RAZOR BLADES.

                                      HAWTHORNE BLUE HOUR - ALL ABOUT COLOR

                                      OR IS IT? HAWTHORNE BLUE HOUR B&W

It's no secret that I am really a fan of black and white photography. I am not a religious fanatic about it though - I just think it can be a very useful tool in your photographic arsenal, providing a really attractive alternative interpretation for some images. While I did a small share of work in the darkroom just before the advent of digital photography, I was happy to leave the world of chemicals behind for post-processing on the computer. Part of this was due to the fact that my darkroom skills were not very good, and that I was more interested at the time in working in color, which had never really been an option before the computer age. I can remember evenings spent at U-Develop, a remarkable Portland photographic institution at the time, which had color darkroom facilities of a sort. The trouble was that no one really knew what they were doing, except for the sages behind the counter, who would cryptically suggest you "add a little magenta" after you had waited in line after yet another unsuccessful print. This was a very expensive hobby, especially when I realized that everyone else seemed to be a professional that was not worried about costs since their bosses or clients were paying for all this anyway.

                                      OLD GROWTH, NEW GROWTH IN NATURAL MONOCHROMATIC GREEN

                                      OLD GROWTH, NEW GROWTH IN ABSTRACT BLACK AND WHITE

Thus black and white was not really romantic, nostalgic, or cost effective in my environment of trying to achieve a perfect, or even just mediocre color exposure. I never really paid much attention to black and white except for some experiments with Ilford XP2, the first black and whiter film which could be developed by the minimum wage worker in the one hour kiosk. Yes, it was black and white, especially when the machine was properly calibrated, and it had zero grain, which was also revolutionary. But the one-hour guy still didn't have any capacity to really make a quality print, and since it was really "color" film, I still had to head back to the line at U-Develop.

                                       I DO MISS THE LONE RED STICK, BUT I LOVE THE BLACK WATER

Just about the time that traditionalists were declaring that "film is not dead", I discovered that even though my new digital "negatives" were in color, I could use the computer to render them in black and white. It took a number of years for the software industry, and even more time for the revolutionary home photo printers to be able to create black and white prints that were any better than embarrassing, but they eventually did. While there is another segment of true believers that still use film while no doubt listening to their long-playing records in the darkroom, most people have moved on. My prints that come out of my home printer are so much better than anything I could ever achieve in the darkroom, and to tell you the truth it is just as magical when they emerge from that printer in my well-lit study as it ever was in the tray of chemicals in the dark.

                                      IT'S REALLY ABOUT THE PORTLANDIA SIGN, AND I COULD UP THE CONTRAST

But for the most part I was still a color photographer, since I was mostly observing the real world of color and there was still quite a learning curve involved in converting a digital color photograph into black and white. There was one real reason that I started trying at all - it was that sometimes I just didn't like the colors in the real world! I am one of the few Portlanders who actually doesn't love the green of the St. Johns Bridge, so it was only naturally perverse that when I finally got around to exhibiting my image of that ubiquitous Portland symbol, I insisted on black and white. It was also fortuitous that the green, now silver bridge actually stood out against the green, now black woods in Forest Park.

INTO THE WOODS - ST. JOHNS BRIDGE                                       INTO THE WOODS IN BLACK AND WHITE

So now I created black and whites when I didn't like the real colors, or when I realized that the colors were so unimportant that it didn't really matter if they were gone. But now that I had enough black and white images customers started  to ask "whether I had that one in black and white as well" so they could assemble a black and white portfolio. I started to develop my style in black and white imagery, and to see what it could do for my photography.

                                       GOTHAM CITY SHOULD BE IN BLACK AND WHITE, DON'T YOU THINK?

Over time I learned a few things about photography in general and my imagery in particular. I had always been more interested in interpretation than in documentation, and as I developed my skills in post-processing black and whites I realized the truth that the old masters had known. Black and white allowed for much more latitude for interpretation than color ever did. Colors could be wrong, or even weird, but the abstraction of no color seemed to allow you to get away with things like black skies or contrast that would be completely "unrealistic" in color. In the further reaches of interpretation bordering on abstraction, the absence of color seemed to be the one abstraction that most of the public seemed to really accept without question. I also learned that even though the world does exist "in color", a lot of it is really pretty monochromatic. The key is to see "in monochrome" rather than in "black and white." If my trips to the forest are really into a world of many shades of green, does it matter if they become shades of gray? Those coast scenes of blue skies and blue water might just as well be monochrome gray as monochrome blue. As an urban landscape photographer, a lot of my world was already in shades of gray, even in the natural world.

                                       THIS PORTLAND CITYSCAPE IS REALLY ABOUT THE FREMONT BRIDGE, AND BLACK AND WHITE ALLOWS ME BOTH TO EMPHASIZE THE BRIDGE IN TWO DIFFERENT WAYS BY MANIPULATING THE TONES AND THE MOOD

It was about this time that I created a secret identity for myself. I decided to start showing my work on the website 500 Pixels, which is really a very high falutin Instagram - think much better photographers and mercifully no videos. Even the very few cat photos are really good cat photos. I tell people all the time that if you want to see what a very good photo of "x" might be, search for it in 500 pix and you will quickly find an example of what you should aim for, no matter the subject. But when I decided to join, I also decided that I would only show my black and white images. I wanted to see if I could attract some attention from those who only thought in black and white. Suddenly, and very nicely, I was attracting likes from all over Central and Eastern Europe from guys who had probably never taken a color photo - they accepted me as another old codger. It took a while, but I was running out of black and whites, and my new secret identity was in danger of exposure. I began to search my archives for more images to convert to black and white to keep up the charade. It was now that I really learned something, when I began to convert images to black and white that I had thought "were all about the color." What was shocking was that there were very few great color images that could not be great black and white images. Certainly different, but not without value. It was almost always not "about the color", it was really "about the contrast." Color photos are in fact really about color contrast, and if you can preserve that contrast in the black and white interpretation, in the absence of the color wheel, then you will preserve the power of that contrast. The trick is to manipulate the different shades of gray to create contrast between colors that shout "contrast" in color but are really about the same brightness as shades of gray. The photographer must decide that the yellow must be brighter, or the blue sky should become darker, to get back the contrast.

                                      EVEN SUCH A SIMPLE GRAPHIC IMAGE IS ALL ABOUT THE COLOR, UNTIL IT ISN'T

YELLOW AND GREY (SOUTH PARK BLOCKS)

YELLOW AND GREY (SOUTH PARK BLOCKS)

STAIRS AND STRIPES

STAIRS AND STRIPES                                                BLACK AND WHITE CONTRAST CAN SUBSTITUTE FOR COLOR CONTRAST WITHOUT BEING SO LITERAL

It took about a year before I ran out of black and white photographs, and I slowly started to introduce some color imagery without provoking an international incident in Eastern Europe. But the important thing I learned for myself is that for the most part a good color image has every right to be a good monochrome image. So give it a try - there is no right answer, but you might be amazed how different, and wonderful that an image can look without color. and it's no problem if you like the color rendition better in any case.

                                      THE ABSENCE OF COLOR CAN COMPLETELY CHANGE THE MOOD. "STUMPTOWN EVENINGS", AN EXCITING VIEW OF GLAMOROUS PORTLAND AT THE ADVENT OF A NIGHT OUT, BECOMES  "STUMPTOWN NAKED CITY" EVOKING A DANGEROUS URBAN MYSTERY

This week I would like to take you through a short round of post-processing of one individual image. This exercise might let you explore the method to my madness, and see how you too can explore alternatives of your own images. There is nothing extraordinary involved, no secret tips or diabolical methods - just a standard set of responses to one landscape image. There is no guarantee that you will agree with my "workflow", the unromantic name photographers apply to their usual method of working with images. I prefer a more exploratory "a little of this, a little of that" which seems to better capture the spirit of fun that should accompany an artistic pursuit. When combined with the "Goldilocks Theory" that one seeks a happy medium after exploring the extremes, these post-processing journeys can yield some fascinating results. Yet there is no guarantee that you, or even I, will see an unalterable progression to the "best" rendition of an image. Art is a very subjective matter, and we can have different opinions, and even change our minds from day to day. I often follow the advice that you should sleep on the "final" image because the next day will find you realizing that you went too far. On the other hand, when I show Fran the last two versions of my latest photographic search for truth, and she declares confidently that there is no discernible difference between the two versions, maybe it is time to call it a day. Even though I know that the last one is the best, I have reached a point of diminishing returns. Until tomorrow.

                                                                THAT CERTAINLY BRIGHTENED THINGS UP - BUT WHAT THAT THING ABOVE THE WATERFALL?

It is interesting to me that this is one of the few photographs in my archives that i have so misplaced that I have no idea where and when it was first captured. It is a waterfall, it is most likely in the Pacific Northwest, but the rest of the story is a mystery. In some ways this makes this "alternative exercise" easier, since it's hard to have an emotional prejudice about the direction an image should go if you have no memory of it beyond that you must have taken it because it is in your disorganized archive. Thus the emotional desire to "get it right" is naturally very low, and I can be more open to experimentation since the stakes are not very high.

                                                                THE DARK FOREST

The first image is my initial take on the capture. I of course have lost the original file, so you'll have to take my word for it that I haven't eliminated any mass murders or surface parking lots just to the left of the image. I cropped just to eliminate some white to the right due to imprecise scanning of the original, but the basic 2/3 ratio0 has been kept. I warmed up the white balance a bit to adjust to the overwhelmingly green Northwest forest. As usual I deepened the blacks, and opened up the whites to achieve some more contrast. In order to control the bright waterfall I lowered the overall exposure. After the usual sharpening, I made a few more subtle moves to get to a pretty dark woodland interpretation that would emphasize the waterfall, the obvious subject.

                                                                 NOT NEARLY AS SCARY , BUT THEN YOU SEE THAT THING ABOVE THE WATERFALL

So far so good, but upon further reflection I immediately started to lighten things up. I went for a more neutral stance that would seek to grab much more detail at maybe the expense of mood. I needed to protect those highlights in the water, but I found that I could open up the shadows considerably without either ruining the waterfall or lightening up the scene so much that I would just get to "blah." There was a lot of detail hidden in those woods, which was great, but opening up the exposure also revealed some problems that had been nicely hidden in the murk, as well as some opportunities. The two skinny birches on the left now called for some extra attention since I could finally see that they had something to offer. But the large area of leaves on the right was now bright enough that you could see they were not really in focus, and needed much more sharpening. Worst was a large artifact resembling a huge fish that seemed to hover over the waterfall now that that area was not just black. Once you make some initial moves you frequently have to deal with unexpected results that are now revealed, and usually require a little more finicky post-processing.

                                                                THANK GOD HE'S GONE, AND THE BIRCHES AND THE LEAVES ARE SHARPER

This was pretty successful, but I then decided that maybe that entire mass of green on the right was best corrected by just cropping it out. Sometimes the best solution is to just to get rid of the problem, since one of the most powerful superpowers photographer possess is that we get to frame reality. The waterfall is now larger, but maybe it is too close to the center. I now experimented with a square crop, which my "coaster overlord" always at least suggests, but I found that I liked the longer run of the river allowed by the vertical orientation. I also liked the view up the gorge, which showed a touch of sky without competing with the waterfall. So I stayed away from the square.

                                                                    BUT MAYBE THE SOLUTION ON THE RIGHT IS TO JUST ELIMINATE THE RIGHT!

It was now time to try black and white. Woodland images are largely monochromatic anyway, with green substituting for gray, so it is a natural progression for photographers to see what black and white will reveal. This is usually a hell of a lot of detail and texture and subtlety of tones once color is stripped away. Since this scene does have a lot of detail, it responded very well to a black and white rendition. I think that my initial take most closely resembles a pen and ink drawing, since the lines are much more present than the tonal areas.

                                                                BLACK AND WHITE REVEALS DETAIL AS IT ELIMINATES COLOR

The move to black and white also allowed me to ignore the upper gorge since its warm color was gone, and brought more unwanted attention to the unsharp leaves in the foreground. The square crop thus reasserted itself, and the two birches on the left became even more important to me.

                                      THE COASTER REVEALS ITSELF IN BLACK AND WHITE

Finally, and I say that loosely, the ability of black and white to render more extreme highs and lows in exposure while appearing more realistic than color images moved me back towards a darker interpretation. Since I could allow the waterfall, the birches, and especially the river to get brighter without losing all of the details, I could conversely allow the woods to darken up again. The image is now really about the bright stream in the dark woods.

                                                                BACK TO THE FUTURE WITH A MOODIER BLACK AND WHITE

You could say that maybe this journey has been a circular one back to square one, but I for one have gained a lot of insight into the scene and feel that my later interpretations reveal more about my feelings about this woodland, stream and waterfall than my initial stabs at the subject. I hope that I have shown you that landscape photography is much more about interpretation than documentation. I happened upon a scene, went "wow!" , and it is now my job and hope that I can somehow communicate that "wow" and maybe make you feel it too.

                                                                    MY FAVORITE, BUT YOUR MILEAGE MIGHT VARY, AND THAT'S A GOOD THING

This week I took another stab at just going out for a walk and taking some pictures. I've avoided this lately because it's been much too hot, but football weather is finally here, and my weather app promised a nice late afternoon. The real reason I have avoided photo walks is that my chief bailiwick has always been the urban landscape, and let's face it, Portland has not been looking its best lately. While it is not the urban Hellscape featured on Fox News, even I have trouble making graffiti-covered plywood look good in an urban landscape. Thus I have been exploring my archives for images instead of venturing out to try to find some new urban images. Since it is October, and sunny days will soon be just a distant memory, I decided to walk across the Hawthorne Bridge to get some exercise and maybe some images.

                THREE BRIDGES

It has been a weird summer in Portland. The tourists are back, which is surprising to everyone here since our reputation has suffered so much in the press. In the past two weeks I sold art to people going back to Dubai and Reykavik, which expanded the countries that now contain my art to 62 around the world, which is very gratifying and just amazing, considering that my sales record on the web is worse than dismal. All of these sales occur in my little booth under the Burnside Bridge. What has been very disappointing is that the locals refuse to come Downtown, and sales at the Market have been down across the board. My incomplete records suggest that in twelve years my art has gotten into around 4000 homes in Portland; this year my sales to locals amount to a grand total of 33 people. Clearly the local news has driven people into their homes. And while this New York boy has maybe naively felt that it was not my fate to be mugged in Portland, Oregon, even I have to admit that there are some blocks downtown that I would rather not visit even before dark. This statement is so new and depressing that I have only recently admitted that while Downtown is certainly not scary, it is certainly unpleasant. I has taken our civic leadership, such as it is, over three years to acknowledge that something is wrong; now we await a pathetic Portland Process to figure out what to about it.

                                       PEOPLE PAY GOOD MONEY TO WATCH THE FED EX TRUCKS GO BY

My solution to this urban depression is to concentrate my walks on the multitude of bridges that cross the Willamette. I can get in a good 2-3 mile walk and just touch down in Downtown before turning around. These seven images were all captured on this walk, and with a little post-processing can illustrate one late afternoon in Portland. While there are probably no award winners here, it does illustrate what is available on a random walk in the city.

                                                                  BIG PINK HOT SPOT

This image is an example of an urban micro-climate, in which a large building like Big Pink can actually change the lighting by reflecting the sun into the city. This kind of serendipity can enliven an ordinary walk; it is then my job to protect the exposure of various parts of the image to both emphasize these conditions and not to allow them to overwhelm the limits of the overall image.

                DOUBLE VISION

Sometimes I notice things and then wonder what it all means. This natural double exposure reflects the strong sun falling on a raised nameplate that almost no one ever sees unless they are walking across the bridge under the right conditions. While it intrigues me, I wonder whether it might interest anyone else.

                THE BLANKNESS OF URBAN LIFE

Here I am engaged in actually trying to create as mute an image as I can possibly capture on the Hawthorne Bridge. Sun and shadow, gray planes, a few sticks and some wires. Not one sign of human habitation. I'm only as cynical as I can manage knowing that there is a market for this kind of image, especially if it is taken with film. Not for me, but someone might like this exercise in urban ennui.

                                      MY COLLECTION OF PYLONS IS DIFFERENT THAN YOURS

Then again, I always say that you are halfway there if you can keep it simple. This is just part of the floating dock at the East end of the Hawthorne. There are probably another dozen or so pylons, and a boat shed. I tried to isolate one line of pylons against the river while leaving out the shed, the bridges, and the river bank. While this kind of simplicity appeals to me, your mileage might vary. I often believe that isolating specific elements will concentrate the viewer's attention at the cost of a certain amount of context. In this case you either appreciate my collection of visual elements or wonder why I cared at all. Unless you frequent the Hawthorne Bridge, you would be hard-pressed to locate this image in Portland at all.

Go take a walk. You might be intrigued at what you will find. It doesn't really matter whether anyone else "gets It".

This week I would like to take you to the Canyon de Chelly, which my family visited during our road trip around the Four Corners area in 2002. In many ways , this was the highlight of our trip, which is saying a lot when you also get to go to Bryce and the Grand Canyon, among other parks. The reason I enjoyed the canyon so much was that it was off the beaten track, unknown to me before our visit, and allowed a brief glimpse into a Native and very foreign culture.

                TYPICAL HIGH DESERT ENVIRONMENT BEYOND THE CANYON

                                                             SOME OF THE BEST FARMLAND IN ARIZONA BELOW THE RIM

The Canyon de Chelly is deep in the heart of the Navajo Nation and one of the places on the reservation that feels very far away from the modern American landscape. In typical Anglo-Saxon fashion, it's name is pronounced "de shay" which is a bowdlerization of the original Navajo through Spanish with French spelling just to confuse anyone encountering the place for the first time. This crack in the high desert, whose canyon walls protect a micro-climate about 1000 feet and a world away below the flat desert above, has been inhabited by humans for more than 4000 years. The Navajo lived here hundreds of years after the Anasazi people first came here and occupied cliff dwellings in the canyon walls. These "Old Peoples" and then the Hopi lived in the Canyon before the Navajo used the Canyon as a hiding place and refuge from the US Cavalry until they were removed to other parts of the reservation in the 1860's. In many ways one of the spiritual centers of Navajo civilization, the canyon is now a National Monument, jointly administered as a National and Navajo Nation Park. It became a National Monument in 1931, and is run as a park by the Navajo Nation.

                                                               CONTRASTING ENVIRONMENTS

                                                              THE CANYON FROM ABOVE THE RIM

Today about forty extended Navajo families still live in the Canyon. The climate at the bottom of the canyon is like an oasis in the desert, with some of the best farmland in Arizona. The only way to tour the canyon is to take a Jeep tour with a Navajo guide. I rode shotgun in front and the meeting of cultures between Navajo and New York Jew was both strange and delightful. To call it an urban/rural split is to discount two entirely different world views. We revere our history in our built environment, even if its history might be just a second compared to a tenure like the Navajo's in the Southwest. But the Navajo do not preserve any of their built environment - their houses are not inherited, but burnt to the ground when someone dies. Their entire history is preserved as oral tradition, and this New Yorker could not fathom an area where two hundred thousand people lived with no real hint that anyone you did not literally meet that day actually lived in the place. Jewish mothers are legendary, but they do not run a matriarchal society where all property and wealth runs through the mother's line. When a man marries, he joins his wife's extended family, and it is considered a little radical if your mother-in-law will even speak directly to you. My guide could only lead the jeep tours because he had had married into his wife's extended family who farmed in the canyon. When we reached the canyon rim at the end of the tour he nicely pointed out his home in the far distance; I just as nicely pretended that I could see it in the midst of nothingness. He then declared that he was in the process of moving because "it was getting too crowded" near where he lived.

                                                               THE WHITE HOUSE RUINS DWARFED BY THE CANYON

                                                         THE WHITE HOUSE IS LITERALLY PART OF THE CANYON, ABANDONED FOR 700 YEARS

The White House ruins were built and abandoned by the Anasazi people around the year 1300. Only a White cultural historian could begin to explain why we call this cliff dwelling ruin the "White House" - our Navajo guide left us to our own devices since like most of his people he will not go anywhere near a remnant of the Old People.

                                                               SPIDER ROCK CATCHING SOME RAYS

Another highlight of the Park is the 700 foot tall Spider Rock, which is estimated to be 230 million years old. Named after Spider Woman, who taught the Navajo how to knit their exquisite blankets, it suddenly rises up at one bend of the canyon. Canyon de Chelly is such a hidden gem that you can't even see this rock beyond the canyon rim since its top is still 300 feet below the surrounding high desert.                                                               TWO VIEWS OF TREES PROVIDE SHADE IN THE CANYON

I hope you have enjoyed these images of the Canyon, and I hope that you someday can find your way there yourselves.. My very limited understanding of the cultures of the Southwest has been heightened by the mystery novels of Tony Hillerman and now his daughter Anne Hillerman, who weave an incredible amount of Indian history and culture through their stories. Tony Hillerman was honored  by the Navajo for his deep understanding and portrayal of their way of life. The only way to read these novels is alongside the historic and contemporary AAA map of "Indian Country" which can guide you through this landscape where GPS etc is still hit and miss at best.

A little over twenty years ago my family took an extended road trip in the Four Corners Area of the Southwest. We hopscotched around the incredible collection of National Parks, visiting a park, skipping one or two, and then visiting another. Unfortunately we have never had the chance to make a return visit to see the parks that we skipped. I would encourage you all to make the circuit, and not to skip Bryce Canyon under any circumstances.

                THERE IS PLENTY OF FOREST BOTH WITHIN AND BEYOND THE RIM

               THE CANYON SUDDENLY APPEARS OUT OF NOWHERE IN A MORE MONOCHROMATIC LANDSCAPE

Bryce Canyon suddenly appears around a bend in the road as a vision from another planet, an amphitheater of mostly orange spires in the midst of the high dessert of pine forests and blue skies. These spires, known as hoodoos, come in an infinite variety of shapes usually only seen in Dr. Suess books, not in the real world. Then you come to Bryce, and are overwhelmed.

                ROCKS TO MAKE YOU DOUBT YOUR EYES

                YOU NEED TO TAME THE CONTRAST BOTH WINTHIN AND BEYOND THE CANYON

It is tempting to consider Bryce another one-hit wonder like the Grand Canyon or Crater Lake, but the remarkable thing about Bryce is that most visitors can easily explore the Canyon beyond the usual series of overlooks. You don't have to take your life in your hands on steep trails down into a river canyon like the Grand Canyon, or wait all Summer for the park's roads to open like a trip to Crater Lake. A series of short hikes can take you down into the hoodoos for a more personal experience than the beautiful, but distant one available on the rim.

                A TOUCH OF CONTRASTING GREEN CAN REALLY HELP BALANCE THE ORANGE

                BEYOND THE RIM

It is awfully hard to take a bad photo at Bryce, but you have got to stretch your visual muscles to find a series of images that will be of "your Bryce" as apposed  to everyone else's. These images are a sample of what I saw on our one and only trip. The first image is the "money shot" of the amphitheater, featuring the hoodoo known as Thor's Hammer. This view is about as wide as my camera could go in the days before stitched digital images. My scanner allowed me to rescue these photos from my disorganized archives, and after a few minutes of post-processing they have emerged as remarkably better images than the 4 x 6 prints that came from the one-hour place.

                                                              THERE ARE OUTCROPPINGS BEYOND THE MAIN RIDGE

                                                             PATH BETWEEN THE HOODOOS

                                                              HOODOO DETAIL

Along with usual sharpening and some cropping, Bryce images benefit greatly from several Lightroom techniques. Your film's color balance was probably thrown off by all that orange, so it really helps to adjust the color balance of your newly scanned digital negatives. The light at mid-day when you are probably around the canyon is pretty harsh, so you must balance the light and shadows within the canyon as well as darkening any sky beyond the canyon rim. Sometimes the shadows within the canyon can only be balanced with brushwork since simpler graduated filters never met a hoodoo they could deal with. The Bryce Orange that is so memorable that you can get it from Benjamin Moore as a very bright paint color is so saturated in real life that it sometimes benefits from de-saturation to render it more "realistic" in a photograph.

                                                              TOWERS IN THE SKY

                                                              LARGE TREES CAN SEEM VERY SMALL IN THIS ENVIRONMENT

One thing that I have learnt in looking at images of Bryce, my own and much better ones by others, is that all that orange really sings only when you get some of the green trees in your images. This natural contrast on the color wheel seems to benefit almost any Bryce image in my humble opinion - and you can't do that twenty years later in post-processing. I have also found that attention to individual hoodoos can bring out their character beyond the overwhelming first impression that this landscape is just too weird to make any sense of - it is still just a rock after all, even if it is unlike any rock you might have ever seen. The great thing about Bryce is that a good dose of de-saturation can allow more attention to texture and detail  way before you get to black and white, which can seem both ideological and absurd in such an overwhelmingly colorful environment.

                THERE IS NO DENYING THAT SOMETIMES IT IS JUST WEIRD CITY

                                                              VERY HARD MUD

                                                               IT CAN STILL BE JUST AS WEIRD IN BLACK AND WHITE

I hope that you have enjoyed these images, and that you can get to Bryce Canyon someday. I sure hope to return in the future.

I'm not the most organized person, so when I went on another trip into my archives, and found some slide pages that were actually "catalogued", I was absolutely shocked. This week I will explore a number of images that date back over forty years and were all listed under "details." I think that they have less value as historic artifacts than as links to a young man who was about to become an architect, after another seven years of education and apprenticeship. these details show that my camera was already pointed at architectural details before I ever stayed up all night in architecture school. I  would bet that after forty years these small vignettes have not changed one bit, which shows in some way how the built environment can persevere if we don't go out of our way to obliterate it. To my mind they also show how delightful a walk in the city can be if you slow down and enjoy the details around you.

This first image is nothing special to most of you, but it is a view of most of my afternoons in the early 1980's. I was a waiter in a wine bar in Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C. for seven years, and walked through this delightful piece of urban design most days before work. I worked here before, during , and after architecture school, somehow avoiding a pretty justified firing as a New York waiter in Washington, D.C. I survived only because I was "employee number three" after the two owners and fit in among a collection of "waitrons" that included writers, actors, opera singers, and other ne'er-do-wells. An architect was only another part of  very eclectic mix, and I could write the list of desserts on the blackboard like nobody's business. Fran occasionally filled in as a bus girl, as long as she could was allowed to be "Inga" whose only English was"more bread?"

                                                                  A WROUGHT IRON KIT OF PARTS AT AN ENTRY

I carried my first real camera, and then my first real SLR, on my walks around some of the older neighborhoods in D.C. like Dupont Circle and Georgetown, where Fran worked as a pastry chef in a fancy catering company. There were plenty of wonderful details to notice, most which seemed far too  "highfalutin" for the architecture they were attached to. They alluded to the pride of early developers, as well as the fact that both architects and craftsman had come really cheap back in the day. This ornate little entrance stair on a row house is an example of a common tactic to make yet another row house kind of special. What intrigues me is that these seven steps are exactly the same walk up as the stairs as my 1911 bungalow 3000 miles away - the dimensions and material are completely different, but I get a basement and these people probably lived above a lower-level apartment.

                BEAUTIFUL DETAILS THAT DEFY LOGIC BUT MAKE EVERY DAY BEAUTIFUL

What caught my eye, and still makes me smile forty years later, is that this more expansive entry stair in Georgetown shows such attention to detail in its design while not caring a whit that beautiful brick steps  will probably have to be rebuilt every decade. I'm sure they are still there, although the fancy car parked next to them on the front terrace/parking space has no doubt been replaced a dozen times. Hopefully someone fixed that errant fence picket!

                UNION STATION WINDOW WALL

I seemed to be drawn to the details even when I was touring a piece of architecture with a capital "A".  Here is a detail of one of the incredible arched windows at the newly restored Union Station. I was fascinated by the grid of windows that allowed for and enlivened this early window wall. They are almost an exact match for similar monumental windows at the main building at Ellis Island in New York. I'm old enough that this building is again being restored.

                                                                   PUBLIC ART THAT MIGHT NOT PASS MUSTER TODAY

This incredible sculpture is just one of the art pieces that embellished the Depression Era government office buildings known as the "Federal Triangle" off Pennsylvania Avenue near the White House. I don't know about you, but somebody wasn't paying attention when this nearly homoerotic horse and wrangler greeted government workers every day.

                PLAYING WITH SCALE ON PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE

Sometimes Robert Venturi and his firm could be too clever by half, but this plaza along Pennsylvania Avenue, which shows the plans of the Capitol and the White House in sight of the buildings themselves is probably the best way anyone ever actually explained and illustrated  L'Enfant's plan of the new Capital city. Amidst all of the monuments of Washington it is probably still my favorite.

                                      DETAILS FOR THE PEOPLE!

This downspout was a few feet from the garden apartment row house where Fran and I, and then Benjamin, lived in Arlington outside of D.C. This downspout shows the attention to detail that such a modest apartment complex could contain if people cared about such things as apartments for workers. This development was built to accommodate some of the first workers at the new Pentagon, a few miles away by dirt(!) road. When Fran and I and others were insulted by the "inside price" that a developer offered us to buy our new condo, we successfully created the first affordable housing project in Northern Virginia. Much to the horror of our middle class neighborhood, Fran and I, a waiter/architecture student and a pastry chef, were the richest tenants among 140 units, which still included a dozen people who had moved in forty years earlier. In doing my research, I found the original plans and realized that our courtyards, which resembled college quads, were supposed to be parking lots that the original developer had "forgotten" to build. Our new affordable rent rose from $200 to $800 a month, but we kept our apartment.

                                                                     DETAILS BY A MASTER

On to some famous architecture that I visited in those years when I was broadening my "architecture vocabulary". These two images are from two houses by Frank Lloyd Wright. One was a "modest" home built near D.C. contemporary with our apartment complex. This was an example of a "Usonian" house which Wright promised would cost only $5000 to build. Yes, it like most of its cousins ended up more likely  in the low teens, but you did get to live in small house by Frank Lloyd Wright. I would spend next thirty-five years trying to convince my clients that they deserved such attention to detail, and never got a chance to build a "window wall" of french doors like the one shown here.

                                                                 SOMETIMES A WINDOW IS NOT JUST A WINDOW

This image is a detail of one of the most famous houses in the world, Falling Water. I infamously once drove a tourist board employee to near tears when I insisted that she must be mistaken when I insisted that Falling Water was just outside of Scranton when it is really located near Pittsburgh. Yes, it is built over a waterfall, but what impressed me most was this window wall, built of a multitude of small industrial casement windows. Not only were they built into the adjacent stone wall without any frames, but he had the guts to paint them a wild red-orange! Forty years after our visit we painted our bungalow a similar shade.

I hope you have enjoyed this walk down memory lane. Remember that not only is "God in the details", but some of our the best recollections of our past can be found there.

Thirty-nine years ago, in 1984, Fran and I visited San Francisco for the very first time as newlyweds. This morning I explored, revisited, and attempted to improve some of the images I captured on that trip. There is an old photographic adage that every photograph over fifty years old is inherently interesting. I'm getting old, and let me tell you that these images from nearly four decades ago are pretty close to making that mark. They reveal both the timeless and the historic nature of one trip to the "city on the bay." They are not award-winners, but they are not half-bad either, and were improved immeasurably by a few minutes of post-processing forty years after the fact.

                                                                 HUSTLE AND BUSTLE AND STRANGE STREET NAMES

Like most New Yorker's I immediately fell in love with the place after I got over the fact that it was clearly insane to have overlaid the street grid I was used to over a multitude of gigantic hills. The city was so clearly spectacular, seemingly familiar in it's density, but with enough quirks that even a newcomer could appreciate its charm. We stayed in an old-fashioned hotel with an elevator so small that we each had to go up separately with our bags. Then we were puzzled by the double-hung windows that seemed upside down - until we realized that since there were no bugs, hence no screens, that you could not be allowed to open the bottom sash a dozen flights up.

                                                                 CLASSICAL FOLLIES

                                                                 AND UNIQUE NEI9GHBORHOODS

We had a wonderful time, and looking back on it I remember how just plain lucky we were even though we had planned and planned the trip out, including trips North to the Wine Country. I had been a waiter in a wine bar for longer than I had been in architecture school, so I of course had to find some obscure wineries to tour. So after too much driving we ended up in a restaurant in the country, allowed to have lunch even though the crew was already having their staff meal at the next table. Without really knowing what we were doing, we had lunch at The French Laundry, soon to be one of the most famous restaurants in America. We had already somehow managed to eat at Chez Panisse, where no matter how much I was impressed by the food i was just amazed at the open kitchen twenty feet from our table, with no drama or cursing in evidence.

                THE BEACH AT THE END OF THE WORLD, OR AT LEAST AT THE END OF THE "N JUDAH" TRANSIT LINE.

Fran had to deal with some architectural pilgrimages as well, which she was rather game for - after all she had married an architect, even though she had "known" what she was getting into, according to my best professor at school. So we climbed the step streets up the hills surrounding the Coit Tower,  made famous by Armistead Maupin. We drove out to the Sea Ranch to view a resort that was just short of a cult retreat. I didn't have the guts to knock on the door and meet Charles Moore but it was still worth it. I did get to drive him back and forth to the airport a few years later, and the only famous architect that ever met turned out to be a very nice man.

                THE MAIN CONDO BUILDING AT SEA RANCH

                A WINERY VISIT - I THINK IT WAS "CLOS DE BOIS"

               AN ORDINARY STREET IN THE SUNSET - BUT LOOK AT THOSE CARS! DAD, WHAT IS A MOVIE RENTAL?

All these years later a lot of water has run under the bridge in San Francisco, which is reputed to be in a "death spiral" even worse than Portland's. But i still wouldn't bet against it, since it has survived an earthquake, a dot.com boom and bust, a Great Recession, and a Pandemic since our first visit. Some of these images show how spectacular it was and still is, while others feel like historical artifacts. The street scenes are familiar, but look at those cars! The only one that I recognize as something that exists today is the old Volvo like the one that is parked around the corner from my bungalow.

                                                                  I THOUGHT YOUR PEOPLE DIDN'T TRAVEL MUCH.

                THE SAME GOOFY SMILE, BUT LOOK AT THOSE GLASSES!

The two young people pictured pretty much look the same - at least Fran does. My facial hair styling did not survive this trip, after one coffee cart barista declared that he hadn't thought that "my people" traveled that much. My Amish period was over. Fran looks the same, at least to me, but her hair is even longer. And look at those glasses - my hippy chick is still going strong!

This week I would like to continue discussing how you can make your travel images a little more personal. We all have faced the "problem" of our travel photos looking like more of the same photos we have already seen multiple times on Instagram. We are in new and strange places, bombarded with visual excitement, and unsure of how to react and create imagery that will reflect our own view of the world. Last week I suggested focusing on details; this week I will try to extoll the possibilities of concentrating on the ordinary, quiet, and typical streets of the new cities that you are meeting for the first time.

                                               SIENNA, ITALY'S LARGEST "HILL TOWN", DOESN'T EVEN PRETEND TO HAVE REAL STREETS FOR CARS.

In my world this is not "street" photography, in that I remain much too intimidated to actually make images of strangers. Let's call these "streetscapes" or "urban landscapes", where my landscape photography meets my preferred urban environment. Of course there is considerable overlap with architectural photography and my interest in details, but here I try to illustrate the form of the street. What is it like to walk down these streets, and how is it different from walking in Portland? Can my imagery bring the viewer in contact with an urban environment that they might have never experienced? Or remind them of what they loved and experienced themselves in Italy?

                                                                TABACCHI

The Italian streetscape, even in Rome, contains hints that this is not our version of city life. This ubiquitous sign confused me, even though I knew that Italians still smoked way too much. Then my friend who lived in Rome took me on the ordinary route to the tram. First we had to stop for an espresso in a narrow storefront with no seats made totally out of chrome. Then it was time to go the tobacconist, which really existed to sell tram tickets as well as cigarettes. Only then would you make your way to the tram stop. There was no rush to catch your tram because you could see both the one you had just missed and the one that you could catch next - they literally came every two minutes.

                                                         THESE STREETS THEN DEVOLVE INTO ALLEYS THAT YOU SHARE WITH NEIGHBORS.

 In concentrating on the streetscape, I try to avoid the usual monumental architecture we all came to see and photograph. Of course I give those subjects a try, but I realize that it is very difficult to have a "new" take on the Vatican, for instance, especially if you are seeing it for the first time. That kind of visual exploration is probably best left to photographers who have lived in these places for a very long time. So in these images I try to stay away from the famous buildings, and even the famous parks or squares, but to try to illustrate the city with an image of an ordinary street. I hope to illustrate Italy, but not the Italy that everyone else has seen over and over. I was here, and I noticed something, and I hope to show it to you, and elicit a response. I try to do that all of the time, but in my travel images I place renewed emphasis on avoiding the obvious.

                                      THE MOST IMPORTANT FACADE OF A BUILDING MIGHT NOT EVEN BE ON THE STREET, BUT HIDDEN IN A COURTYARD.

The Italian street is so different from America in that it predates the automobile by multiple centuries, and usually makes almost no attempt to accommodate the automobile in any way that might be characterized as rational. Even when it tries to include cars it runs into the anarchist strain in Italian life. The Italian way of coping with traffic that includes streetcars, taxies, Vespas, bicycles, and pedestrians that run the gamut from models to nuns is probably more closely related to the streets of the early Twentieth Century Lower East Side of New York than any street we are familiar with today. What I try to show in my studies of the smaller and quieter side of the Italian city is the way the absence of the grid teases and delights the walker, only slowly revealing what is around the bend - even if it is a major monument of global architectural history. The organic nature of these streets is further compounded by their overwhelming verticality. I grew up with the "canyons" of New York, but they are nothing like centuries-old five-story piles of stucco and stone that line "streets" that are maybe a dozen feet wide. At least you are probably not going to be pelted with the contents of a bed pan anymore, but this is not the American street of sidewalks and traffic controls. Even when you walk alone, you know that the street is for pedestrians like you since anything else will cause untold problems and might even be dangerous.

                                                                ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY, RIGHT ON THE STREET

This little covered arcade in Florence just happens to be one of the first and most important architectural artifacts of the Renaissance. It was the revolutionary front facade of the first hospital in the city state. I recognized it from my architectural history books, but I am an architect. More importantly for most pedestrians, after more than five hundred years, it still kept the rain off their heads as they walked through the neighborhood.

And then you get to Venice. Once you get over the fact that the streets are really waterways, you then discover that you will be walking on the sides of those canals on streets that lead to thousands of little bridges and then to dead ends that are someone's front door. You will get lost even if you know exactly where you are going. For me the charm is not the Grand Canal, but the little side canals and the walks that lead to the inevitable doubling back. Walking around this Venice is the only way to escape the Disneyland of the main streets and piazzas. The charm is that once you get lost you will be alone, and might experience the "real" Venice you are dreaming of, even though you might be only one hundred feet away from thousands of fellow travelers.

                                 BACK STREET, CANAL, AND BRIDGE IN VENICE, WITH HUMBLE ROWBOATS AND TOURIST GONDOLAS]

                                                               VIEW OF A SMALL CANAL FROM A BRIDGE - WHAT'S AROUND THE BEND?

                                     ANOTHER BRIDGE AND MORE APARTMENTS, BUT YOU CAN'T GET THERE UNLESS YOU HAVE A BOAT, OR YOU DOUBLE BACK.

A TYPICAL VENETIAN DEAD END WHERE YOU EITHER KNOW SOMEONE WHO LIVES THERE, OR SHEEPISHLY TURN AROUND AND RETRACE YOUR STEPS.

One of the most wonderful aspects of walking in such historic environments is that sometimes you don't even know what is about to happen unless you are staring at your map instead of watching your step.

                                                                 WHEN'S THE LAST TIME YOU TRIED TO PARK NEXT PIECE OF WORLD HISTORY?

This is a small street about a block away from the piazza in front of one of the most important buildings in the architecture of Western civilization, The Pantheon from Ancient Rome. This Temple of All of the Gods is more than two thousand years old, and the piazza must slope down almost a story because the front door is still at the level of the street before those two thousand years of dust and Romans filled in the surrounding city. But from a block away it is just part of the present-day city.

                                                                 AND THEN JUST LIKE THAT, YOU ARE IN ANCIENT ROME.

I hope you have enjoyed walking down some streets in Italy. These scenes are more than twenty years old, but I am confident that they have not really changed at all. The images have all benefited from post processing since the differences in light levels along these narrow streets are similar to those found in a forest. I routinely had to really raise the shadows, while still keeping some level of "murkiness" to maintain the reality of the street. Often I found that a black and white conversion led to a more realistic image despite the lack of color. I encourage you to try your hand at imagery of the ordinary streets even when you travel to a very new urban environment.

This week i would like to illustrate how you can create a unique portfolio from your travel snapshots, even two decades after the fact. While it certainly helps if you actually shoot to a theme, this is beyond the attention span of most photographers. This is especially true when we travel to far-flung places for the first and unfortunately , maybe the last time. We are so overwhelmed by sensory overload and the unfamiliarity of our surroundings that it is sometimes pretty remarkable that we can even take different, much less unique images than all of the tourists that have proceeded us. Yet in some ways Instagram has in fact made this a little easier, in that we have mostly seen all these places already, and there is less need to take shots that are overly familiar, even if you yourself have never taken them. We have now come full circle from the days when every shot seemed to be a verification that you had actually been there - now your presence might be the only thing that distinguishes your image.

                                                              A PERFECTLY ORDINARY PALAZZO JUST LIKE THE ONE ACROSS THE STREET.

But we must not give in to just pursuing the "money shot" that everyone else has already taken. If you have enough faith in your "eye", the way you usually make sense of the world, then you can just go with the flow and try to take "your shots" no matter where you are. Chances are that you will return with images that are more representative of your take on a very wonderful but unfamiliar environment. Through the wonders of post-processing, you can even discover a theme many years after you originally captured a set of images.

                                                             AN ORDINARY HOUSE IN VENICE WITH AN EXTRAORDINARY BALCONY AND  SHUTTERS TO DIE FOR.

                                                                THIS BALCONY ENNOBLES ANY HUMAN BEING LUCKY ENOUGH TO WALK THROUGH THE DOOR.

Before the turn of the Century (how's that for feeling old?) Fran and I had the privilege to spend three weeks in Italy on the pilgrimage through mostly Rome, Florence, and Venice. Yesterday I spent an hour looking through my images of that trip for the first time in several years; I then selected few dozen prints to scan so that I could see what I could make of them after so long a time. What I discovered was that the images that had an impact, even though I had never before felt that they were "special", were those that concentrated on ordinary sights in these very special cities. While there are images from some "landmarks" I would be hard-pressed to recall the exact sites beyond the placement in each city. This week I would like to show images that focus on what struck me as the "details" of Italian life beyond the great monuments and art that we had come to see.

                                                                 EXTERIOR STAIR CENTURIES OLD AT A PAPAL PALACE.

                                                 WHILE YOU WALK UP THE STAIRS YOU CAN LEARN THE TIME, WAY BEFORE ANYONE WORE A WATCH.

These details show how impressed I was with the craftsmanship that seemed to be an inherent part of Italian life - the feeling that if it was worth doing at all, it was worth doing well. This applied to laying brick as much as creating art, which only seemed to prove that laying brick could be an art. Everyone seemed to be in an unspoken pursuit to "show off" how well they could do something, daring you to try to ignore how much they cared.

                                      AN ORDINARY STRUCTURE WITH AN INCREDIBLE ROOF - WHO SAID ALL OF YOUR ROOF TILES HAD TO BE THE SAME?

Beyond the exhibited craftsmanship was the attention to detail. There didn't seem to be anything unworthy of attempting to be "special", which struck this American weary of catalogs and standard details as absolutely wonderful. This concentration, sometimes bordering on O.C.D, made the anarchic qualities of Italy even more charming if undecipherable.

                OKAY, YOU CREATE ONE OF THE MOST INCREDIBLE PIAZZAS IN ITALY. IT COVERS ACRES, SLOPES A FULL STORY FROM ONE END TO ANOTHER, AND CAN HOST A HORSE RACE A FEW TIMES A YEAR. SO WHY WOULDN'T YOU CHOOSE AN ELABORATE BRICK PATTERN WHILE YOU'RE AT IT?

It only helped that most of these details I was seeing for the first time had existed for many hundreds of years. The textures and age of these artifacts were all the more unbelievable in that they were not in some museum but were just part of ordinary life. Even if they had once been an exhibit of wealth and power, after dozens of lifetimes they were just part of the city's daily life, available to anyone with the time to take a look.

                    THIS STRUCTURE IS SO NOBLE THAT ITS BRICK WILL SUFFICE, NAKED OF THE MARBLE AND STONEWORK THAT WAS  PROBABLY ONCE THERE.

In the end this is what struck me as the most important part of what I was seeing. The fact is that most of these details have been around so long that they have been saved and restored and preserved multiple times. They are part of Italy's cultural heritage. Subsequent generations have shown as much pride in these details as the original craftsman did in creating them many hundreds of years ago.

                                                                LOOK AT THAT GARDEN RAILING! NOT TO MENTION THE WISTERIA.

I would encourage you to take your own look back through your archives. My theme might be architectural details; yours might be food, landscapes, or faces. All that matters is that I believe you will find that these images are far more meaningful than yet another landmark, even if it takes you years to rediscover them.

                CAN YOU IMAGINE THAT SOMEONE ONCE THOUGHT THAT THEIR BALCONY RAILING OBVIOUSLY SHOULD BE HELD UP BY A TORTOISE BASE?

This week I would like to explore some images from a trip I took with my family up and down the Oregon Coast during Spring Break in 1997. We had been in Oregon for almost five years, but this trip proved how we were still rookies when it came to traveling around the state. I had rigorously planned our trip, complete with reservations at campgrounds all along the coast, but we had a great time despite all of my planning, which was almost completely unnecessary or even ludicrous. The notion that we would be camping on the Coast in early Spring was clearly a crazy idea that was reinforced most every night throughout the week. We were mostly alone, sharing the campgrounds with a few sane people in RVs. Since it got dark right around 5:00 we mostly ate in the dark, especially since we could barely get a fire started even if it wasn't raining. I can't really remember ever feeling so constantly wet, and ended up staying at some cheap motels along the way to preserve our sanity.

                                                                 HEADLAND OVERLOOK

                                       SOLITARY SEA STACK ON THE BEACH

Yet we still had a great time, since we were all in this together, and the Coast is just so beautiful, even in the rain. Although come to think of it this trip inaugurated our subsequent Spring Break tradition of epic driving vacations with just Dad and Benjamin, with Fran enjoying a break at home. I also remember that this trip was the start of Benjamin's exploration  of sarcasm. We drove into yet another empty campground in the rain searching for our reserved site, Benjamin came back to the car after a reconnaissance confidently declaring that it really didn't matter since our chosen site was completely under water.

                ROCKS ON THE COAST AND BEYOND

                THE EVER-PRESENT MARINE LAYER JUST OFF THE COAST

The Oregon Coast gets more and more spectacular the further South you travel even though the Northern Coast is renowned world-wide. Some of this is just because of familiarity, since the Southern Coast is really quite a trip from Portland, especially if you drive along 101 on the Coast. While this route is certainly beautiful, and promises a new beach every few miles, you just have to get used to the idea that  you'll be going 30 mph as much time as you get up to 60 mph. Distances seem to infinitely expand. The payoff is that the further South you go the emptier the beaches get, and more importantly they seem to get even more picturesque the closer you get to California.

                OUR SUNSETS ARE JUST DIFFERENT, AND IN SOME WAYS MORE DRAMATIC

These images were all forgotten in my archives for more than 25 years. They all were vastly improved after just a few minutes of post-processing which rescued them from the mediocrity of the one-hour photo print. It is amazing what a revised white balance, some true blacks, a little mid-tone contrast and cursory sharpening can do for an image. I also cropped with abandon, either creating panoramas out of ordinary seascapes with too much sky, or focusing on the details in too-wide landscapes. The weather also encouraged a monochrome conversion in some cases, although the changes in white balance and exposure usually reveled that the Coast, even in the rain, was a lot more colorful than the original snapshot would lead you to believe.

                SHARK'S TOOTH SEA  STACK AT HIGH TIDE

                WHEN DOES A SEA STACK BECOME AN ISLAND?

After 25 years I really have no real idea of the exact location of most of these images. I will say that I have always recommend that everyone try to stop for awhile at Bandon, Shore Acres, and Samuel Boardman State Park, among others. These images, and the Coast, seem timeless. After rescuing these images from my archives it occurs to me that a return trip down the Coast would be a great idea. Maybe just not at Easter.

                                      REQUISITE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC RED PONCHOS HIGHLIGHT THAT IT'S JUST NOT A WALK ON THE BEACH

This week I'd like to go back nearly thirty years ago to my second and last trip to Yellowstone National Park. Yellowstone is truly like no place else on Earth, and is so weird and beautiful that it is very hard to capture in photographs. As usual in my forays in my archives I have concluded that while I'm in no danger of appearing in National Geographic, I was a lot better than I thought I was way back then. A little post-processing goes a long way.

                                                                 POOLS, GEYSERS, AND FUMES, OH MY!

                IT'S NOT REALLY CLEAR WHY THE POOL IS OVER THERE INSTEAD OF RIGHT UNDER YOUR FEET

These images concentrate on the unique thermal pools in the park that are as compelling as they are dangerous. Crystal clear and wildly colored, they tempt closer inspection than is really safe. The real dangerous clues are the steam coming out of them, which does appear in images that cannot convey the awful smell that is present in this environment. It's like the commercial for the gas company that warns of the smell of rotten eggs, but one hundred times worse.

                                                                 A POOL IN THE FOREST ENVIRONMENT

These pools highlight my images since I felt that no matter how the park was clearly beautiful, they were the clue that something terribly wrong was going on just below the surface. They seemed to intrude on most areas of the park, even right next to Yellowstone Lake, and dominated other areas which were clearly not meant for extended hikes. I myself found the pools much more compelling than the geysers, which just seemed like intermittent fountains in comparison. To each his own.

               A SMALL POOL RIGHT NEXT TO A LARGE LAKE OF MANY COLORS, 7300 FEET ABOVE SEA LEVEL

The most important feature of Yellowstone in my opinion is its immense size and wildly varied environments. As opposed to many natural wonders that contain one or even several "money" shots, Yellowstone rewards continuous investigation. Forest fires larger than several States seemed to not really mar the park when we visited, and I'm sure that their effects are now just distant memories.

                LAVA POOLS BORDERING YELLOWSTONE LAKE

I would of course encourage you to visit or revisit Yellowstone, but more importantly I once again encourage you to visit your photo archives in order to discover how your long-ago efforts actually captured your experience. Post-processing cannot rescue "bad" photos, but in my experience it can clearly reveal the gems that were obscured by the indifferent industrial photo processing of the past. Your images deserve better, and short of returning to wonderful places like Yellowstone, it's the best way to recapture the wonder of traveling.

This week's excursion into my photo archives revealed two unexpected revelations about my photography. One was that I was perfectly capable of capturing standard horizontally-oriented landscape images, even though that is not my usual modus operandi. The other was that fine landscape images can be captured literally from the side of the road. I have utmost respect for my usual crew on You Tube who are "proper" landscape photographers, journeying to far-flung locations before dawn. These images all entailed a hike of less than a stroll from my car as I drove towards Wyoming more than 25 years ago. They prove, at least to yours truly, that sometimes just driving through epic landscapes is more than enough effort required to find a chance to create a fine landscape image. In fact the only thing you have to do is have enough energy to stop the car and stretch your legs.

                OFF THE BEATEN TRACK, PERHAPS IN EASTERN OREGON

All of these images were stuck in my archives for all of this time, the victims of desultory one-hour photo processing. I had never considered them worthy of a second glance, and their continued existence as 4x6 prints is due more to my lack of organizational energy than archival rectitude. Less than an hour of scanning and post-processing rescued them from their obscurity. While there might not be any award winners here, they are not half-bad and certainly show off parts of the West that can lift your spirits right by the side of the road, even if you can't believe anyone ever built a road so far from civilization. What is interesting is that frequently the only sign of man is actually the road you are driving on; it is not dangerous to just stop, since you haven't seen another car for the last hour.

                                      AGRICULTURAL LAND NEAR THE IDAHO WILDERNESS

The first few images show the road less traveled through Eastern Oregon, Idaho, and Wyoming on the way to the Grand Tetons. It was the first trip into the Outback since our original journey down our Oregon Trail to Portland a few years before. We looked forward to staying at a ski condominium this time instead of our little battered tent, but many days on the road were still required to get there. I think it is amazing that these views were just off the side of those roads.

                SOMEONE OWNS THESE COWS, BUT THE RANCH MIGHT BE BIGGER THAN SOME STATES IN NEW ENGLAND

                                                                SOMEONE HAS A BEEF WITH TRUCKS, HILLS, OR JUST TRAFFIC SIGNS IN GENERAL?

Most of my post-processing was my standard workflow of increasing the contrast, sharpening the image, and checking the white balance. Frequently a judicious crop to emphasize the horizontal nature of "the road" improved the image way beyond its original form. Several of the images worked better in black and white.

                GRAND TETONS PANORAMA; THAT RED BARN IS SLIGHTLY TO THE LEFT

                THE MAJESTY OF THE MOUNTAINS IS MATCHED BY THE SKIES

When we arrived at Grand Tetons National Park my forays only slightly off the road continued to achieve pretty epic views that challenged those scenes only available after hours of hiking. Sometimes the mere act of cropping away the road I was standing near was enough to elevate the image. Even the Jenny Lake reflection image was shot right off the parking lot.

                JENNY LAKE RIGHT OFF THE ROAD

My message is that the pursuit of the landscape does not require superhuman effort. If you want to take wonderful images right off the side of the road, then the first thing to do is to try to find more interesting roads.

               THIS STORM DID NOT LOOK AT ALL REALISTIC IN COLOR, BUT YOU BETTER BELIEVE IT'S ON THE WAY.

Thirty-one years ago my young family, soon to be characterized by our first friends in Portland as "the bold and the stupid", traveled our version of the Oregon Trail from Washington, D.C. to Portland. These images are my first impressions of our first encounter with the "real West", the Badlands of South Dakota. We had been on the road for a week or so, but Iowa and Nebraska, while certainly different, in no way prepared us for the beauty, the alien landscapes, and the shear emptiness of what was to come.

                                                                 YOU HAVE GOT TO HAND IT THIS TREE - YOU COULDN'T MAKE IT IN THIS PLACE!

                                                                 YOU CAN'T GET THERE FROM HERE

                                                                  WANDERING AROUND THE BADLANDS

We had a very limited understanding of the meaning of "The Badlands", since rural America already had impressed us as extremely different from our East Coast environments. Then we met the first place that even Native Americans and then settlers realized was not really fit for human habitation. It was a shock to our systems. We were used to small mountains and forests that lacked people mostly because they were far away, but these lunar landscapes mocked any people that might even cross them, much less civilize them. The settlers that had tried clearly lacked any sense way  beyond refusing advice from the natives who had long ago decided that the Badlands were not worth the effort.

                                       TRAILS IN THE BADLANDS ARE SOMETIMES ASPIRATIONAL

Fran immediately realized that she should have been a geologist rather than an English major. She absolutely loved what most would characterize as shear desolation. We set up our campsite, and a few days of exploration and wonder began. It took awhile to realize that our campground was the largest collection of people in the entire area. It felt less like a park than the end of the world. The first time we parked and four-year old Benjamin scampered to an overlook probably hundreds of feet high, with no pretense of a guardrail, was our first clue that we certainly "were not in Kansas anymore."

                                                                 ANOTHER TURN IN THE TRAIL TOWARDS YET ANOTHER GULLY

                FRAN AND BENJAMIN EXPLORE THE PRAIRIE SURROUNDING THE BADLANDS

A few days in we experienced our first "cold front." As I was pumping gas I realized that the temperature had seemed to drop nearly ten degrees in the time it took me to fill the tank. When we got to our campground, it was mostly gone. Dozens of tents and camping equipment were scattered over a quarter a mile in all directions. Somehow our "home" held on by one tent stake, and we packed up and skedaddled to a hotel that was rumored to exist about thirty miles away. The surreal night concluded with a wonderful dinner of Indian Flatbread under a raving review on the wall of the restaurant from the New York Times.

                BADLANDS PANORAMA

We would continue on for another thousand miles, enjoying  the Grand Tetons,  Yellowstone, and Glacier before we arrived in Portland thirty-one years ago on October 1, 1992. Fran agreed that we could rent an apartment on the campus of Portland State with the proviso that she would kill me if it wasn't safe. For the next six months we introduced ourselves to Portland. Fran negotiated Psycho Safeway and  our tiny kitchen, with a view of Mt. Hood! Benjamin half-way believed that the South Park Blocks were his backyard. I reveled in the views from the terraces of the apartments on the floor above ours that never rented and were my personal retreat via a fire escape at the end of our hall. Fortunately my wife somehow convinced the bank that we could actually buy a house and our Downtown idyll ended after we moved to our 1911 Bungalow where I am writing this essay.

                A VIEW TO THE EAST FROM OUR APARTMENT'S "BORROWED " TERRACE

If you ever get a chance to visit the Badlands I heartily recommend you do so. In fact any road trip across this incredible country is not to be missed.

                  A VIEW OF ONE PORTION OF "THE PALISADES" LITERALLY FROM THE PARKING AREA.

This week I would like to finish up my survey of our recent trip to the John Day National Monument in Central Oregon. We'll concentrate on the least visited part of the park, the "Clarno Unit", which even the park guide characterizes as in "the middle of nowhere." It is easy to see why this area is frequently overlooked, since it is close to two hours away from the Painted Hills. Despite its obscurity, we found a trip to the site rewarding, as long as you carefully plan your visit.

                                      THESE ROCKS FELL SOMETIME IN THE LAST FEW MILLION YEARS

I recommend a visit on the way to the rest of the park from Portland. It will not seem so far out of the way as a stop on the way to the main portions of the park, and can be a very nice stop on a day's drive from Portland, about four hours from the city. After an hour or two exploring, another two hours will get you to Mitchell's collection of places to stay near the Painted Hills. We stopped here on the way back home, which set up a very long drive with almost no reasonable stops all the way back to Portland. If you choose to stay in Fossil instead of Mitchell you could make this a day trip, since it's only 18 miles to Fossil.

                                                                  DETAIL OF ROCKS ON THE RIGHT PORTION OF PANORAMA BELOW.

The highlight of this area is the mile-long outcropping along a cliff edge known as "The Palisades", which could be the remains of a credible castle if that castle was a mud flow 30-40 million years old. The only way to really appreciate the extent of the ridge is from an aerial image, since the outcropping is curved and extends pretty far from the parking area/picnic shelter that is the only real evidence of the park's existence, beyond some signs and three short trails. These trails lead up to the cliff face where you can get a closer view of the cliffs and appreciate their size in a different way than the overall panoramic view from the start of the trail. The choice is similar to the view from court side or the cheap seats in the Rose Garden. There is absolutely no shade, with only a few trees near the cliff as a testament to nature's refusal to admit that the high Desert can sustain anything but sagebrush.

               2:1 PANORAMA OF JUST ONE PORTION OF THE PALISADES

The Palisades need to be loved for their towers, since they lack the colors of the Painted Hills further down the road. My solution was to concentrate on several sections of the ridge, striving for larger details, before I accepted the challenge of stitching together panoramic views. Upon seeing aerial views after the fact, I now realize that the curve of the cliff introduces distortion that precludes a panoramic view of the entire Palisades. Stitching will simulate a wider view of the cliff, but since you can't see the whole thing even when you are there, it's pretty hard for your camera to capture it all.

               MONOCHROME RENDITIONS EMPHASIZE DETAIL AND TEXTURES. WE INSTANTLY ACCEPT THESE VERY ABSTRACT IMAGES AS REALISTIC.

The lack of color allows for exploration in black and white, which can seem close to perverse at the Painted Hills. As usual black and white can allow for more contrast, sharpening, and vignetting that would seem unrealistic in a color image. The white skies are very evocative of early Western imagery when film was not responsive to blue skies. Since the desert rocks are much darker than the skies, it is pretty hard to darken the skies without completely reversing the expected dark/light relationships of the natural world. These geologic vistas are other worldly as it is.

                                                                  ANOTHER PORTION OF THE PAISADES

In my visit to this area it was very hard to deal with geological time as opposed to the human concept of time. You are looking at millions of years of mud flows that occurred amid vastly different climates in the same place. Then consider that millions of years of erosion by wind and very occasional rain sculpted these mud flows into what humans could ponder for just 10,000 years or so. One of the few signs on the portion of the trail that we traversed put it succinctly - "every few feet you walk toward the Palisades constitutes the passage of a million years." The photographs you can take at these sites, depending on how you process them, could have been captured at any time during the history of the photographic medium. It's not very hard to capture an image that would be very similar to the first wet glass plate taken during the first photographic survey of these "Wonders of the West" in the late Nineteenth Century.

                                                                  NINETEENTH CENTURY VIEW, AVAILABLE TODAY!

We really enjoyed the entire John Day National Monument experience. Upon further research, I realized that the up close and personal views I had remembered at the Painted Hills were from the Painted Cove Trail a few miles beyond the "OH MY GOD" viewpoints we concentrated on this trip. I really recommend visiting this trail. The other must is a visit to Dayville, a hamlet east of Mitchell that makes Mitchell look like Paris. But a visit is required to the lone cafe, which serves a credible lunch which is concluded with a world-class collection of pies that will prompt a return trip. Do not miss this dessert in the High Desert.

                                      YOU CAN'T HEAR THE WARNING ON THE TRAIL, BUT I CERTAINLY DID. RIGHT OF WAY GOES TO RATTLESNAKES.

A few last words on photographing this area. When you are so off the grid it is tempting to just try to get the "money shot" that you've already seen on Instagram. The only trouble is that you have already seen it. Enjoy your visit, certainly take it, but really try to find your take on the experience, which would ensure a memory unavailable on Instagram.

                MERE PERVERSITY, OR MY IDIOSYNCRATIC INTERPRETATION? THE PAINTED HILLS IN GLORIOUS BLACK AND WHITE.

I took off last week to be with my son's family as they visited Fran and I in Portland. The other reason was that this week's blog post took an inordinate time to put together, as it depended on my stitching together panoramas from our visit to the Painted Hills at the end of May. Stitching together panoramas has opened an entirely new facet of my landscape photography, but there is no doubt that there is a learning curve, and that the process will tax even the most powerful computers out there. It will even increase your coffee consumption as you wait out your computer's efforts to put together such large files, which can sometimes exceed 1 Megabyte for a single image.

                THE STANDARD "MONEY SHOT", ONE 3:2 STANDARD IMAGE

We will look at several examples of panoramas from this trip, discuss their creation, and seek to come to some consensus on their value versus a standard one shot image. The first thing to say is that the process is not that hard, since the computer is doing most of the work. In the field the photographer is following some simple rules. As you pick a viewpoint, take a series of images revolving around that fixed position, overlapping about a third as you pivot your camera across the desired field of view. You do not need a tripod, although it couldn't hurt, and you will have less of the natural overall angle that even a conscientious natural pivot will create. But hand held is more than OK, as you will probably be creating a wider panorama than you will actually want to view or print. I've come to believe that somewhere between 4 and 7 images are more than enough. Two important points require you to turn off your automatic functions. First determine your desired focus point, which will probably be near infinity anyway. You do not want your camera changing your focus point as you pivot around the view. The same goes for auto exposure. As you scan the anticipated field of view, pick an exposure that will not blow out the highlights on the brightest part of the panorama and then turn off auto exposure so that your dumb camera doesn't try to change the exposure across the scene. Remove your polarizing filter, since your pivot might be wide enough that your filter will disconcertingly change the sky's appearance as you change your relationship with the sun.

                PAINTED HILLS PANORAMA #2 - 2:1 PANORAMA GETS WIDER, LOSES BACKGROUND, KEEPS FOREGROUND

This is not as hard as I make it sound even when I am telling you it is easy. Which doesn't mean it is foolproof, and I would encourage two things. Always take what you would consider your best single shot of the subject in case nothing works at all. And do not hesitate to try several attempts to guard against a simple mistake. In this digital age it is somewhat disconcerting and delightful that you do not know if you have succeeded until you get home and play with the computer.

                                                                  STANDARD 3:2 CROP ONE SHOT VERTICAL IMAGE CONCENTRATES ON THE FOREGROUND INTEREST

                PANO # 3 - 2 SHOT HORIZONTAL PANORAMA IS STILL ONLY STANDARD 3:2 RATIO, BUT SEEMS TO HAVE COMPLETELY SHIFTED AROUND           FOREGROUND ROCK

This technique will allow a wider view than almost any wide angle lens will achieve, and probably keep your subject larger in the frame, since you are actually building up standard or even telephoto views into the panorama. You can also build up very large levels of detail since your new built-up image will contain many more pixels than one shot. As I have done more of these panoramas I have come to believe that less is more. Few subjects require such a wide view as the Painted Hills, and the wider you get the more distortion you must begin to deal with, including the realization that your horizon, which "should " be straight, is now so wide that you are beginning to see the curvature of the earth in one photograph. A subject like the spectacular cliff side of the Painted Hills is easier to deal with than a city skyline or even a woodland scene whose perimeter trees are exhibiting a noticeable "lean."

                 PAINTED HILLS PANO # 4 - 3:1 PANORAMA SHIFTS TO RIGHT AND CAPTURES END OF THE CLIFF

Once your computer has presented you with the stitch, it is now time to decide how much you want to use. I have found that 3:1 is about as wide as almost any scene will justify. Most compositions do not have enough interest across such a wide frame to warrant such a wide view. I find that 2:1 is usually even better, since it certainly is "wide" without being weird. It is just wide enough to get a few more crucial elements in the frame than a standard 1 1/2 : 1 view.  Sometimes a stitch can even be presented as a standard crop - the viewer will just assume you had a wider lens in your bag than you own. You will then do your own standard post-processing workflow on the created panorama, treating it as a whole.

                PAINTED HILLS PANO #5 : RETURNING AT SUNSET FOR 3:1 PANORAMA OF LEFT SIDE OF CLIFF FACE. SHADOWS OPENED UP IN FOREGROUND.

I feel that the biggest problem with these panorama creations is how to exhibit them. That is why I feel 2:1 is the best ratio to shoot for. Any wider than that will require a very large image that is actually large in only one direction. A 24" x 36" print is a quite impressive way to fill a wall, but a 12" x 36" panorama seems smaller. A 24" tall 3:1 panorama will be 6 feet wide, and face the same exhibition problems as a too large television in most domestic spaces. Not to mention that you probably will quake at the cost to print and frame such a monster.

                PAINTED HILLS PANO #6 : ANOTHER OUTCROPPING "SHORTENED" TO A 4:1 CROP ALMOST GETS THE ENTIRE EXTENT OF THE HILL

As you have look at some of the panoramas that I created at this very panoramic subject, your are entitled to your opinion on what this technique actually achieves over a well-composed standard view.   I myself like Panoramas #1 and #3 the best, which seem to capture the spirit of the place in a different way than their single image cousins.Sometimes the panorama change is dramatic, sometimes it's just a little different, and sometimes it seems more trouble than it is worth. But at least it seems worth a try, since most software now includes the capacity to create these compilations. The Painted Hills, like Crater Lake, the Grand Canyon, a mountain range, or a whole city skyline, would seem to be the ultimate test of this software. I encourage you to give it a try.

                 PANO #7 : 2 1/2 : 1 CROP  SHOWS A DETAIL OF ANOTHER OUTCROPPING WITH VEGETATION IN FOREGROUND; 2 SHOTS AND A LOT OF CROPPING

               PAINTED HILLS : THE MONEY SHOT

This week I would like to take a look at the highlight of our trip to the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument in Central Oregon. I would say that I would argue that the Painted Hills are the highlight of anyone's trip to John Day. While the other parts of the park are certainly worth a visit, it is the Painted Hills, one of the "Seven Wonders of Oregon", that makes a four-hour journey to the middle of nowhere a must for any traveler to the state.  It is one of those places, like the Grand Canyon or Crater Lake, that you just don't believe you are seeing when you catch your first glimpse. And while there might be a tendency to treat this incredible geological formation as a one-trick pony, changing lighting conditions, points of view, and seasonal variations reward repeat visits. Not to mention that upon a repeat visit, even on the next day, most will still gasp in wonder.

              A DIFFERENT ANGLE, LATER IN THE DAY

This first image is pretty much that standard "Oh My God, what am I looking at?" introduction to the Painted Hills, which suddenly appear without warning after yet another twist in the lonely road from Mitchell, Oregon, where we stayed for three days last month. Mitchell is home to about 150 souls, and the nearest real (small) city, Prineville, is about an hour away. This overview of the hills takes in only about a third of the formation, which is why it is very useful to take along a wide-angle lens. Photographers like myself who don't like and/or own such a lens can now use software to "stitch" together several shots to achieve a wider than wide-angle perspective on such a site. Once you get used to the technique it is not that hard, but it does hearken back to the"old days" in the sense that you don't really know what you've gotten in the field. I have not had a chance to put together some of these panoramic images that I took at the Painted Hills, so they will have to wait until next week. These images are all examples of what I could achieve in a few hours with my standard to telephoto zoom lens. It is pretty hard to get closer to the hills because they are very fragile and would quickly disappear if people were allowed to get close enough to touch what they shouldn't touch. On this trip I didn't find any of the trails that I have taken through the hills along boardwalks through the dunes, and I do not know whether I just didn't go the right way or that the park has closed them since I last visited with Benjamin many years ago. When you realize that you are looking at millions of years of sedimentary deposits that one idiot could ruin in minutes, it is easy to accept that it's OK that you are required to keep your distance.

                                                                VERTICAL WITH FOREGROUND INTEREST

The different colors come from the different chemicals present in the different rocks that were deposited at the bottom of Oregon's inland sea over the course of millions of years, and then were exposed for our viewing pleasure by volcanic shifts in the land coupled with more millions of years of erosion by the wind. If you dug down below the sagebrush for many miles around you would probably encounter similar layers of sediment - and there are several smaller hills and gullies around this famous ridge that suddenly pop up and show off their geologic colors as well.

              TWO DIFFERENT OUTCROPPINGS

A photographer has to hope for some luck on a trip like this beyond the privilege of getting to visit at all. Cloudy skies that interrupt the interminable desert blue will improve any image of the hills, but you can adjust by including less sky or even no sky at all. If you can arrange for one or several thunderstorms then the baked colors will really come into their own. The rare rainy Spring will sometimes yield strings of desert flowers in many of the gullies on the cliff face. I brought out the polarizer filter, which is sort of like sunglasses for your camera, to try to bring out the colors, but found that arriving at sunset was a much more fruitful strategy. The trouble with a polarizer is that it really only works when you are near 90 degrees to the sun, and you might get blotchy skies when trying to get wide angle shots that are wide enough to encompass the Hills. Skilled astro photographers can probably achieve beautiful composite images of late day on the Hills combined with amazing star scapes at night in what must be one of the darkest landscapes around. While we saw a moon rise while we there, we didn't stay around to see if the moon could like up the hills. It is very dark out there, and that ten-minute drive back to Mitchell would probably stretch to a half hour.

              SUBTLER COLORS ARE ALSO PRESENT

There are other photographic opportunities around if you stop staring at the main cliff face, although that can be hard. There are smaller outcroppings with different colors, and even the "grayer" colors can exhibit a lot of interesting patterns of gullies formed by the rare presence of water.

                                     FLOWERS AND ROCKS OF THE HIGH DESERT

As the sun goes down you can turn your attention to the High Desert surroundings and concentrate on vegetation, flowers, and the details of boulders in the environment. If you show up near sunset you will get deeper colors on the cliff face but you will have to use graduated filters on the foreground which is going near black as the sun sets behind you. You might even get your own shadow intruding on the scene the closer you get to Sunset. At least you don't have to worry about missing the show by sleeping-in in the morning, since the cliff faces West and thus is in shadow until mid-day.

               SAGEBRUSH AGLOW AT SUNSET

The intrepid landscape photographer can thus finally avoid waking up too early. Enjoy your breakfast!

               A FEW TREES,SOME GRASS, AND THE MOON IN THE SKY ARE THE ONLY CLUES THAT YOU ARE NOT ON MARS

This week I would like to concentrate on the Blue Basin, a geologic formation North of Sheep Rock in the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. We took our longest hike in the Monument on the Island in Time Trail, about three miles in and out into the center of the basin. While it is overshadowed by the nearby Painted Hills (next week, I promise!), the Blue Basin is another area of John Day that is not to be missed.

              THE EROSIVE POWER OF WATER, DESPITE ITS APPARENT ABSENCE.

               HINTS OF A BASIN

First, a mea culpa. I violated at least several of the rules for hiking in the High Desert, so that my enjoyment of the hike was cut short. My first mistake was to properly navigate the shorts/jeans debate - I chose wrong with long pants, violating the rule that if it might be hot, always choose to risk being cold. I didn't bring a hat, and there was absolutely no shade on the trail unless you were willing to sit down next to a big rock, which I eventually did. I forgot my water bottle, a cardinal sin. Thus large portions of this hike became an unpleasant slog. I started to even get mad at the signs, which promised 19 bridges on the trail - I stopped counting at 22, but my number was suspect. So the best part of the hike for me was the downhill portion at the end, when we emerged from the basin. A big part of being a landscape photographer is knowing what you are getting into, and I blew it.

                                     TWO DETAILS OF VOLCANIC ERRATICS  AMID THE DRY STREAM BED

Despite my problems, the outing was certainly worth it. The trail runs along and across a dry stream bed which shows evidence of water, but the kind of evidence that astronauts might someday find on Mars. When you visit a place like John Day, you know that the conditions are probably not going to be ideal. The perfect day would be cloudy and cool, just after a recent thunderstorm that would fill the creek with blue-green water coming off the cliffs of the basin. The recent rain would also bring out the colors of the red volcanic boulders that litter the stream bed. But at least there were no flash floods to worry about.

                                                                AT THE END OF THE TRAIL

               MOUNTAINS SURROUNDING THE BLUE BASIN

Two things first. The Blue Basin is not really blue, but a shade of blue/green/gray layers that really only appear blue in contrast to the surrounding brown landscape. The only place that you will actually appreciate the "basin" is if you hike the longer and higher loop trail, where you can actually see the geological bathtub below the surrounding mountains. Since you are walking through ravine into the heart of the basin, it is kind of hard to see that you are in a depression.

               ACROSS THE JOHN DAY RIVER

                                                                MY ATTEMPT TO CAPTURE A WELCOMING STIFF BREEZE IN A STILL IMAGE

                                     AFTER SAND AND ROCKS,  SAGEBRUSH NEVER LOOKED SO GOOD

With these caveats, and the oppressive heat, the Island in Time Trail has a lot to offer. Whatever the actual color of the sedimentary layers, this is an unworldly landscape, where geology really comes alive. The time scale of erosion is so far beyond the realm of man's imagination that it is difficult to understand how many millions of years these cliffs represent. On the other hand, you are awfully glad you weren't around on the days that the little stream moved around the volcanic red boulders in the ravine. At the end of the hike I really appreciated the wind in the sudden reappearance of High Desert grass, the occasional tree, and the slightly more fertile surrounding hills. I didn't even mind an encounter with a baby rattlesnake, who was kind enough to m ake his presence known. There is nothing like that sound to get your attention at the end of a long hike.

                                                                 JOHN DAY SHADOWS AT THE END OF THE DAY AT THE END OF THE HIKE

In the next few weeks I will explore the photographic cornucopia of one portion of Central Oregon, centered around the John Day Fossil Bed National Monument. We had the opportunity to tour the area again with friends from Brooklyn, and believe me, it was fun to watch their alternate states of wonder and culture shock in their encounter with dry-side Oregon. We were not in hipster Portland - in fact, when you visit this area of the State, it's hard to believe that you are anywhere near anyone or anywhere. We drove through half a dozen counties which had less people than a mediocre crowd at Saturday Market. What the area lacks in population it more than makes up with spectacular scenery.

               APPROACHING MITCHELL, OREGON -  PRETTY CLOSE TO THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE

                                                                THE JOHN DAY OVERLOOK IN MITCHELL

This first image shows Mt. Hood from an unusual vantage point. It is taken along the side of the road near the beginning of the "Journey Through Time Scenic Byway", which we mostly followed for about half of its 286-mile lonely route from Central to Eastern Oregon. This is the Mt. Hood the pioneers saw as they assessed how they were going to get past the last big obstacle on their trip toward the promised land of the Willamette Valley. As we drove South from the Gorge we could see Mt. Hood, Mt. Jefferson, and the Three Sisters from this road, all looming over grasslands with not much evidence of humanity except for the road we were driving on towards Mitchell, Oregon.

                                                                 SHEEP ROCK, TYPICAL VERTICAL VIEW

Mitchell is not much of a place, with about 125 residents. It is the biggest settlement for about fifty miles on Route 26. This area is really made for camping or van life. The "Gateway to the Painted Hills" has a gas station, two hotels, one brew pub and one conglomeration of five Air BnB's on one street run by the same family. It's the kind of place where the fact that your lodging exists at all takes precedence over its quality or its price. Mitchell is so small that in a very imaginative move to keep its school alive the village developed a boarding school model for its school that takes in kids from around the world. Talk about culture shock!

              STITCHING MORE OF THE SCENE INTO A 2:1 PANORAMA

This week I will concentrate on our first day, where we took in one of the three parts of the National Monument, which sprawls across an area so large that it can take over an hour to drive between the three "units" of the park which stretch along the John Day River.The Sheep Rock Unit contains the Thomas Condon Visitors Center, which contains a Paleontology Museum which easily is worth a few hours itself. There you can get an overview of forty million years of fossil deposits that constitute the whole of geology after the dinosaurs met their fate at the hands of a pesky "meteor extinction event." The monument contains fossils spanning the entire Age of Mammals. In fact it contains more of these fossils than anywhere else on Earth.

               ANOTHER 2:1 DETAIL OF THE LEFT PORTION OF THE SCENE

Many of these images center on Sheep Rock, which looms over the visitors center. This view point is literally from the edge of the parking lot, and the big photographic problem is what you should include in the vast vista. The entire monument lends itself to the digital technique of "stitching" multiple shots into one larger panoramic  image. In this way you can take in much more area than any wide angle lens you might own. If you are successful you can begin to reproduce the real-life views you remember because you are in fact scanning the entire scene by moving your eyes or even your head while you take it all in. Most post-processing programs these days can accomplish this stitching, as long as you follow several rules. The first is to set your focus, which will probably be near infinity anyway, and then  change to manual focus. You don't want the camera shifting focus across your multiple images. The same goes for exposure - scan through your anticipated panorama, and pick an exposure that will accommodate the shifting light levels without ruining one part of the expansive scene. The only other thing to remember is to turn your camera opposite to the direction of your panorama, so if you are taking a typical landscape panorama you will be taking a series of vertical images. Since your panorama will be at least twice to three times as wide as it is vertical, this ensures that you will include enough "height" in your overtly horizontal view. All you have to do is to overlap your images by about 1/3rd, so you can give the computer enough information to stitch them together. All of this does not necessarily require a tripod as long as you are not over-caffeinated or near heat stroke.

              A 3:1 PANORAMA THAT CONCENTRATES ON THE SEDIMENTARY LAYERS

The real value of the stitching technique, in my opinion, is not to produce an incredibly wide panorama. While places like John Day can sometimes support such a wide view, I believe that using the technique on a more modest scale like 2:1 or even to just produce a "wider" standard view is where this technique can really shine. Not only is software relieving you of spending hundreds if not thousands of dollars on a wide angle lens, but stitching together multiple near-telephoto shots ensures that your subject will not disappear into the wide angle view. You can achieve amazing levels of detail with all of the pixels your are including, and you can always get another cup of coffee while the computer does all of its magic.

               IF YOU GO WIDER THAN 3:1 YOU CAN BEGIN TO TAKE IT ALL IN

If you are willing to be modest, you can achieve imagery that you cannot produce in the field - but that is absolutely "truthful" to the scene as you experienced it at the time. My camera can capture 18 megapixels but stitching can produce images with almost 1 Gigabyte of information. My lens widest field of view is equivalent to a slightly shorter than normal 42 mm, but the stitched images can stretch to the view of a 16mm wide angle lens. The modest solution is to use the technique to go just a little wider, but to achieve enormous detail that might not even register until you print a larger enlargement.

               I MYSELF LIKE KEEPING IT TO 2:1 FOR THE GOLDILOCKS FEEL OF WIDE, WITH DETAIL

So you can use this technique even when you are capturing details, since you can include that "just a little bit more" than your telephoto can muster.

                                     IT'S PROBABLY JUST WOOD, NOT PETRAFIED WOOD, BUT IT WAS CERTAINLY OLD AND DRIED

Next week we'll take in a hike in another part of the Sheep Rock Unit, into the Blue Basin. Come along and avoid the heat, the lack of shade, and the rattlesnake. Isn't a photo essay a relaxing way to partake in a forbidding but beautiful environment?

We spent a few days in Seattle with old college friends, and all I got was a few walks in the woods, which was a wonderful way to spend our time. The fact that these woods were not out in the boonies somewhere, but were in fact almost entirely created by landscape architects, gardeners, and volunteers made them even more special in some ways. In a world where mankind seems to just muck things up, it's nice to find places where we cultivate and celebrate nature instead of paving it over.

                                                                CONTRAST IN LIGHT LEVELS BRINGS OUT THE FOREST'S CHARACTER

                                                                 SOMEHOW I DON'T THINK THE STANDARD PLANTING DISTANCES APPLIED HERE

I've consulted the dictionary to try to find the difference between a garden, versus a botanical garden, versus an arboretum. The overall category of garden is defined as a planned space set aside for the cultivation, display, and enjoyment of plants. Its singular identifier is control by design, no matter how "natural" it is made to appear. The secondary identifier is the need for enclosure, in a space set aside for unnatural nature. A botanical garden is a type of garden which is a documented collection of plants for the purpose of scientific research, conservation, and display. An arboretum is defined as a more specialized botanical collection composed almost exclusively of trees of a variety of species. In the real world of course, these categories of "gardens" are not as rigid, and can vary considerably even in the same category.

                                                                INSIDE A WEEPING WILLOW

               ANOTHER TAKE GIVING IN TO THE UNIQUE CHAOS OF BEING INSIDE SUCH A LARGE "WEEPING" TREE

We toured two arboretums in the past two days. One was unknown, the pride of a small Seattle exurb called Maple Valley at the edge of the Seattle metro area. It was beautiful, unexpected, and the result of fifty years of volunteer efforts by this small community. The other was the world famous University of Washington Arboretum, almost one hundred years old and so large that a four-hour visit only scratched the surface. While both of these collections did not feature planted beds of flowers, they contained enough flowering trees to satisfy most blossom fans. The major difference was that the larger garden was twice as old, so the trees were larger, and instead of having one or two examples of a species Washington Park Arboretum would have half a dozen. But what was interesting to me was that both Seattle examples seemed to me much more "designed" than Portland's Arboretum, which is much more natural even though it is clearly a collection too. In Portland I have the feeling of walking through a woodland very similar to Forest Park except that there are obviously examples of non-native species.

                                     CAPTURING COLOR IN A WOODLAND CONTEXT

In any case these "gardens", while certainly resembling natural woodlands, are as designed as Central Park, formerly a barren wasteland north of old New York. In fact, Central Park, Seattle's Washington Arboretum, and Portland's Laurelhurst Park were all designed by several generations of the Olmstead family of landscape architects, something that is readily apparent to anyone lucky enough like me to have now spent time in each one. About the only thing you can count on as "natural" is the general lay of the land, except that even that is not true - even the lakes, streams, and hills were not necessarily found there by the designers.

               TRANQUILITY ON A MAN-MADE LAKE WITH NATURAL REFLECTIONS

This small collection of images show the range of views possible in a few hours. They constitute less than 10% of what I captured on those days, and as usual all have been vastly improved with small doses of post-processing. I have attempted to study the light present in these woods, looking for the contrast that will bring some order out of the "natural" chaos of even a man-made woodland. While I tried my usual strategies of concentrating on the details, I also experimented with several more abstract takes on Paradise. I even used the sharpening and clarity tools in reverse to achieve some "painterly" images, at least for me.

               USING REFLECTIONS TO REFLECT UPON THE BEAUTY OF THE ABSTRACT

To this uneducated observer the major difference between these various manifestations of paradise is that the arboretum requires a more extended time frame - your are planting trees for God's sake, and your visions might not be realized for long after you came up with the original or modified plan. In that way they resemble cathedrals which were generational undertakings whose construction lasted long after the original king's reign. In our age of short attention spans and inability plan for an all-too-apparent future, places like these arboretums both make me wonder whether we could accomplish these ambitious plans today, but also give me hope that all is not lost. These people were just as flawed and petty as we are, yet they did at least start great things. We must not give up our long-range dreams to the current crisis of the day. Your photographs can honor their efforts with your unique vision.

                                                              A VARIATION ON "THE SHOT" FROM THE BRIDGE ACROSS THE SALMON RIVER

This week I would like to return to the topic of photographic explorations of familiar stomping grounds. I believe the best way to overcome the problem of "finding something to shoot" in a place that you have explored many times is to simultaneously lower expectations, be willing to wildly experiment, and concentrate on details in the environment that you might have previously overlooked. When you have already gotten the shots that are "standard", it is time to expand your photographic possibilities. And to hone your post-processing skills. Even the "money shot" that I and several other thousand people have taken over the years relies almost as much on Lightroom as it did on my choices when I held the camera. The scene's severe exposure variations required multiple graduated filters to both bring down the brightness of the river while lightening up the forest. Then you have brush in smaller exposure variations within these areas to really make them come alive. Thus you can transform an almost unusable snapshot (no fault of your camera) to a compelling image.

                                                              IT'S SO GREEN!

We took our visiting East Coast friends for a quick day trip into the forest about forty miles East of Portland. Here they could get a short taste of Wet Oregon before we headed to the Dry Outback of Central Oregon later in the week. The Wildwood Recreation Site is 550 acres of protected land along the Salmon River in the midst of the Mt. Hood National Forest. it is adjacent to Highway 26 on the way to Mt. Hood, just past the last real town on the route, Sandy, Oregon. While the hierarchy of National Park, National Monument, National Forests, Wilderness Areas, and such can be very confusing for new visitors, it is safe to say that at the bottom lies Wildlife Preservation Reserves and Bureau of Land Management land. Only Westerners frequently encounter the Bureau of Land Management, which seems to somehow be in charge of most Federal land that has not been designated as something else. BLM land is sometimes very beautiful, but is frequently remote. So it is somewhat surprising to encounter BLM land so close to Portland. Once you have visited Wildwood a few times, it might finally occur to you that it in fact functions as a City Park for Sandy, albeit at the edge of the woods. It is exceedingly easy to pass up and pass by on the way to the mountain.

                                                              LIGHT IN THE FOREST

                                                              BLACK AND WHITE FOR EMPHASIS

Once you have happened upon it, it will easily warrant return visits. The park is mostly a "day use" area, with no individual campsites. Their are some group campsites, but they are located pretty far from the day use areas and probably mostly serve people from Sandy that are in the know. There are two main hiking trails, although these "hikes" are really only walks in the woods. One is in fact an exceedingly tame boardwalk that winds it's way through wetlands, providing about the closest view of a swamp that you can get without getting your shoes wet. The other trail that I will concentrate on today is a route that runs along the bank of the Salmon River and allows views of the river and the forest while probably amounting to less than a mile walk no matter how much you wander around. There are dozens of turn-offs with picnic tables for a protected lunch or snack off the trail. Most even come with grills, although this level of preparation is far beyond my organizational skills.

                                                              THJE RIVER THROUGH THE TREES

                                                              SILHOUETTE

The Salmon River is designated as a "Wild and Scenic River" which ensures that it will always seem pretty untouched by man,  despite a few bridges across it and even a delightful aquarium-like viewing area that allows you to see under the water at one point on the trail. The trail allows for views both above the river and right alongside it, providing many places for my favored "intimate" landscapes. At least on a random Friday, there was really no danger of a random series of strangers intruding on your shots.

                                                              WE'RE JUST FRIENDS

The series of images that I have highlighted today are my attempts to capture the spirit of the Oregon Forest without documenting this particular walk in the woods. I have tried to concentrate on specific encounters along the trail that illustrate the quality of light in the woods. One hint is to avoid including the sky at almost all cost, since it's distracting brightness will only lead your viewers outside of the frame. Do not be afraid of only including parts of trees or scenes just like I advise about buildings in the urban environment. This is your view of the forest, not an entry in a documentary of Wildwood. Several examples show how black and white imagery can provide intriguing variations, since you are usually only exchanging monochromatic grays for the monochromatic greens of the natural environment. Black and white can be especially effective in back-lit scenes where it allows for more dramatic silhouettes that can be achieved realistically in a color rendition. Since you are already going "abstract" by removing color, viewers seem to allow for more lightening and darkening of parts of scenes than they might find "unrealistic" in a color image. Instead of just raising or lowering the overall exposure, subtle brushing along light and dark areas can really bring out shape and form. If you can keep these brush strokes at about 10% power, you will be amazed at the dramatic improvements in the image even when you really didn't see what you were doing while you were brushing. It is only when you do a "before and after" that you can see the power of this subtlety.

                                  OREGON FERN BAR, WITHOUT THE BEER

When all else fails, go for the details. We can find beauty in particular close-ups of an Oregon forest way before we have to go all the way to Macro photography. In fact, your iPhone is actually more useful for this type of image than your "real camera", unless you have brought along the tripod and invested several thousand more dollars than even Apple has extracted from your wallet.                                 

                                  A VINE MAPLE AT THE EDGE OF THE RIVER

                                  ANOTHER SEARCH FOR THAT FOUR-LEAF CLOVER

I hope that this little portfolio encourages you to get out of the house, even if you are going to a place that you know as well as your own backyard. There is always something new to find if you allow yourself to look.

                                  FLORAL PORTRAIT IN RED : RAINDROPS CAN BE AS COMPELLING AS LETTERS IN URBAN PHOTOGRAPHY - TRY TO                                    RESIST BRINGING ALONG A SPRAY BOTTLE UNLESS YOUR WEIRDO QUOTIENT ALLOWS IT

This week I'd like to take you on a quick tour of Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden, one of Portland's crown jewels but a little off the usual tourist routes. Old friends are visiting this week, and the rhodies are near their peak, so off we went to walk through paradise. Even if you are not a rhodie groupie, Crystal Springs is a world apart. I am personally not a big fan of rhododendron bushes,but you have to understand that these specimens are so old and large that they are not bushes but trees, unlike the rhododendrons in your typical residential garden.

                                  FLORAL PORTRAIT IN WHITE AND PURPLE

On the photographic front, I'd like to discuss the "problem" of making new images in a place that you are very familiar with and have photographed over and over again. Of course you can take advantage of new weather conditions, but let's face it, you are probably going to visit on a nice sunny day in the Spring just like the times you have visited the garden before. Unless you're business or passion is floral portraits, at a certain point you will be hard-pressed to find something new to capture.

                                  FLORAL PORTRAIT IN PURPLE AND YELLOW

There are really only three answers to this problem. One is to deliberately experiment by not taking anything anywhere near the type of image you, or anyone else for that matter, would ordinarily capture in the garden. This might be interesting, but chances are that no one has tried this because it just doesn't work. The second choice is to admit that you are probably going to duplicate previous efforts, but to hope that something new might emerge. I recommend the third path which is to bring along the camera, but to seriously lighten up - in other words, use the camera as the excuse to have a wonderful walk with friends in a beautiful place, with no expectations at all of coming back with an image that will change even your world. These images I will show today are in that third category. As usual a little bout of post-processing goes a long way towards illustrating a nice day without threatening to make a new entry in photographic history.

                                   BUDS AND PETALS

In a place like Crystal Springs I've found that my best efforts are versions of floral portraits. I make no effort to show much context, because the blossoms are the draw. I am not a good enough garden photographer to get a useful image out of a whole plant, but I think it is fairly easy to produce a compelling image of one blossom. The key is to get closer, and then get closer still. The best lighting is in the shade; sometimes backlighting, carefully controlled, can also produce a dramatic image. The object is to ensure a great degree of separation between the blossom and the background in any way you can -  through exposure, saturation or a subtle vignette. once you do that, everything else falls into place.

                                   VEGETATIVE LINES AND PATTERNS

After you tire of taking floral portraits, you can move on to other aspects of the garden. Concentrating on vegetation, either leaves or trees, can sometimes yield interesting results, especially if you treat the garden as a landscape and try to forget that humans carefully produced the scenery. Water goes a long way to supplying another subject beyond flower studies.

                                                              AT THE EDGE OF THE LAKE

           YIN AND YANG

Black and white can be refreshing in garden imagery even if most viewers might find it perverse to leave out the color in some of the most colorful subjects we can come across. But if you include enough contrast, a garden silhouette can be a very nice change of pace in a series of color portraits.

                                                              FIR SILHOUETTES

I hope you have enjoyed this small collection of images I captured in the garden. I would encourage you to use photography as an excuse to get out of the house, even if you have very low expectations of the art you will create that day. Sometimes memories are more than enough.

I took another trip through my archives this week, and will humbly submit an additional two reasons why you should also consider such a journey through your photographic past. The first reason is to encourage you to make an attempt to improve images that you might have created more than two decades ago, because you would be amazed at how you good you actually were back then, now that you are liberated from the one-hour photo booth. The second more embarrassing reason is that you might have completely forgotten a few days from your past. Upon looking at the image above, I found it hard to believe that I had no real memory of such a place. I had to do a Google search for Jenny Lake to realize that it was located in Grand Teton National Park, and that I had spent time there during a trip to the Tetons in 1997.

            HEROIC BLACK AND WHITE

Jenny Lake is one of the highlights of the park, but my memories mostly centered on some hikes we took closer to the center of the Park just North of Jackson Hole where we stayed during the trip. It's funny how our photographic memories become enmeshed in the general photo imagery that surrounds an incredible site like a national park. Recently I visited an art show in Seattle where one of my friends was exhibiting her images, and walked through about half a dozen booths of other landscape photographers in the show. These were all fine photographers, but they were showing mostly "greatest hits" imagery that I had seen ad nauseam on Instagram and even in several other booths in the show! When you say "Tetons" to a photographer two things immediately come to mind - a certain S curve of the Snake River, and the most photographed barn in the United States of America. I in fact complimented one woman who had managed to take a fine image of the mountain range without the barn, whereupon she sheepishly pointed out her standard shot with the barn, which of course sells much better.

The answer, at least to me, is to take the "hero image" because after all you are there, and probably won't be back - but try to capture your own imagery even if you are in an unfamiliar, and overwhelmingly beautiful place. Twenty-five years later you might surprise yourself. These first two images of Jenny Lake totally surprised me, and I was very pleased with the image once I massaged it in Lightroom. Like most photographs taken in the mountains, the first thing is to try to balance the exposure, bringing down the sky while brightening the foreground. Of course a reflection complicates matters, since the reflection has to "reflect" the exposure of the background. I cleaned up the lake, removing some random flotsom that had nothing to do with the image. While I do like the color version, somehow the black and white feels more heroic to me - but you hold to your own opinion.

                                                             JENNY LAKE  VISTA

This second image feels more like my usual fare, where you can insert the title of the major magazine in the clouds without ruining the composition. Since I am playing with a silhouette, the black and white seems more pure to me. I could also darken the mountain a little more than I could in the color version without losing credibility. The waves in the lake are also much more interesting to me in the black and white.

            MOUNTAIN CLOSE-UP

Get closer, I always say - although I have no memory of how I got closer, but maybe it was on the boat trip we probably took on the lake. In any case I actually like the color version better on this image, but not because I love the greens and the blue sky. What is interesting to me is not only increased contrast that color brings, but that the mountain's gray tones allow me to play the same dodging and burning games in what is essentially a black and white subject in a color photograph!

                                                             JENNY LAKE SHORE

This image also seems to match my usual "intimate landscape" sensibility, focusing on a tiny portion of a huge lake. I probably like the color version better, since it is hard to argue with that blue lake. The only problem is that it is much "bluer" than the sky, even though my post-processing actually "corrected" most of that difference. I do like the rocks better in the black and white, but it is a little too dull for me.

                                                             HIDDEN FALLS

After some research on  Google, I realized that this is probably my attempt to capture the beauty of "Hidden Falls", which can't  be too hidden since your non-intrepid explorer found it somewhere around Jenny Lake. I somehow did not blow out the waterfall, but as a result the rest of the photo appeared to have been taken in the evening. Raising the shadows to "infinity and beyond" allowed the forest to reappear. I lowered the waterfall exposure a bit to achieve more detail there as well. My attempts at black and white just muddied the waters.

                                                            IF YOU WANT TO CAPTURE MOUNTAINS, IT PAYS TO GO VERTICAL

Another heroic vertical to capture the magnificence of the mountains. I like both, but if you are going to play with silhouettes, perhaps black and white is the way to go. Black and white also allows me to darken the mountain edge against the clouds a lot more than the color version would support without appearing unrealistic. What is funny that I probably still had not broken my wide angle lens, which allowed me to take such wide shots that I can't capture now without stitching together multiple photographs.

                                                             SOMEWHERE NEAR JENNY LAKE, ON THE ROCKS

This final pair is probably the most "Rich" image that I discovered this week. This intimate landscape is all about the rocks, with no context at all. The black and white somehow seems richer. I love it, even though I have no memory of taking it, which is very rare for me. It could be any beautiful place in the world, but it just happens to be somewhere near Jenny Lake. I'm glad I rediscovered it, and hope you've enjoyed coming along on the journey.

This week I would like to illustrate a long-held belief of mine that I gleaned long ago from a forgotten famous photographer. The short answer to photographic excellence, or at least the opportunity to achieve an excellent image, was simply "f/8 and be there." In other words, don't obsess over photographic technique, just choose compromise settings to get a reasonable exposure - but most important, journey through your life with a camera and the desire to create images. "Being There" can be the most important setting on your camera and in  your mind, whether you encounter a moment of true serendipity or just notice something new on a walk through the city. These images all illustrate that just "noodling" with your camera, even if it is just your phone, can allow you to create something out of almost nothing - especially if you are willing to spend some time later improving your snapshot in Lightroom.

The first image came after a pretty bad day at the Market. When the proverbial rainbow appeared to lighten my mood, I quickly took out my phone to try to achieve "something" out of my lousy day. The most important thing about this image is that the capture of this serendipity actually did make me feel better. While it might not be an award-winning image, it reminds me to always be ready for the unexpected, even in a parking garage. A little cropping and sharpening was all that was necessary -after all it is a rainbow at the end of a long day.

                                                              A STUDY IN CURVY CARPENTRY

Sometimes it is just a matter of learning to look without caring what the subject is, or even conveying it to your viewers. This is the potential power of abstraction with a camera, which can prove very difficult since photography usually is pretty concrete. My usual solution is to just go with it, which results in images that interest me even though most people might just react with a "huh." This is a detail of a handrail on a bungalow in Northwest Portland, and is about the only thing of value that I achieved on a long walk in the neighborhood besides some exercise and a nice lunch. I did have my "real camera" with me, so I could crop with abandon - I can honestly say that the original snapshot was not about the handrail. Often the value of "looking at photographs" involves studying your own images to see what is really there. I converted to black and white to increase the contrast and to eliminate the ugly beige color of reality.

            PROTESTANT WORK ETHIC

A walk through The Pearl found me once again starring at an old Packard advertisement painted on a brick wall. These days it is almost as amazing that the wall is still there as it is that the advertisement for a long forgotten product is still around. Which doesn't mean that you have to save all of the words. You might call this the swan song of the Protestant work ethic on the party wall of yet another condo.

                                  YES

I love finding obscure signage around town. I have long recognized the power of words, or even just random letters in an image, since they can trigger my viewers' brains into "trying to figure it out" without the anger that can result when those curving lines turn out to be just a handrail. This affirmation out of the blue is just a small portion of the rear facade of Music Millennium near Laurelhurst Park. I don't know what it is trying to sell me, but you take your good moods where you can find them.

                                                              WATER CHANNEL REFLECTIONS

The next three images came from a walk in Tanner Springs Park in the Pearl and show the value of really trying to find something new in an area that most Portland photographers, including myself, have shot the hell out of. It is awfully hard to discover something new, even for just yourself, but the attempt can enliven a visit to an old photographic subject. And at least you are not going through the motions on yet another engagement or senior photo shoot. This first image is of the water channel that runs down to the pond at the lower end of the park. I had never seen the water so "high" so it caught my attention, and the morning light allowed for the reflections that can fascinate me even when there is nothing else "there." Your mileage might vary.

                                                             ANOTHER ANGLE ON TANNER SPRINGS

The railroad rail sculpture (say that three times fast) on the East side of the park has been a frequent subject of mine. A particular constraint I place on myself is that I do not allow myself to show either the surrounding condo buildings, or the boardwalk that I am standing on, when I take these images. I feel they both distract from the power of the sculpture; the boardwalk is the only part of the park that I would instantly demolish if given the chance. So I am delighted with yet another angle that meets my requirements.

                                                             A SCULPTURAL DISCOVERY

I was even more delighted when I finally focused on the blue glass that sometimes lies between the rails and discovered  that they contained plant specimens between the sheets of glass. This is something that I had never seen before, so in this detail I left out all of the context. I guess you have to be there, but I find it interesting.
            A MEANDERING RIVER IN AMERICA'S OUTBACK

Always have your camera with you, even if it is only your phone. These last two images were taken on a flight to Albuquerque a few months back. Taken with my iPhone, they required a lot of massaging in  Lightroom, but I think they show some of my sense of wonder at the beauty of landscapes that I feel thaty sometimes have never really been seen by humans at ground level. Of course I have to crop out the edges of the window, and I don't like any intruding portions of the wing. I rely on the miracle of "resizing" software to enlarge the resulting very small files to at least snapshot territory. While I will never be able to enlarge these much more than this, I can still communicate my wonder on the web or in a book. This meandering river was in the middle of the middle of nowhere.

                                                       ALMOST SUNSET ALOFT

This final image, probably only a third of the "negative" (that pesky wing again) is a study of a sunset that only modern humans are privileged to witness. I encourage you all to try for images even when you think that there is no way you can achieve positive results. You might surprise yourself, and you are no longer wasting any film. Good hunting.

This week I would like to illustrate the power of post-processing by journeying back twenty-five years(!) to my last visit to Crater Lake. I can't believe it has been that long, and I have never felt that the photos I took there were any good at all. It's one of the few subjects that even I concede probably requires a wide-angle lens, which I didn't own then and don't own now - it just doesn't match the way I view the world. But another recent dip into my archives found that while I certainly didn't take any world-shattering images, there were a few that weren't half-bad, especially after I used some of my hard-earned Lightroom skills to bring out there hidden potential.

Fran and I have been watching a lot of basketball lately during the Playoffs, and by my estimation the most demoralizing play during a game has to be yet another offensive rebound. The soul-crushing "second-chance shot" seems to be worth much more than another two points, since by all that is good and holy it shouldn't have occurred in the first place! But my second-chance photographic shots, like the several that I will show here, occupy a much more optimistic realm. The power of digital photography allows a photographer like me, and you, the chance to improve on an effort, even twenty years after the fact. Advancements in technology, and more important, our skills in using it, allow us to get closer to our original artistic visions that fell victim to the one-hour photo booth of yesteryear. In this essay I will show you my original shots, something I rarely do out of shear embarrassment. I do that here to illustrate the difference between a snapshot and an image. Try not to be depressed by your initial effort. While making every effort to improve your output in camera, it is important to realize that most images only emerge after some work after-the-fact in the computer, or in the old days, in the darkroom. Anyone who says different is probably lying, works for the New York Times where such efforts are verbotten, or is just too ignorant to realize how they might improve their images in post-production.

             ORIGINAL SNAPSHOT

The original snapshot is not horrible, but it certainly is very flat. I was actually shocked that I had achieved my minimum standard for what I consider in a Crater Lake shot, having literally seen thousands of them over the years. I hadn't remembered that I had climbed high enough on the rim to achieve the critical separation between Wizard Island and the rim of the crater beyond. Congratulating myself on my composition, I then began to deal with exposure throughout and within the image. I lowered the exposure both in the background and in the foreground rim of the trail, which had been much too  bright in the original. A viewer's eyes go directly to the lightest part of an image, and clearly that masonry isn't the most important part of this scene. While I might regret that I didn't include a little more sky, I knew that I had to darken the rear to stop your eyes from escaping from the image beyond the lake. While some might conclude that I over-saturated the final image, anyone who has actually been to Crater Lake knows that I am still way within the realistic blue hue of this natural wonder.

            BLACK AND WHITE VERSION

If you don't believe me, you might appreciate the black and white version, which achieves verisimilitude by avoiding color entirely. While working on this image I realized that the actual overwhelming blue of the lake  sets up a weird blue color cast on everything else. Lightroom tells me that the green trees on Wizard Island are in fact blue-green at best, which makes it hard to achieve a separate tone from the water. Black and white avoids this dilemma.

            ORIGINAL UNDEREXPOSED SNAPSHOT

This alternate image errs to much on sky side of the equation. While I could "invent" more foreground water in Photoshop, that goes beyond my personal limits, as does bringing in a more "interesting" sky. To each his own. But I have no qualms about cropping to a wider panoramic aspect ratio to eliminate most of the boring sky. I struggled straightening the image, since even a portion of the lake is so wide that the curvature of the lens and the actual earth starts to distort a level line from one end of the shoreline to another - you know in your heart that the water is "level", but my corrections made it worse. I finally settled on the compromise of just leveling the water "horizon" around Wizard Island - and then realized that the right end of the island was further away than the left end, so that it would appear higher in any event.

             LIGHTEN THOSE SHADOWS!

Raising the shadows significantly brought out most of the detail on the island, while raising the overall exposure revealed the glare of the giant mirror that is Crater Lake under a cloudy sky. The blue is apparent here only in the shadows.

            BLACK AND WHITE 

The black and white version is still a little flat for me in this case. I nicely toned down the sky to give some definition to the upper edge. A subtle vignette also helped in black and white while standing out too much in color. But the contrast required everywhere else obscured all of the detail on the island. I remain flummoxed.

            CRATER LAKE, AT THE EDGE OF THE CALDERA : ORIGINAL SNAPSHOT

As I looked through my images I realized that even at Crater Lake my particular way of seeing the world encouraged an "intimate landscape", even in such an epic environment. Suddenly it didn't seem as important to show the whole lake, especially since any Oregonian probably knows what they are looking at with just a hint of blue. I loved this shot, and just tried to make it better, to bring out wonderful cliff face of the caldera.

            DODGE AND BURN AND SHARPEN

Sharpening the digital file helped a lot. I lowered the exposure in both the background and foreground to focus attention on the cliff. Then the crags were intensified by judicious dodging and burning, where I painted in about 10% lightening on the bright parts and a corresponding darkening of the dark areas. This is so subtle that you don't really see what you are doing  while you are doing it, requiring a little faith during the process. It is only after you view the "before and after" that you realize how much co9ntrast and"pop" you've added to the image.

            GET ANSEL ON THE PHONE!

Well if it's texture you want you can always go to black and white. You can add even more texture and exposure gradients that would not look realistic in color once you allow yourself the abstraction of seeing the world in shades of gray.

                                                             MINIMAL CRATER LAKE : ORIGINAL SNAPSHOT

At the risk of starring into the abyss of "minimalism", this image was clearly about as "Rich" I could get more than twenty five years ago. It attempts to say "Crater Lake" with as little context as possible, and in some other parts of the world this could be a cliff over the sea. This image didn't need much help at all, only discovery. I cropped it only a tiny bit to get rid of some indeterminate weird stuff at the top edge, and lowered the exposure again in a gradient from the far expanse of the lake and from the overly bright earth in the foreground.

                                                             MINIMAL IMPROVEMENTS

These minor changes did it for me. While I like the image I use for a coaster a little better, which shows more of the curve of the shore, this is not bad aa all. When I tried black and white I missed that blue too much so I created another coaster by eliminating most of the duller gray lake in the background.

                                  BLACK AND WHITE RENDITION

This would do just fine in a portfolio of black and white images, even though I personally like that glorious blue.  It's been fun showing you how you can convert snapshots into photographs with just a minimum of artistic intent - take a look at some of your old snapshots and see what you can find hidden there in plain sight.

An often cited truism concerning photographic images is that any photo more than fifty years old is inherently interesting due to its link to the past as "another country. While these images that I've saved from my archives are not quite fifty, it has been quite arresting for yours truly that they are over forty years old. Once again my scanner has brought some of my past back to life, and my skills at post-processing has created images that are leagues better than the original slides that have survived my pathetic attempts at "organization."

These images are all from the very late 1970's and the early 1980's, when I was "living in sin" with Fran, and working as a waiter before, during, and after my education as an architect. They illustrate the visual appetites of a young photographer who shared some of the same ways of viewing the world as I do today. This first image is only important if you love neon, or if you walked past this sign for seven years before yet another shift in the wine bar in Dupont Circle. It wouldn't surprise me either way if the drug store was still there; I do know that the real estate industry has expanded the limits of Dupont
Circle way past what I knew in the 1980's. The power of photography, at least for me, is that I can still feel like I'm walking on that street about to go to work, just like certain songs that were part of the soundtrack of the restaurant can bring me back there way beyond their musical merit.

            A PORCH TO SPEND THE DAY LOOKING AT THE CORNER

I guess I began to realize that I was interested in becoming an  architect for two reasons. One was that I was drawn to the slick professional architecture magazines in every library that I entered. Another was that I strolled through Washington taking pictures of buildings the way that others captured flowers or people. These two images show my love of porches, readily available in Washington in most older neighborhoods. As a Southern city, Washington embraced ever more gracious porches in the age before air conditioning. This particular circular corner example shows how porches could become so large that they could be divided into several areas for outdoor living. Among my first few projects as an architect were three elaborate screen porch additions. The last porch I designed was basically a studio apartment with areas for living, resting, and a full kitchen. The porch sported 24 skylights!

             QUITE A BAY WINDOW

While I still designed porches once we moved to Portland, I had to give up my love for the masonry detailing that surrounded me in Washington. This particular exuberant example a bay window is probably from the Dupont Circle neighborhood. Talk about "eyes on the street!" When I worked a split shift at the restaurant I could walk a few blocks to the Phillips Collection, ensconced in Mr. Phillips old mansion, and take in his magnificent personal art collection and also take advantage of the nicest bathroom I had ever seen.

            YOU STILL HAVE TO PARK IT SOMEWHERE

One of the delights of walking around neighborhoods like Georgetown in Northwest D.C., was to show how people had to "cope" with urban density. This urban townhouse hopefully had a rear garden, since the front of the house had to be devoted to rare off-street parking. Of course it you must park the car out front, it's nice to have a beautiful brick patio to drive on past the wrought iron fence, and to park your Rolls Royce to impress the hoi-polloi like me passing by your house.

                                  A HEROIC FRIEZE

                                                               VAST INTERIOR

I didn't only focus on "anonymous" architecture in Washington, since there were always monuments around that captured my attention. These two images are of the Old Pension Building, created to house the veteran's system after the Civil War. It had just been saved once again for the new National Building Museum. I think you can see from the interior view why the building need to be preserved, and why it was so hard to figure out what to do with it one hundred years after it was constructed. It was literally too big and too beautiful to demolish. The great hall is subdivided by three-story columns and is big enough to host an inaugural ball, if you should ever be so lucky. The elaborate staircases that rise up the interior contain three inch risers so as to allow veterans to climb up the stairs with crutches. The exterior view shows a tiny part of the incredible sculptural frieze that runs around the entire building that takes up an entire block of Washington. It is modeled after the Parthenon, and attempt to illustrate the entire conflict that the Union veterans had just engaged in.

                                                               AIM HIGH

Washington is a city of monuments of course, and this was my interpretation of the then new Air Force Memorial that had recently joined the monuments to the Army, the Navy, and the Marines in Washington.The gleaming stainless steel abstract "flight" is so reflective that it picks up rays of the sun, the surrounding landscape, and even itself, as you can notice as it's spiral both goes behind its supporting obelisk and is reflected on its polished surface!

                                                             BENJAMIN AND THE CAPITOL

Some monuments are both enduring and changing at the same time. This shot of the Capitol is completely unassuming unless you know "The Big Guy", my son Benjamin, striding towards the seat of government. I'm not completely irresponsible, since the road was already closed to cars. Benjamin and I usually had the run of the government buildings, and I would take him to congressional committee meetings just as readily as the Smithsonian. In this instance we are headed for Statuary Hall, the old senate Chamber, where his father would have unobtrusively maneuver an entire bag of spilled Cheerios behind a statue of the former Queen of Hawaii, one of the two statues from the fiftieth state.

                                                               REFLECTIVE STREAM

Washington, D.C. has some very beautiful natural areas both in the city and surrounding it in Maryland and Virginia. This tranquil stream could be Rock Creek Park, but I wouldn't swear to it.                                    GREAT FALLS, A LITTLE HIGH

I do know that this image is from Great Falls, to the Northwest of D.C., which can range from a trickle to a raging flood depending on the water level. Those rocky cliffs on the shore are sometimes completely underwater, which can lead visitors to be terribly disappointed that they are just looking at a river instead of a waterfall. This giant series of rapids that marks the transformation of the Potomac from a river in the mountains to a tidal estuary caused the early USA to build the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal to bypass this obstacle and provide a trade route to the interior.

            SHENANDOAH'S IN BLACK AND WHITE

Speaking of mountains, this view of the Shenandoah Mountains from Skyline Drive shows another destination that Washingtonians take to escape the infernal heat and humidity. No volcanoes, but you can clearly see why the original thirteen colonies were restricted to the Eastern Seaboard. We forget that it would take almost two hundred years before those colonies, now states in a new country,  would expand beyond these mountains. In fact Lewis and Clark had already walked to Oregon and back before there was any significant settlement to the West of this photograph.    

I hope you have enjoyed this brief excursion to my era in Washington, D.C. It's hard to believe that these images were taken so long ago, by me, and that I can show them to you. I encourage you to also revisit your photographic past.

I return to my archives this week to discuss several images I captured as slides way back in 1988 on a trip to Maine, centered mostly on Acadia National Park. Once again I was shocked in two ways when viewing these slides by window light for probably the first time in this century. One is how hard it was to shoot Kodachrome, notorious for its beautiful color rendition, harsh contrast, and very dark shadows. I clearly was not very skilled at such an exacting media. The other conclusion I keep arriving at is that while my photography has certainly improved over the past few decades (!), these old images contain the germs of a "Rich" photograph. It just takes a little or a lot of coaxing in Lightroom to reveal the quality hidden in the slides. Believe me. it would only be boring for you and embarrassing  for me to show you the original slides. Often a little cropping and horizon straightening would suffice, but my problems with exposure required a lot of massaging just to render something that you could even look at before you could make a judgement on the composition of an image. While I hope that I have not lost that Kodachrome vibrancy, I can say that I wasn't half bad back then, now that you and I can actually see what I was after.

In this first shot I was attracted to the color and what photographers call the "God rays" in the sky, caused by the intervening clouds. This rendition is pretty true to the original slide. I lightened the water and the coastline only a bit, since I wanted to preserve the blues and really didn't care about any of the "human" details along the coast. The sky is almost exactly the original, since no matter how subtle I was in my efforts to dodge and burn,  the rays enhancements were instantly apparent. I used 21st century noise suppression to lower the noise quite a bit, and liberally removed dust spots and such from my scan.

                                                             ROCKS IN THE WATER

These next few images are closer to my usual attention to more intimate landscapes, where I tried to focus on smaller areas of the volcanic coastline, even more rocky than Oregon's. In general, the task was to reduce the contrast of the original slide. The waves had appeared to be blown out in the slide, but now show much more detail while retaining their dynamic movement. The clouds in the sky are back, and there is at least some detail in the dark coastline. If I was to make this larger I would work some more at actually darkening the coast to draw your eye away from the two houses; a larger rendition would also reveal more of the detail in the foreground, which actually appears pretty sharp.

                                                             ROCKS IN THE WATER, BLACK AND WHITE

The black and white version accomplishes some of this, but I actually prefer the color. It appears to have too much contrast and a little dull at the same time, which doesn't quite make sense. I think cropping down even further to just the middle ground or foreground might help.

                                                             CROP ONE : GET RID OF THE BACKGROUND

                                  CROP TWO : GET RID OF THE FOREGROUND

            CROP THREE : JUST THE FOREGROUND

It is pretty amazing how different framing can change an image. It just goes to show that one of the most important things a photographer can do is to decide what to include in the frame, even decades later. You can decide, and certainly debate, a=on which framing works for you.

            ROCKS ABOVE THE WATER

Here I think that I have achieved some intimacy with the rocks by cropping with abandon to eliminate most of the original boredom to the left of the cliff face and dealing with the wonky horizon line by just getting rid of it. In this image some judicious dodging and burning on the cliff face revealed a lot of detail without distorting the dramatic dark granite.

                                                               GRANITE

More rocky excellence above the coast. It is amazing to me how cracked a rock can get without collapsing completely, but that is the difference between human time and geologic time. I'm not sure which version I prefer, not so much because of the blue sea but that I like all the shades of brown over the shades of gray. There is subtly more detail in the black and white, especially in the foreground.

                                                                GRANITE IN BLACK AND WHITE

                                  I WOULDN'T RECOMMEND SWIMMING IN THE FOG

This image, like it or not, shows the power of digitalizing slides. The original slide is almost a monochromatic red, the result of experimenting with a red filter on slide film. Don't try this at home. The minimalism can now come through in black and white. I straightened the image by assuming that the deck was level, since the horizon line doesn't really survive my exposure or the fog. This is only the left side of the original slide, since crop after crop couldn't preserve much more negative space without eliminating too much deck or shoreline. So I just converted to a square.

            WHAT HORIZON LINE?

The final three images show the power of viewing the same scene over a few days. It is Maine, so I was never so nuts as to actually swim out to the floating dock. You can certainly decide which view of the lake you enjoy most, but at least you can see how the weather and the time of day can dramatically change the appearance of even such a minimal landscape.

            CLOUDS ROLLING IN

Except for straightening the horizon and reducing the noise in all three images, these are pretty accurate renditions of the conditions on a quiet lake in Maine over thirty years ago. I imagine, and hope, that it looks pretty much the same today.

            END OF THE DAY

It was a lot of fun to show you some of Acadia, rescued from my old slides. I encourage you to travel to Maine if you ever get a chance. Have a lobster roll for me.

This week I would like to journey back to my second visit to Chicago, when I took teenage Benjamin along to the AIA Convention so that he could gain some more independence and I would have someone to join me for dinner. The only rule he had to follow was that he absolutely, positively had top be back in the hotel room at 5:00 P.M. or I would kill him. Each day I would hand him a twenty and he had the run of Chicago. We had a wonderful time.

These images follow a theme that I was concerned with at the time, which basically asked the question of how a building should meet the sky. While I never worked on skyscrapers as an architect, I felt this concern was relevant in that I was very interested in how to "include" the interaction with the sky in my residential projects. As an architect in Portland, I was never going to build a flat roof if I could help it, and our grey skies seemed to allow for as many skylights as I could get past my clients' fears and their budgets. So meeting the sky with bold gestures, and inviting it into the interior spaces I was designing for my clients were very important to me. Chicago turned out to offer very valuable architectural lessons.

This first "pinnacle" is one of the most famous in the history of the skyscraper as a building type. The Chicago Tribune Building was the result of what might be the most famous architectural competition ever held in America, and the winner enraged most of the early modernist architects that had made Chicago's skyline famous since the Fire. The idea that a skyscraper would be topped by an obvious Gothic crown was blasphemy. Yet this confection so many years later seems to enliven the skyline no matter how ridiculous it seemed at the time. Part of its charm is that it is so real - the stonework and arches and details could have been done by medieval stonemasons. The building actually used tiny parts of famous buildings as decorative plaques at ground level, ranging from the Parthenon to Cologne Cathedral to a broken piece of the World Trade Center.

These next few images show how the skyline became crowded with many different historical motifs way before Mies Van de Rohe would decree that all towers would just be sliced off with a razor at the sky. And I must say that once you've seen one flat roof you have seen them all, so that I am a big believer in "romantic tops", especially those that are well proportioned and well-built.

                                                            A CLOCK TOWER BECAME A NECESSITY FOR URBAN LIFE

                                                            WHO CAN ARGUE WITH POLY CHROME MASONRY AND A DOME?

                                                             INNOVATIVE DESIGNERS COULD INVENT THEIR OWN ORNAMENT AND THROW IN SOME ART DECO PANACHE

I think this is the top of the Auditorium Building by Louis Sullivan; Frank Lloyd Wright was his main assistant until he was fired for having too many side jobs. Here it is apparent that even a flat roof can sing with enough detail and a change of windows that could come straight from an Italian Palazzo. The ornamental details appear vaguely classical but are in fact the creations of Sullivan's incredibly fantastic imagination. I feel that this kind of ornament was in fact the road not taken, lost to either no ornament at all or slavish copies of historical motifs without the craftsmanship that rendered them beautiful. Just imagine those attic offices behind those round windows.

Chicago architects of every generation seemed to delight in bringing the gray skies right inside their buildings. Not content with inventing "The Chicago Window" that lit up these early office interiors enabled by the steel structural frames, they found many excuses for featuring skylights and entire glass roofs that brought the sky right into their interiors.These are some examples that fascinated me.

                                                             O' HARE AIRPORT CONCOURSE - CUE "AMERICAN IN PARIS"

One of the earliest examples of a modern airport terminal as one big skylight, with the architecture a celebration of how the whole thing stood up. Architects were now following the lead of the early Twentieth Century engineers who had built the great station sheds that were the real main event behind the serious architectural lobbies on the streets of major cities around the world. This terminal also shows off then innovative sun-shading devices built right into the glass itself. Don't ask me what the dinosaur is doing there, except maybe as a comment on the structural skeleton of the terminal itself.

                                                            BUILDING AS SKYLIGHT

This is a detail of Helmut Jahn's Illinois Government Center which was pretty new, and pretty controversial when I visited. Round, structural to a fault, with so much glass that glare wasn't a problem so much as a feature, it never really worked as a building but it certainly caught your attention. Mies was rolling over in his grave. This black and white rendition ignores the colors, which are way too many, in favor of the exuberant structure and reflections. I'm so old that Google is now renovating this building for new offices for people who don't want to come to the office anyway.

This final pair of images come from another newer building at the time I visited. The Harold Washington Main Library was built to be as traditional as it could be, a giant masonry Library that is so solid and just plain large that it makes Portland's brick pile seem absolutely feminine and delectable in comparison. But this is Chicago, and this the Loop, and now the masonry skyscrapers, once revolutionary, are the new tradition. Richardson couldn't have made a tougher pile of bricks and stone. Even the Ornamental Metal details seem positively Medieval, and one looks over one's shoulder wary of gargoyles.

                                  SULLIVAN WOULD SHOUT FROM THE ROOFTOPS

Yet when you get to the top floor, the entire roof is revealed as a skylight invisible from the street. The only probem is that this was a "party" space instead of the reading room it deserved to be. Who knows, wiser heads might have rectified that by now.

                                   THIS IS CHICAGO, AND WE DON'T DO "DAINTY"

I hope you have enjoyed this very narrow architectural foray through Chicago, circa 2004, and I hope that we all can visit there soon. Benjamin is now thirty-five, and comes and goes wherever and whenever he wants, most likely chasing my grandson Isaac.

This week I would like to finish my survey of images I captured during my recent trip to New Mexico. We had planned to visit several National Monuments on the way back to Albuquerque and our trip home. Two of our choices were still closed due to the remnants of Covid, still a big concern for the Native American population. After a quick survey of the map, we discovered another site, Pecos National Park, a short drive to the East out of Santa Fe.

               A WIDER VIEW IN B&W - THE CHURCH RUINS ARE BACKGROUND LEFT

The Park is a large slice of history that even includes one of the Western battlefield sites of the Civil War, where Union Volunteers defeated an equally small contingent of rebels with dreams of Confederate territories to the West of Texas. Who knew? But the most important aspect of the Monument is the archaeological remains of one of the largest pueblos in New Mexico. This pueblo was "discovered" by the Spanish Conquistadors in their trek of conquest through New Mexico in 1600. Seemingly located in the proverbial "Middle of Nowhere", the pueblo actually was tied to trade routes that extended all the way to both the Pacific Northwest and the Great Plains and beyond to the East. The pueblo was home to almost two thousand inhabitants who all lived in one five- story adobe "apartment building" surrounded by defensive walls located above the Pecos River in the valley below. The pueblo had been thriving for 150 years before the Spanish arrived.

               THE VAST SURROUNDINGS; THE PECOS RIVER IS HIDDEN BELOW, BETWEEN THE PUEBLO AND THE GIORIETA MESA

In typical colonial fashion, the Spaniards ignored hundreds of years of a successful settlement as they endeavored to control and "civilize" the Pueblo. Once it became clear that there was no gold in the area, (that search would be pursued all the way to present-day Kansas), the Spanish turned to religion as the main reason to assert their control. They built a church next to the Pueblo that was significantly larger than the adobe communal dwelling itself.

              DRAMATIC SKIES IN B&W OVER THE SANGRE DE CHRISTO MOUNTAINS TO THE EAST

The various Pueblos banded together in a secret revolt in 1680 that successfully threw the Spaniards out of New Mexico. The Native Americans, in a tell-tale assertion of their revolution, built a Kiva right smack-dab in the middle of the remains of the church. But of course it took only a dozen or so years for the Spanish to return to retake their colony. Seemingly humbled, the new church they built was much smaller, dwarfed buy the foundations of the old cathedral around it. It now also lies in ruins.

               THE PATH AROUND THE SITE

The pueblo lasted through the Mexican Revolution. The Santa Fe Trail from Missouri to Santa Fe ran right past the pueblo. But by the time the Americans arrived disease, depopulation and Comanche raids had forced the last few inhabitants to move West to join other Jemez pueblo. Native Americans who can trace their family history back to the Pecos come once a year to celebrate their old settlement.

                                     NOT YET SPRING

                                     CACTUS COLOR

Fran and I had a great time walking the path around the pueblo ruins in a stiff wind that only increased the atmosphere of the historic settlement. Archaeologists have unearthed most of their finds from the land fills that surrounded the pueblo. The only real remnants of the Native settlement are the defensive ring walls of stone that surrounded and demarcated the pueblo. They reminded me of Hadrian's Wall at the Scottish border of the Roman Empire, built one thousand years before. It took a lot of imagination to conjure up the settlement itself, except for the fact that the 19 existing Pueblos in New Mexico are still there and resemble in many ways this lost city. In the visitor's center we were confused by videos of "Mrs. Miniver" on sale, until we discovered that the English actress Greer Garson had married a Texas oil baron, moved west to New Mexico, and was instrumental in the development, expansion, and preservation of the park. For all its faults, is this a great country, or what?

                                                                A LESSON IN ADOBE

The land dwarfs the human history contained within the walls. It was so vast and empty that I had a hard time figuring out how travelers - Natives, Spanish, Mexicans, and Americans - ever actually found the settlement itself. But we were very glad we did.

              THE SMALLER ADOBE CHURCH, NOW ALSO IN RUINS

This week I would like to return to the landscapes of New Mexico, so alien to our environment in Portland. They are even drier and higher than the High Desert of Eastern Oregon, and in some sense even more uniform. But there are a few spectacular exceptions to the overall expanse of sagebrush. One of these is a series of bluffs to the west of Albuquerque that comprise Petroglyph National Monument. Driving very slowly, you are only twenty minutes from Downtown, yet a world away. The seventeen-mile long mesa has only a few trails that cross the expanse of the park. Looking at the map, there is not much else until you get to Phoenix, four hundred miles and a good six hours to the West.

              ROCKS AND SAGEBRUSH : FINAL VERSION

Petroglyph National Monument is a very interesting Park, with four trails through a rocky landscape that will get you reasonably close to hundreds of Petroglyphs made by Native Americans, Spanish settlers, and Americans after the Mexican War. While at first I feared that we would actually have to hike up the bluff, the sandy trails just go in a few miles into near wilderness at the base of the bluffs. It soon became apparent that access was prohibited beyond the trail not to "protect the environment" but to protect the existing petroglyphs and to ensure they would not be surrounded by modern graffiti. The desert environment consisted of blue sky, clouds, a hint of the city in the distance, and a large expanse of boulders on the Northern hillsides.

               A SANDY DEPRESSION SOUTH OF THE TRAIL : FINAL VERSION

The rocks on  the surface seemed to be just the uppermost layer of an entire hillside of boulders. The Southern edge of the Monument was another series of bluffs with a sandy depression just beyond the trail. While you only lost the sounds of the interstate after walking in  about a mile, Albuquerque was always still apparent to the East. What was shocking to me was how light the city seemed to rest in the dessert environment. The entire city was really just a smudge between these Western bluffs and Sandia Peak just to the East of town. Portland seen from Mt. Tabor seemed like Chicago in comparison.

              ALBUQUERQUE'S LACK OF IMPACT ON ITS ENVIRONMENT : FINAL VERSION

              SANDIA PEAK ON THE EASTERN EDGE OF THE CITY, A HALF HOUR OR SO FROM THE WEST SIDE : FINAL COLOR AND B&W VERSIONS

As we walked the trail it soon  became obvious that we better enjoy the landscape, since the petroglyphs were few and far between. At first we didn't see any at all, and Fran began to pine for some gauche arrows on the hillside. We couldn't even find them even when the trail side markers insisted that they were staring us in the face. We felt pretty lame until we came upon others on the trail who were finding even less "success" than we were. This wasn't as easy as the park rangers had advertised back at the Visitors Center. I started to just pay attention to "interesting " boulders, almost abandoning any effort to find any ancient graffiti.

                                                                 AN "INTERESTING ROCK" : FINAL VERSION

                                                                A NICE CRACK, BUT NO PETROGLYPHS : FINAL VERSION

But as we walked on, we began to realize that we had to "be one with the ancient artists." We had passed the first test in looking for interesting rocks, since the artists wanted to find a canvas that would stand out on a hillside of boulders. The second test became the quest for the shady side of the boulders, since the carved signs were lighter than the rocks and stood out in the shade. Finally I decided to focus on rocks that afforded both easy access and comfortable places to draw, since these were obviously not quick sketches. Once we began to think like someone who would actually make a sign on a hillside of boulders we began to actually see some, and delightfully point them out to fellow tourists.

                                                                 FINALLY SOME ART! : FINAL VERSION

A canvas in the shade. I could almost imagine carving while sitting on the ground next to the rock.

                                    MYSTERIOUS GRAPHICS : FINAL VERSION

Graphics that appealed to me without having any idea of what they might actually represent.

                                    B&W VERSION ADDS SOME TEXTURE, LOSES SOME CONTRAST

                                     THE CONQUISTADORS HAVE ARRIVED!

Spanish settlers contributed some Christian imagery.

                                                                 SNAKE ON A ROCK : FINAL VERSION

My personal favorite, a graphic snake and a cartoon-like deer sharing a rock face.

               A HORIZON OF BOULDERS : FINAL VERSION

We ended up having a nice hike once we lowered our expectations, kind of like enjoying a round of golf despite your appalling score. I would recommend going in the late afternoon to get most of the canvases we found in the shade. And for heaven's sake don't try this hike on a hot Summer day. This is a very unforgiving environment indeed. We hiked only a couple of miles or so, but were so tired we immediately adjourned for an "early-bird special" dinner.

This week I'd like to show you some of the landscape images I captured in New Mexico, and the difficulties photographers can have in adapting to a completely alien environment. We all get used to our own turf, and while it is exciting to encounter a new environment, it can also be disorienting. The trick is to try to react quickly, since most vacations are over far too soon. While I am familiar with the High Desert of Eastern Oregon, I was thrown by the even higher elevations of New Mexico, and the very different contrast of large population centers with deserts right on the edge of town. This first image shows a typical landscape mere miles from Albuquerque, New Mexico's largest city, with a population of almost half of the entire state. While Albuquerque is not really a large city, and it did sprawl like most Western cities, it was still surprising to find almost no human presence so quickly out of town. Since it rains only two months out of the year, vegetation, especially like Oregonians are used to, is not a real feature of the landscape until you climb high into the mountains.

     COTTONWOODS JUST STARTING TO STIR

Another feature of the climate that through me was the strange nature of Winter. There was none of the nastiness of Oregon's wet environment, but there wasn't any snow either. The landscape just seemed to be in a state of hibernation, waiting for Spring with no clear rush to get to it. I slowly realized that the prevalent trees at 5,000 or so feet were Cottonwoods, which were just beginning to hint that they were still alive. They were the basic street trees in the city, and also constituted most of the vegetation in their natural environment in the Bosques at the river's edge. While the postcards assured us that these forests were actually going to get green and full, the woodland in March was pretty thin.

     MT.SANSIA, LITERALLY ON THE EDGE OF THE CITY

Another feature of the urban environment was the very small impact it had on the overall natural environment. While my telephoto lens can make Mt. Hood seem right next to Portland, it is really sixty miles away. Sandia Peak, shown here, is a block fault similar to Steens Mountain, but it 's so close to Albuquerque that in the Portland context it's closer than Gresham. It took us only about 45 minutes or so, up a switchback mountain road, to get to the totally snowed-in summit from Downtown. It was only above 10,000 feet that we saw Douglas Firs, a tree that grows naturally in every Portland park worthy of a visit.

     RIO GRANDE NATURE PRESERVE

But the real key to the desert environment was the presence of water in any form possible. Most of the entire population of New Mexico, from the ancient Pueblos to the modern cities, relies on the rare appearance of a body of water. The pond shown above was part of a small nature preserve near the Rio Grande on the East side of Albuquerque. The viewing deck at the modern nature center is the only access allowed. To the West of the preserve are an independent collection of parks that extend to the Rio Grande.

      TURTLE TRAFFIC JAM

This collection of turtles occupied a snag of logs about thirty feet from the viewing deck. The pond and the nearby river make up one of the only flyways for birds as they migrate through New Mexico.

      WATER IS LIFE : FINAL  VERSION

      WATER IS LIFE : FINAL B&W VERSION

A closer view of the Pond. Try to understand that almost all of Albuquerque  is between this pond and Sandia Peak to the East. While the are some rich neighborhoods to the West of the Rio Grande, it thins out fairly quickly. As usual, the black and white version allows for much more contrast while keeping to a general feeling of reality.

       THE RIO GRANDE

The Rio Grande is a very long, and very slow river. It starts in Colorado, and flows through the center of New Mexico before constituting hundreds of miles of border between Texas and Mexico. It's the only reason, along with the railroad and later Route 66, that Albuquerque exists at all. In many ways the difference between New Mexico and Arizona, with over three times the population, is due to the fact that the Colorado River has ten times the water as the Rio Grande. It is a pretty natural environment as it flows past Albuquerque, as shown in the image above. The park we walked through was refreshingly undeveloped, with no indication that there would be much traffic on the river as the weather improved. I believe there is only three bridges across the Rio Grande in Albuquerque, one carrying the main highway West to Arizona.

      A VERY QUIET RIVER

.This is a view of the West bank of the river. While I did crop out the row of mansions on the bluff above, it was interesting to see that they had no real access down the cliff to the river, and there didn't seem to be any trails on the other side. In general, Albuquerque seems to have a very small impact on its natural environs despite its sprawl. At about one third the size of Portland, it somehow coexists with the desert. In the next few weeks we'll visit some parks further away from any semblance of urbanity.

                            SEEMINGLY CONTRADICTORY SHADOWS COMPLEMENT THE MUD AND BLUE SKY

Hi everyone. I missed last week because Fran and I took a week to visit New Mexico for the first time. We had a wonderful time, and experienced a healthy degree of climate, culture, dining, and architectural shock. These are the kind of contrasts that can excite the senses due to the alien nature of the new environment. At the same time we were reminded of the unique nature of our environs in Portland.

                                                       IRON BALCONY AT HISTORIC ADOBE CATHEDRAL

                                                                      TWO ADOBE DETAILS AT MODERN HOTEL

New Mexico was a shock to the system. It was obviously Winter, but not the Winter we are used to - a High Desert climate, but much drier than even Eastern Oregon. The only street trees that seemed to thrive were Cottonwoods, and they were just barely beginning to bud. We kept seeing photos of green trees and people and realized that we truly had come to visit in the very slow season, and that there was zero chance of rain. I truly realized the difference when a natural science exhibit casually mentioned that the Douglas Firs we see in our neighbor's yards in Portland only appear in New Mexico on mountaintops above 10,000 feet. The weather was very pleasant, with highs about 25 degrees higher than what we had left, and there were very few people, much less tourists about. We began to actually fear ever coming here in the Summer once we realized how easy we had it.

                                                       THESE "FAKE" STRUCTURAL SUPPORTS PROVIDE GREAT SHADOW DETAILS

The combination of Native American, Hispanic, and Anglo cultures was certainly different from Portland. The contrast between the living and very old cultures of the pueblos and the oldest cities in the United States with the idea that our bungalow in Portland was built a year before New Mexico statehood in 1912 was head-spinning. As a native New Yorker it has taken me thirty years to get used to the comparative emptiness of Oregon. It took us most of the week to realize that Albuquerque and Santa Fe combined were less than half as big as the Portland Metro area, and that those two cities made up almost half of the population of the whole state!

                            AS SIMPLE A WOOD DECORATIVE DETAIL AS THEY COME AT ONE COMMERCIAL CORNER

The dining was even better than advertised. We missed meals only because we were so stuffed from the ones we had loved much earlier in the day. Even though I thought I wouldn't miss yet another choice between red or green chile for a very long time, we had some wonderful meals.

                                                        NOW THAT'S REAL ADOBE AT PECOS PUEBLO CHURCH RUINS

Yet the biggest shock of all for us was the mysterious horrors of the automotive city. Both Albuquerque and Santa Fe, in their own ways, were total creations of automotive urban design even when they actively fought against it , which was very rare. The contrast with Portland.or at least the Portland Fran and I are used to, was instantly palpable. It took us four days to realize that all of Albuquerque wasn't as ugly as we first thought, mostly because the city was so weirdly laid out, with streets and parking lots at least twice as big as they needed to be. It took me three days to realize that if I just avoided the parking lots and walked down one street and one alley that the main square of Old Town was only three blocks from our rental instead of nine. Fran and I finally found something we could call a neighborhood that resembled Portland when we deliberately ventured away from the streets we were supposed to walk on. While Santa Fe was much more walk-able, it was still not very nice at all five minutes from the Central Square. In fact even a fifteen minute walk was too much, since we were walking on the equivalent of Powell Blvd. Let's just say that they're not handing out "96 walking scores" anywhere in urban New Mexico.

                             ALBUQUERQUE MUSEUM MODERN SIMPLE ADOBE DETAIL REVEALS HEIGHT OF CORNICE AT FLAT ROOF

As usual my reaction to an alien environment led me to concentrate on the details that could delight me while avoiding the overall ambience that sometimes repelled me. The New Mexican architectural environment seemed to be composed of four elements -mud, wood, decorative details, and a very limited color range. This limited color range even extended to interiors, with color dependent on materials for the most part.

                                                       RARE PAINTED DECORATION AT VERY DEEP WINDOW SURROUNDS, HISTORIC CATHEDRAL

                                                        THIS INCREDIBLE STONE WALL PROVIDES THE ONLY REAL COLOR AT ALBUQUERQUE MUSEUM

                            HERE THE ONLY COLOR IS THE HIDDEN LIGHTING ON BOOK-MATCHED WOOD PANELING

These first few images concentrate on mud. While some of this is authentic adobe, I soon ceased to care how "real" it was, since real adobe construction is restricted to historic structures, the very rich, or the very poor. It intrigued me how much the soft mud architecture was adaptable by skilled contemporary architects to new construction, even though I knew that there was probably wood frames or steel underneath. Even Santa Fe seemed more governed by a height limit (which I don't even know exists) than by the mud esthetic. The best contemporary architecture, exemplified by a couple of museums we visited, adapts adobe to their own ends as details without directly copying or pretending to be something they are not. Since it rains only two months a year, outdoor courtyards and flat roofs with elaborate cornices mean that this Portlander could go a week without actually "seeing" a roof. Buildings just ended, only topped by blue sky.

                            ANOTHER ADOBE CUTAWAY, AT THE ENTRANCE TO PUEBLO CULTURAL CENTER

There was very little wood, which was shocking coming from the land of wood. Wood appeared as structural elements, real or not, or even more characteristically as decoration amid the mud. Carved wood details and elaborate trellises to combat the sun replaced any thought of wood siding, which probably cracks way before it ever rots.

     EXPOSED VIGAS AT PUEBLO MUSEUM COURTYARD

                                                       RUSTIC WOOD TRELLIS AT PUEBLO COURTYARD

      ELABORATE WOOD CARVING AT PECOS NATIONAL MONUMENT VISITOR CENTER, ONCE HOME OF ENGLISH ACTRESS GREER GARSON!

The decorative impulse is based on elaborate details related to actual use, like openings, floors, and supports, amid all of the mud. I've included several that caught my eye.

                            THIS GATE BOLT IS TYPICAL OF EVEN "MODERN" HARDWARE

                                    WOOD PATIO DOOR

                                                       SANTA FE "SECURITY DOOR"

                                                       THIS VINTAGE CARVED DOOR AWAITS YOUR NEW HOME AT A GALLERY

What was interesting once I realized what was going on was the very restricted color palette. As opposed to what I have seen highlighted in books on similar desert environments like North Africa or Mexico, New Mexico seems to be almost totally composed of shades of brown. Trim can only be white (my religious color choice) or more likely blue to match the sky. Rarely orange appears to brighten the scene, and lets be honest, that just really a very lively brown. The only real color that intrudes seems to be the decorative tiles that appear as wall decoration more than on floors.

                                                        ORANGE PAINTED WOOD AT FRONT PORCH OF CONTEMPORARY NATIVE AMERICAN ART MUSEUM

                            "TYPICAL" TILE WAINSCOTTING ON A VINTAGE COMMERCIAL BUILDING

I hope you have enjoyed this brief survey of New Mexico details. Next week we will take a look at the natural environment, just as alien from Oregon as the architecture.

This week I'd like to continue to explore my archives as a way of encouraging you to do the same. There are some marvelous things you can find ther, especially if you are as disorganized as yours truly. This poupourie has no real theme except that they caught my eye when I struggled through several dozen pages of old slides. When I say they caught my eye I really mean that I saw some element of hope, since my early struggles with my camera were exceeded only by my enthusiasm. Exposure and White Balance were often wildly off the mark. I would show you some of the original slides but for my embarrassment, even considering that slide film is a very unforgiving medium. Suffice it to say that most of these images have actually come to life only after my working on them in their newly digital form.

This first image can serve as a good example. Like all of these other images, it is more than thirty years old. No one outside of Little Rock had ever heard of Bill Clinton. This detail is of the exterior emergency stair of a ground-breaking modern tower by Richard Rogers for Lloyd's of London, taken when it was almost brand new.  This was way before it was joined by a whole host of newer and larger towers in The City, the financial center of London. For all I know it has probably now undergone a renovation, and Rogers eventually became Lord Rogers. For once my exposure wasn't that off, but my camera had been so mistaken that the original slide rendered the aluminum stair tower almost as blue as the sky.

                                                          SIR JOHN SOANE'S MUSEUM - LONDON, 1990 : FINAL VERSION

This next image is a detail from one room of Sir John Soane's house in London. The next time you fear that your hoarder tendencies might have gotten the better of you, head to London to see this place. Sir John's collection overgrew his townhouse so he bought two more adjoining houses, and even then the resulting architectural hodgepodge has to be seen to be believed. The man was a genius and crazy at the same time, and his various spatial strategies have inspired generations of architects ever since his death, when his home became a museum.

     A FORMAL ADMONITION - LONDON, 1990 : FINAL VERSION

Any trip to the Mother Country always has to include a few "There will always be an England Moment", like this understated sign in Spitalfields Market in the East End, several hundred years older than Saturday Market in Portland. Sometimes stuff like this in one of our British mysteries on the telly will cause Fran to scream out "But how do they reproduce?" There is often no real answer.

                                                       IF IT AIN'T BROKE, DON'T FIX IT - CAMBRIDGE, 1990 : FINAL VERSION

In a similar vein is this detail from one of the college courtyards in Cambridge. My total lack of understanding at how one can easily make this knot is only exceeded by the idea that this is still the way that the groundskeepers will keep me off the lawn, hundreds of years after the grass was first laid in the college quad.

     SOMEWHERE IN EAST ANGLIA, 1990  FINAL VERSION

A typical East Anglian landscape, somewhere outside Cambridge. Yes, the image is still a bit noisy, but just pretend it was taken on some ridiculously fast color film instead of completely underexposed Kodachrome. I'm sure this place still looks exactly the same, many generations of ducks later.

     BEFORE THE STORM, ORFORD, 1990

But sometimes England is not "a green and pleasant land." This is the sky that greeted us in Orford, a town on the coast of the North Sea, just before a near hurricane hit - red sky take warning indeed. The original slide is nothing short of an exposure disaster.

                            DUMBARTON OAKS, WASHINGTON, 1989 : FINAL VERSION

We move back one or two years to our former home in Washington, D.C. This is a small portion of one of my personal "most beautiful places on Earth, man-made edition" - Dumbarton Oaks Garden north of Georgetown. Their is truly nothing like Springtime in Washington, especially since it might just be "The Last Nice Day" before the heat and humidity arrive.

     DUMBARTON OAKS TRELLIS, 1989 : FINAL VERSION

Part of the charm of this place for a retired architect of my persuasion is that the wealth of the family, and the army of gardeners that keep the place ship-shape, allowed the original landscape architects to virtually ignore any semblance of "common sense" in many details around the garden. Notice the total lack of concern for protecting the wood of this wonderful trellis in one "room" of the garden - if needs be we will just rebuild the thing, and no one will be the wiser. The detail that I love most in the garden are the incredibly comfortable curving brick benches that violate every rule possible in brick construction - horizontal brick that will collect water and inevitably lead to it's own destruction. But until we have to rebuild them a generation from now, they are the most comfortable brick surface you have ever had the pleasure to sit on, so stop worrying about maintenance will you!

                                        YET ANOTHER DEMO, WASHINGTON, 1989 : FINAL VERSION

Let's end this essay with an unfortunately timeless image. It's somewhere in our Nation's Capital, and we are at yet another demo. We are blissfully unaware that almost thirty-five years later we not only will still be fighting the same fight, but that we will be in the process of losing it. Some things unfortunately never change.

This week I would like to take you all on a trip to Cambridge and East Anglia in England. This journey is courtesy of my scanner, which has again allowed me to explore my disorganized archives and rescue some images from oblivion. These images were taken on a trip in 1990, when a "young professional" couple was foolish enough to take their 2 1/2-year old overseas. The photographer is now a pensioner, and the toddler is now a college professor, but it feels like yesterday. The scanner allows me to take slides which I can now only view by putting them up to a light bulb, and return them to the present day. The most important part of this process is that these new digital images can now be improved and transformed far beyond their artifact origins, as if they were captured yesterday instead of 33 years ago.

                                                       CAMBRIDGE SKYLINE : FINAL VERSION

A word to the wise when dealing with people like Fran and me - never invite us on a ridiculous overseas adventure. Our friends Doug and Joanne were going off to Cambridge on a six-month sabbatical and casually mentioned that we could visit them, probably never actually  believing that we would follow through. A few months later we landed in Cambridge, and crammed into their apartment, which they had rented from Stephen Hawking. Cambridge is that kind of place. We had the experience of actually living in Cambridge for a brief time, which feels very different from just visiting. We decamped for ten days in the middle of our three-week stay to tool around East Anglia, the quiet and mostly rural part of England that contains Cambridge.

                                                          MEDIEVAL STONEWORK : FINAL VERSION

Many of you might be familiar with Oxford, England's other incredible university town where Inspector Lewis solved multiple murders for decades. Oxford is absolutely wonderful, but is instantly put to shame when you arrive in Cambridge. The difference is that Oxford is a real small city, while Cambridge is a village masquerading as a small town. The University is composed of a multitude of "colleges" that date back many hundreds of years. These images show some of the characteristic "porter's gates" that divide town from gown. Most of the collegescomprise small districts of their own, and customarily back onto the River Cam. "The Backs" is where students actually do cavort on small boats in the midst of academic paradise. Minus the problem of us actually going to college, you can see why the atmosphere was idyllic.

                                      POLYCHROMATIC MASONRY, OLD SCHOOL : FINAL VERSION

Stone detailing embellishes a brick facade, including actual stripes. And how about that weather vane!

                                                          LATE TWENTIETH CENTURY MASONRY HOMAGE : FINAL VERSION

The second image above is a small addition to one of the colleges designed by one of my architectural heroes of the time, James Stirling. Sometimes derided as a dreaded and feared "Post Modernist", I felt that Stirling's best work actually was just trying to loosen up things by making an attempt to fit in, especially needed in such a historic environment as Cambridge. I think you can see the masonry traditions that tried to make this small building part of a larger architectural tradition..

The surrounding area of East Anglia is beyond the attentions of most visitors to England. It is mostly rural, very agricultural, and contains no spectacular national parks. It's kind of like England's Kansas. The topography is so flat that the sky holds most of the landscape's charm. And most of the shoreline is on the North Sea, not very conducive to a seaside holiday in early Spring. We had a wonderful time, being young and stupid, dragging a kid around with no idea where we would spend the night, much less reservations. We even weathered a minor hurricane when we actually got to the coast, facing the only winds I have ever had to make an effort to stay upright. On the beach, the sight of a surf that really couldn't make it to shore, and the gulls which could only fly backwards, only confirmed our foolishness through our amazed laughter.

                                       NOT YOUR TRADITIONAL PARISH CHURCH : FINAL VERSION

Every parish church, no matter how grand, deserves a graveyard, which build up its own grandeur over time.

                                                        CHURCHYARD : FINAL VERSION

Benjamin of course doesn't remember a thing, but he also had a great time. He melted the heart of everyone he met, and "would the young man like some more chips?" ensured that none of us would ever go hungry in every pub we stopped at. East Anglia was once one of the richest parts of England due to the wool trade, and now trifling market towns are centered around churches that are really miniature cathedrals.

      PARKING YOUR CAR NEAR A TYPICAL CORNER IN A MARKET TOWN IN EAST ANGLIA : FINAL VERSION

A lot of the housing stock is hundreds of years old, and no longer is based on the right angle. The particular characteristic half-timber construction of of large timbers supplemented by infill of stone or stucco lends itself to "settling" into a very casual relationship with gravity. We got used to the idea that we couldn't expect floors, walls, or ceilings (sometimes all three) to be "straight" - it was like being drunk without having had a drink.

                                                       IT'S OLD AND YELLOW AND A LITTLE OUT OF KILTER : FINAL VERSION

I hope you've enjoyed these images. I assure you that they have just a passing resemblance to the original slides, which suffered from the usual amateur's limited understanding of how to "nail" an exposure. Their new digital existence allows this old goat to correct the composition and exposure errors of his youth and finally revealing what caught my eye so long ago.

This week I'd like to discuss the value of taking a deep dive into a subject, especially one that presents itself as a complete surprise. It's a lot of fun to come upon a photographic opportunity without warning, and I encourage you to explore the possibilities, at least until your companion shows signs of complete boredom. As I always tell my students, when the person standing next to you starts to wonder what the hell you are showing interest in, you have achieved a certain amount of personal vision - something other artists can take a lifetime to achieve. The artistic problem you then face is how to communicate your enthusiasm to others, but at least you have something unique to say.

I didn't realize that my most recent blog post was my 100th essay, and it is with a lot of gratitude that your collective interest has encouraged me to continue to share these photographic musings each week. I look forward to more essays, and hope to introduce a way to allow you to purchase the images in each post at a discount on my revised website. I hope you will explore it, and would love it you contacted me with your thoughts on how I'm doing.

                            A MINIMALIST PRELUDE : FINAL VERSION

I just thought I would throw this one in, mostly because I'm constantly confused and bemused by all of the minimalist images of architecture that somehow include light posts. This is taken outside of the Portland Opera offices at the East end of Tilikum Crossing. While I applaud the brickwork stripes and the carefully detailed awnings, I wished that they had somehow ensured that the requisite light pole could actually be straight!

Last week I showed some images taken on a stroll across the Tilikum Crossing, the newest bridge in Portland. This week I will show some details I discovered in the new neighborhood that has emerged across the river on the west side of the bridge. This collection of towers by the river still goes by the rather uninspiring name of "South Waterfront", and arose as a way to expand the city's main hospital complex. Note to urban planners - avoid putting a hospital complex on the top of a mountain. As the hospital expanded over the last century, its future as a growing concern was threatened by the fact that no matter how ingeniously architects piled new buildings next to, around, and on top of each other, there was just no more room on Pill Hill. When the hospital started to make some some self-serving noises about moving to the suburbs, something needed to be done. The abandoned industrial waterfront below the hill, across an actual neighborhood and at least two major streets and a highway, was deemed the site for future expansion. With much fanfare and major political controversy, a 57-million dollar "aerial tram" replaced  a fleet of 37 buses that had continuously ran up the hill. This rather remarkable urban ski lift now connected Pill Hill to the neighborhood to be down by the riverfront.

                                                       EMERGENCY STAIR : FINAL VERSION

To my eye the first few hospital buildings are really pretty boring. While this emergency stair is certainly well detailed, it is the only architectural element that enlivens the entire facade

South Waterfront has now come along very nicely, with an entire host of both high-priced condo towers, and subsidized affordable housing at their feet that adjoins a number of hospital buildings that have joined the originals at the foot of the tram. There is no denying the waterfront views available to the condo residents, and over the years the incipient neighborhood has been further tied into the city. Yet it still exists in a state of unreality, with a real lack of neighborhood services that belie it's socioeconomic status. Covid certainly hasn't helped community development, since we still can't fill abandoned commercial spaces in our most established neighborhoods, much less new ones. The neighborhood finally has a better auto connection from the north, stops on the trolley line, and a pedestrian bridge over the highway underneath the tram - yet it still feels suburban at best, disconnected from the city that it adjoins. The old joke among urban planners was that the city had built two new neighborhoods for empty nesters downsizing from their suburban McMansions. Our fake SOHO north of Downtown, the Pearl District, would have enough pseudo urban energy to appeal to Democrats. The Republicans would find the suburban energy of South Waterfront more to their liking. While I don't know if this political division has really come to pass, and the price of admission to both neighborhoods is sky-high, South Waterfront is still undeveloped compared to the Pearl. While people like me realize that the Pearl will never be a real Portland neighborhood without it's own elementary school, South Waterfront still doesn't even have a real grocery store!

                           SUNSHADE DEVICES TRY TO ENSURE SOLAR CONTROL EVEN IF YOU DON'T SIMPLY PULL DOWN THE BLINDS : FINAL VERSION

But it is near the west end of the Tilikum Crossing, only few blocks from the north end of South Waterfront. Once three or four other towers are built on the industrial wasteland south of the bridgehead, this connection will be complete. So my friend Al and I walked south of the bridge to see how the neighborhood was doing. It is still very much a work in progress, with contradictions galore. The waterside path is still very underdone, even though the waterfront site is one of the main points of the entire neighborhood. And the actual streets of the neighborhood seem more than a little illusionary, since even the mass transit connections are still mostly oriented to the hospital buildings. Yet there is a certain amount of energy at the tram station, which even has what might be the most developed bicycle parking lot in the country. We talked with a bicycle commuter, a woman of a certain age, who told us that the hospital workers are paid a buck or so each day that they ride their bikes to work, and get to park them in a monitored lot so secure that they can even keep their full bags on their bikes all day!

                            MYSTERIOUS FOLDED PANELS : FINAL VERSION

The thing about South Waterfront is that while I can keep abreast of the neighborhood while driving across the Ross Island Bridge, keeping track of this or that new tower, I have no idea of what is happening on the ground, four or five stories below the level of the bridge. So I discovered the subject of most of the images in this essay only on the street. The facade that is explored here is the first few stories of what is probably an office building that I know as the "Yellow Building" since the window surrounds on the upper stories are a very bright yellow.

     REFLECTIONS ON MYSTERIOUS FOLDED PANELS ON THE BUILDING NEXT DOOR : FINAL VERSION

It is only on the street that I found this interesting sculptural facade that covered the lower stories. It turned out that these folded metal panels were in fact dressing up the parking garage at the base of this building. Leave aside the larger question of why you need a four-story parking garage next to a mass transit hub in a neighborhood which itself is built on a series of underground garages - at least the architects made the effort to decorate this particular box for cars.

                            A SIMPLE FOLDED SQUARE : FINAL VERSION

I hope that this series can show how a brief exploration can yield a number of images that reveal different facets of one particular architectural detail. As I approached the facade from different angles, I began to see its simple logic - to provide light into the garage while obscuring its contents. In fact, even a retired architect could only realize that these weren't even windows until a certain angle was inspected. It was similar to the need for five different camera angles for the referees to determine pass interference.

                            WELL WILL YOU LOOK AT THAT! - ALL IS REVEALED? : FINAL VERSION

Now you might wonder why all this attention to a parking garage facade, and that is your right. But I would encourage you to explore these images as an exercise in graphic design, divorced from their apparent subject. I try to ignore the "subject" through tight square crops, and heightened contrast that hopefully focuses on the issues that I care about. I hope that you have enjoyed this series of images enough that you also don't care anymore about their pedestrian origins. Architectural details shouldn't only be for architects - have fun looking around.

                            AS GRAPHIC AS THEY COME : FINAL VERSION

This week the weather finally became somewhat conducive to actually venturing outside and pursuing my photography. I ventured across the newest bridge in "Bridgetown", the footbridge/bicycle/bus/trolley/Max bridge named Tilikum Crossing to honor the Chinook tribes native to our region. The "Bridge of the People" is a spectacular cable-stayed bridge, the latest and greatest type of suspension bridge very suitable for relatively short spans like the one required by the Willamette. This bridge is really the Division Street bridge that Division Street never received mainly because there was never enough city on the West Side in Downtown to deserve a bridge. With the creation of the South Waterfront neighborhood, the Portland Aerial Tram going up to Pill Hill, and the general redevelopment of the river edge south of Downtown, there became a justification for a river crossing near Division Street. In a more mature society than ours of course there would have been at least a token allowance for automobiles, which share lanes in most parts of the city with Mass transit, but there is no doubt that the pedestrian experience is paramount on this bridge.

                                                       TILIKUM  CROSSING PYLON : FINAL B&W VERSION

I am a particular type of photographer, one who finds motivation problematic once I have captured an image of a particular subject that has more than satisfied me.  There is no doubt that my chosen subject matter, the city and its architecture, can be greatly affected by the weather and the light, so that continued investigation might be warranted. But what do you do when you have already created an image where you know that that subject will "never look better" than the image that you have already created. Some people like musicians will and must practice for a lifetime, but my personality would chafe under that regimen. I took Kung Fu classes for nearly twenty years, and actually became pretty good at it, especially considering my age and lack of natural athletic ability. I excelled at the spontaneity of sparring, but positively rebelled at the daily practice of forms, which seemed to me to only exist so that your teacher could always find fault even after you earned a black belt. Thus I have to usually gird myself for yet another try at a subject that is very familiar to me, unlike other photographers who seemingly could photograph the Golden Gate every day of their lives and never tire of it.

                                                       TILIKUM CROSSING # 4 : FINAL VERSION

As I often say, attitudes like mine require a delight in the process of taking photographs, rather than the results of those efforts. The expected success rate, despite low expectations borne from years of experience, is only confounded by the fact that you have already been successful, thank you very much. And while I understand that I might have not captured a particular "money shot" of a subject that I know that exists, the fact that I have seen it again and again in other people's work lessens the need to have one of my own.

Now all this goes against my other belief that you do your best work as a local, so much so that a traveling photographer has almost no chance, no matter their skill, of capturing an image that might have taken a local years to take. You might get one chance to walk across the bridge, and I could probably walk across it most days for the rest of my life. As I have matured I have begun to realize, after careful prodding by Fran, that one doesn't go to Paris to make photographs, but you have fun taking photographs while you are experiencing Paris. Or at least until someone actually pays you to go to Paris to take photographs.

                                                        TILIKUM CROSSING : A SUBTLE SILHOUETTE

So I took yet another walk across the bridge yesterday to get some exercise and see my friend Al - these images were just a happy result. One of the reasons that I write these essays is to give me an excuse to exhibit additional takes on a subject that I know have almost no chance of making it into my gallery under the Burnside Bridge, because I've already got a great image of the Tilikum Crossing there, that either sells or doesn't sell to the public.

                                                        A BRIGHTER VERSION REVEALS MORE CONCRETE VARIATION

With all of these caveats, I had a great time, and came away with several nice images. The first image actually was a departure for me, since I have never concentrated on just one of the four pillars that support the bridge. It is now a sculpture devoid of context, whose almost anal symmetry doesn't mitigate its exploration of light and shadow. I'm not sure on the color versus the black and white version

The second image is far more conventional, but I think is fairly successful as a straight image of the pair of pylons at one end of the bridge, against a pretty nice partly cloudy Portland sky.

                                                        HIGH-KEY BLACK AND WHITE

The third and fourth images are much more dramatic interpretations of the pair of pylons, in tight close-ups that try but fail to straighten the pylons up, despite the efforts of my software. When you are this close it is much harder to do this with software, which is why there is till a place for shifting lenses which I cannot really afford to even rent. On the other hand, they are much better than the originals, with at least one of the pair seemingly not falling down. What I find fascinating is how the pretty subtle differences in exposure completely transform what is pretty much the same viewpoint. I think your affinity for silhouettes will determine which is more to your taste. I'm not sure, but I do like the more uniform pylons in the darker version. The high-key black and white version shows how powerful the rare blue sky in Portland can actually introduce the idea of "color contrast" - I don' think the black and white cuts it in this particular case.

      BRIDGE SHADOW : KIND OF BLUE

      BRIDGE SHADOW : BLACK & WHITE, STILL NOT ENOUGH CONTRAST

This last pair of images are both a work in progress, which might argue for another walk across the bridge. I was intrigued by the shadow of the bridge as a way of exploring its beauty. While this was a case of being there at "the right time", it will undoubtedly happen again. I am not satisfied by the contrast I achieved, even in the black and white version, and know I could probably improve on this idea someday. Of course you might not agree in the idea at all - right now I actually like the color version better, which is rare for me.

So there you have it. Take a walk with a friend, especially one who might be taking photographs too. You might actually create something new, and if it provides an excuse for getting out and about then it is worth it no matter what images you might come away with.

This week I’d like to discuss another four secret documents that I recently found in my basement. I assure you that none were top were TOP SECRET, and I am releasing them to the public with no intervention from the Justice Department - in fact the National Archives doesn’t seem the least interested in my photo archives.
These four images were lost to the ages because they were saved as color slides, a format whose display is now just a memory. My scanner has allowed me to turn them into proper digital images. I can now process them any way I want, mostly to improve the original files as images by correcting the young photographer’s  mistakes in exposure and composition.

Slide film was a very intriguing medium. It provided Twentieth Century photographers with the sharpest images possible with the best color rendition in the world. Unfortunately it also was pretty unforgivable in terms of exposure, which had to be “right on” to the point where even the best photographers in the world had to “bracket”, to take a number of different exposures of the same scene in order to find one that came close to optimum. Needless to say, ordinary people with a camera were more often than not reduced to tears when their slides came back from Kodak or wherever, usually gloriously over or under exposed.If you didn't shoot for Life or National Geographic there was little chance to see your images in print or on the wall. All you had was a tiny artifact that could be projected to a very large size in a darkened room. These viewing conditions, accompanied by your stimulating color commentary, usually led to groans no matter how good the actual images were. The actual printing of slide images was very expensive, to the point that it was not really available for most photographers. And of course it was pretty impossible to change anything after the fact.

      AS AMERICAN AS A PICKET FENCE : FINAL VERSION

These four images that are included in this essay are so much better than the original slides that it is not really worth comparing them. It is often an act of faith in actually scanning your slides to see if there is something there. So there existence as forgotten images is not just because disorganized people like myself can't find them - but because when you actually find them, you don't really know what you have. In contrast to color prints in a shoe box, you usually have only your younger self to blame, not the incompetent minimum wage worker in the one-hour kiosk.

These images can now be viewed in their best form - at least as well as my current post-processing skills can manage. Of course I cannot go back to move a little to the left or right, and can only crop the original frame rather than expand it. And to tell you the truth I can only discuss them as "images", since even I do not remember their exact place in the space/time continuum.

So the first image is an idealized tree, since only Google can actually identify it. It is Springtime, and it is purple, and that is about it. I couldn't tell you the actual time or place. But there is a certain charm in the lightness of the foliage in contrast to the ancient solidity of the tree's structure, which cannot be duplicated in an engineer's office.

I believe the second image is from Colonial Williamsburg, but I couldn't swear to it. I love the receding fence line, and the play between shade and shadow on the fence itself. Since I balanced the color based on the highlight portions of the fence, the obvious blue tint of the shadows is true - shadows will be blue, especially on a white fence. Think of shadows on snow, for example. The color rendition hides the noise in the sadows much better than the black and white conversion. I also love the idea of such craftsmanship on a simple picket fence bordering a dirt road, which says something about public and private expenditures. The probable fact that the builder of this fence was also the owner's property is also something to contemplate.

                                                        A WATERFALL WITHOUT A NAME IS STILL A WATERFALL : FINAL VERSION

This scene also exists out of place and time, so it's value is simply as another example of my tendency towards intimate landscape images. I cropped the left edge to get rid of a thinner and lighter portion of the forest that competed for attention with my waterfall. I was amazed that this was a rare case that my exposure was so correct that I had not actually blown out the highlights in the water. I lightened the shadows to reveal a little detail in the forest while bringing down the real blacks to deepen the colors without actually saturating them. I was also pleased with my shutter speed, which achieved both detail and milkiness in the same waterfall. This image really works better in color than black and white, since the extra detail in the black and white version does not compensate for the contrasting color of the leaves, whose light tone was not really that much different than the water. The tree complements the water rather than competing for attention.

     TWO DIFFERENT RENDITIONS OF A FAN VAULT "SOMEWHERE IN ENGLAND", CIRCA 1990

Finally, we are "Somewhere in England", as the espionage film would say. These two views of a small but spectacular church interior show the limits of my wide angle lens. What's funny is that this is so much wider than my usual view point - but a 28mm lens, broken long ago, was not really wide enough for interior work. And yet it is already distorted, which show the limitations of such lenses. These days I could stitch a half-dozen shots together to maybe achieve a complete and vertical view of the church, but his is what I have. At least the present-day photographer knows enough to understand what "young professional" saw in this monument - those incredible fan vaults that formed the ceiling. This is almost certainly an example of an East Anglian parish church, which approached a cathedral in sumptuous if not in size. This area in England was so rich in Medieval times that these churches dwarf the rest of what are now small rural market towns. The two versions both have their charms. The color version shows off the color of the stone and especially those mysterious red dots that appear randomly in the stonework - the church seems to be getting over a case of Chicken Pox. The Black and White rendition ups the detail and contrast to really show off the ribs of the vaults. To each his own.

I will let you go now without inflicting you with a slideshow, which is now just another way of viewing your photos on Lightroom, unless you show it to a crowd on Power Point. We now have slideshows with out actual slides. My father's student gig as an aide in the Art History class, working the slide projector is as foreign to our reality as his playing both ways on both the Offensive and Defensive lines on the Dartmouth football team. I hope you have enjoyed this trip back to the past thru these four images.

This week I'd like to ruminate a little on the value of history and the small ways that photographic exploration can allow a photographer like myself to both appreciate and comment on the past. The value of human experience allows us to see for ourselves and to both appreciate our own small part in the present while standing in awe of a historical monument that was built long before we saw it and will probably last long after we are gone, if not forever. It's one thing to contemplate Nature, knowing that it exists without, and even despite our presence on this world. It's another when we are confronted by a work of mankind, built by people very much like ourselves, but so stupendous that we seriously question whether our own age is up to these standards. As an artist, the need to observe and record our experience of such a monument to Man's achievement is balanced by the fear that we will not have anything new, much less important, to say.

                                                      THE BRIDGE, 2010 : NOT AS TIMELESS , BUT IT STILL COULD BE FROM ANY YEAR SINCE I WAS BORN

I have just finished "The Great Bridge" an outstanding historical work by David McCullough on the incredible story of the building of the Brooklyn Bridge from 1869 -1883. I would recommend his poetic work of history to everyone, even if you don't think you could possibly understand the structural engineering involved. In that way it's a lot like "Moby Dick", which might spend a little more time on whaling than a modern reader needs to know. "The Great Bridge" is a very human story of a father and his son who achieve immortality despite death and crippling sickness. Alongside is the daughter-in-law. a woman who rose so far above her station that even the society of 1883 had to acknowledge her greatness even while they tried to ignore her example. McCullough concludes his volume by remarking that despite all of the struggles and scandals of Twain's "Gilded Age", that "in the end the bridge was beautiful."

I was born in Brooklyn in 1956, left New York for college in 1973, and did not walk across the bridge until the late summer of 2001. As a native New Yorker, forgive me for referring to the Brooklyn Bridge as just "the bridge", since in this case typical New York parochialism can be historically and artistically justified. I trained as an American historian, only to give in to logic until I pursued an even more quixotic economic journey into Architecture. So this book was right up my alley, but it stood on my bookshelf for decades. I finally picked it up a couple of months ago, searching for something  that could possibly be a little more uplifting than another tome on the War (kids, that's WWII). Part of the shock of reaching a certain age is realizing that the humble artifact you are holding is itself a piece of history, since this book was written over fifty years ago, long before David McCullough achieved fame as a "talking head" on television.. The paperback was no doubt picked up in a used bookstore in Bloomington, Indiana over forty years ago, and survived the great trek to Powell's in 1992, when I sold the twenty-seven boxes of books that couldn't possibly fit into our new apartment on the Park Blocks.

                                             THE BRIDGE, 2010 - IF I GO BACK, I WOULD STITCH SOME MORE IMAGES TO GET DOWN TO THE ROADWAY

These are a few examples of the images that I made on and off the bridge during my two walks across the bridge alone in 2001, and with Fran and Benjamin and Margaret in 2010. I somehow hope that you might feel that they look like Rich pictures, even though there have been whole volumes written solely on the art and photography of the bridge during its now 150 years on this earth. Far better artists than myself have tried to come up with their own interpretation of a monument whose iconic status resists a new image, even while it demands that you try.

The first image is a pretty standard symmetrical study which I daresay mirrors some more famous attempts that have wormed their way into my subconscious long before I strode across the bridge. It is amazing how much the light and even the position of the flag can affect the image, and this square crop for a coaster suffers from a lack of headroom. The original image was something like the vertical crop, also taken that day, although you can see that the flag is in a different position. The original is lost to history, another casualty of my lack of organization. I hope you agree that my use of sepia black and white tone is far better at conveying the historical nature of the structure than the straight color rendition. You would have to pay far more attention to detail than yours truly to be able to date this image with any accuracy at all. This is helped by the absence of the ground plane of the bridge, any background, and any other pedestrians or conveyances that might give a hint of the image's age. It is truly  amazing that untold millions of people have viewed the bridge from exactly this spot, with only the flag's position (and the number of stars) dating the photograph. I do think the image does suffer from the lack of a ground plane, since the extra room in the vertical is still mostly sky.

BROOKLYN BRIDGE 1

                                                                THE BRIDGE, 2001 : A BLACK AND WHITE STUDY IN SILHOUETTE

This is far more like it, although I would be truly fooling myself if I thought it was anywhere in the neighborhood of unique. I went for an assymetrical silhouette, which is based on my lack of a wide angle lens and my usual hasty exposure. But we make images long after we take them, and I deliberately restricted the view to only one part of one side of one bridge pier while lowering the shadows to obscure any detail on the pier itself. The color original is in no way of any use at all. While my first black and white conversion held more detail in the sky, I lost most of that in pursuit of a brighter, and even more graphic image. Those in the know will realize that this is a certain bridge because of the diagonal bracing tying the vertical supports together under one of the main cables. The image tries to convey the delicacy of this spider web contrasting with the solidity of the great black masonry pier.

               FRAN AND RICH, 2010

                                                       BENJAMIN AND MARGARET, 2010

Of course the bridge is bout people too. Here are four people -  two middle-aged ex-New Yorkers, and two new young people in the city, in 2010. Benjamin looks like he could easily pass for one of the workers who built the bridge.

                                                                NO DAREDEVILS ALLOWED, 2010 : FINAL VERSION

Here are two details from the bridge.The first seems almost quaint, a sculptural celebration of the idea that maybe pedestrians should stick to the promenade provided for them since the bridge was built. The barrier probably works, although it looks like anyone crazy enough to walk on the cable across the bridge could manage to climb around this whimsical doorway in the air.  The first man to supposedly jump off the bridge and live went on to star in a Broadway musical that celebrated his feat. The main cable pictured above, one of four, is more than 18 inches in diameter and is a wrapped combination of 15 cable clusters composed of thousands of steel wires. My father would occasionally take me to one of the   factories where he worked as a Plant engineer which made similar cables. These machines he was tasked with keeping running, no matter what, spun cables more than two blocks long and could take off a man's arm is he wasn't careful. The working conditions were absolutely Dickensian. Today you can buy a multi-million dollar condo in similar buildings fronting the Gowanus Canal, a Superfund hazardous waste site.

                                                                 WALK THIS WAY, 2010 : FINAL VERSION

The promenade is still there to allow pedestrians to cross the bridge, even though the horse-drawn caraiges and the cable-car railway is long gone. The original one-cent toll has also been forgotten. This recent super graphic serves to tell people where they should walk, something their great grandfathers would probably have deemed unnecessary if not condescending.

                                                              THE TWIN TOWERS FROM THE BRIDGE, 2001 : COLOR AND BLACK & WHITE

This last image, both in color (!) and black and white, illustrates how the bridge endures. I took this on my first journey across the bridge in the late Summer of 2001, on a visit to New York. I literally stood in the plaza at the World Trade Center while I decided whether to pay to go up; I had never had the opportunity. I decided that the sky was too gray to afford a good view, that I couldn't afford the admission fee, and that I could always go up the next time I was in town. So I had an incredible time walking across the bridge, for free, for the very first time. The next month the Twin Towers were gone, and this has became a somber historical image.

But the bridge endures, and it is beautiful.

This week I would like to extol the virtues of the scanner. This machine allows the photographer to delve deeper into his or her archives. This assumes that they have enough years under their belt to have photo albums of old prints, or even old slides which they can no longer view because the projector is in a landfill somewhere. The scanner is actually a type of time machine, since it converts these artifacts into digital files that can be processed in Lightroom and be resurrected as digital images that can be improved far beyond their analog origins. These images are examples of my work, long unseen, which I can now exhibit. And prove, at least to myself, that I wasn't half-bad as a photographer decades before I considered the idea that I was an artist. Even though I can remember taking all of these photos, I really cannot claim to know their exact locations, subjects, or dates of origin. I know they are mine, but beyond that there is some element of mystery. This allows me to appreciate them as compositions even more, somewhat divorced from the reality of space and time.

                                                                     BLACK AND WHITE VERSION

                                                                  I SUSPECT THIS IS THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, BUT I COULD BE WRONG : FINAL VERSION

These first two images are both from my time in Washington, D.C. during the Reagan and Bush the Elder administrations. I lived in Arlington, Virginia, so at least I could vote, even if I rarely voted for a winner. Fran and I are old enough that when she really wants to get my goat she can accuse me of being a Reaganite, which in today's context can seem almost quaint. The first image I can almost swear is from Lafayette Square across the street from the White House. The real hint that it is Washington and not London is the brick instead of cobblestone. I don't really have a preference between the graphic qualities of the color or the black and white version. The color image shows off the red brick, while the black and white version emphasizes the curve and shadow of the railings. The second image could be the Library of Congress, but it really appeals to me as an example of the power of the dome as an element of architecture. I also enjoy that the awe I felt can be conveyed without showing the entire dome - your brain completes the circle without the fish eye lens I have never owned. And if this isn't the Library of Congress, does it really matter?

                                                                TWO VIEWS OF LATE TWENTIETH CENTURY LONDON : FINAL VERSIONS

These next two images are from London, but I do not know when they date from beyond the fact that they are pre-digital, which places them somewhere in the late Twentieth Century. I lived in London in 1976, and visited with Fran in 1977 and 1990. The first image is from some Wren Parish Church which again shows the power of a much smaller dome. This dome in fact hearkens back all the way to the Pantheon, although this oculus is a skylight which at least blocks the rain. The second shot looks like an image from a detective show with the subtitle of "Somewhere in London." My post-processing now reveals the street which was completely lost in shadow in the original slide. I converted the image to black and white to mask the overwhelming noise in the color shadows. This allows the viewer to focus on the row of chimneys which originally attracted me to the scene. It's almost as if the Victorian architect cared much more about the sculptural qualities of these chimneys than the actual row of dwellings themselves. At least the masons got to show off.

                                     TRINITY CHURCH GRAVEYARD : FINAL VERSION

                                                                 ONE DAY AT THE BALLPARK, EARLY 1970'S : FINAL VERSION

These next two images are from Old New York, and are more than 40 years old. I believe the first is a detail from the graveyard of Trinity Church in Lower Manhattan. Trinity's spire was the tallest building in New York before the first skyscrapers were built, and was carefully framed from a certain angle by the space between the Twin Towers. I carefully cropped and darkened the background to remove any hint of the late twentieth Century. The second image is a rare "street shot" taken at a day game in the early 1970's. The two brothers seemed to rooting for different teams, or at least had two different favorite colors. Presumably they are now in their late fifties, and hopefully have as fond memories of Shea Stadium as I do. My post processing allowed me to balance the exposure between the cheap seats I was accustomed to and the sunlit expanse beyond. Shea is no more, but at least I can still hate the Yankees.

              SWAMP PATH : FINAL VERSION

These last two images come from somewhere and some time lost in obscurity, but I have always felt the compositions held some interest. My post-processing of the scanned images elevated them far above their one-hour origins. I love the boardwalk, whose design reveals the arbitrary whims of it's designer as it weaves it's way across the water. The image's age is highlighted by the absence of any politically correct safety railings. Presumably there were no gators in the shallow water. By the way, we were probably walking through what we innocently called "swamp", way before the reign of the "wetland."

                                     RED CLAY : FINAL VERSION

This image is my homage to a photograph on a famous Jazz album I owned as a re-issue (!) in the early 1980's. Back when there actual album covers, an image a lot like this one graced my copy of Freddie Hubbard's "Red Clay." And while I certainly wasn't in Georgia, this sodden dirt road caught my eye because I was familiar with the other image. I cropped it to highlight the most interesting part of the photo, making it into a square because, like coasters, record covers were square.

I hope you have enjoyed this trip down Memory Lane, even if my memories are somewhat hazy. I encourage you to revisit your own pre-digital archives with the goal of utilizing the scanner time machine to allow you to improve and use your images from yesteryear.

This week I'd like to discuss the value of focusing in on the details. While this applies to most photographic subjects, it really comes into its own in architectural photography, especially in the type of image-making that I am particularly interested. I started out in my photographic journey on the mission to document my own projects as an architect, since I couldn't come close to being able to afford professional architectural photographers. My particular circumstances forced me to pay attention to small parts of the project - I didn't own the wild angle lenses required for most interior photography, and I didn't have the support staff required to "stage" a house for the typical magazine shoot. Since most of my projects were variations on small scale residential additions, I didn't want to focus on the whole house anyway, even if most of my designs were pretty sympathetic to the existing house designs.

                                                       WINDOWS MEET SCULPTURE : FINAL VERSION

I gradually realized that my developing photographic style, such as it was, had pretty much nothing to do with the professionals I couldn't afford - while I couldn't even approach their technical skills or equipment, as a practicing architect I knew where to find the "money shot" that could explain the value of the design. Of course it didn't hurt that I was the designer, and to give myself a little credit, I wasn't trying to photograph a horrible or at best mediocre design, which is the lot in life of most professionals. It was only when I went on a shoot with a professional architectural photographer and saw the shot list provided by the architect, that I realized the pretty unique position I was in. Most architects had no idea how to photograph their own designs, and most photographers couldn't think like an architect. Even when confronted by a high-quality piece of design, they couldn't find the "money shot" which would celebrate the skill of the architect.

                                                       A SCULPTURE GARDEN THAT SURROUNDS A SCULPTURE : FINAL VERSION

These circumstances led me to focus on the details of architecture, to document the small wonders in a work that I could celebrate instead of just documenting the entire building. I now realize that this approach guides my art whether I walk through my neighborhood noticing small details on ordinary buildings or visit a famous structure half-way around the world. And I know that this leads to a more individual set of images that I can call my own.

These first three images come from the work of Frank Gehry, one of the most famous architects of our times. They show the problems and opportunities that can arise when exuberant sculptures collide with our more pedestrian orthogonal world. You still have to keep the water out, or at least try. Think of the poor guys and gals who have to figure out how to place ordinary windows in the boss's sculpture, or to even sheath compound curves with metal panels. But the true genius of detailing comes when it serve a higher purpose. The third image of Gehry's Symphony Hall in Los Angeles shows the incredible garden that sits amidst the sculpture. While the building is so delightful that it qualifies as architectural porn, I for one insist that it looks just as silly on the street as Wright's Guggenheim - the best you can say is that it "enlivens" the streetscape" after it has fallen there from Outer Space.  Yet it is only when you get to visit, and walk up an ordinary stair from said street, that you get to spend as long as you like in a block-long roof garden on the roof, available for free with out even entering the building!

                                                       1882 : FINAL VERSION

Architectural detailing started with a need to cover your ass, to figure out how to try to prevent water from getting into your structure. It was further refined to hide pretty much any joint - between wall and ceiling, wall and floor, any corner - that needed to screen the fact that materials and carpenters were not perfect. Since architecture is an art as well as a science, soon designers started using detail to celebrate their own ingenuity as well as to allow their craftsmen to show off theirs. That is why a beautiful detail can grace any structure, since you have got to build the wall anyway - why not allow the carpenter to show off a little? And that is also why old buildings have value, since both the architects and the carpenters came cheap, and the builders could afford to let them amuse themselves to a certain degree.

Masonry seems to have been delivered by the Almighty so that both the designer and the bricklayer could celebrate their existence. I think the first image shows a detail from a Massachusetts warehouse, which celebrates the structural piers and arches, and shows how the world's most ordinary "building block" can be manipulated to decorate without decoration. Throw in the pride of the mysterious "H" and the year of it's creation, and you have a beautiful warehouse.

     IF YOUR SCHOOL IS NAMED GROUT, IT MIGHT BE A GOOD IDEA TO LET THE MASONS GO WILD : FINAL VERSION

Or think about the pride inherent in this brick detail above a side door of an ordinary Elementary school in Southeast Portland. The side door!

                                                       IT'S BEAUTIFUL, AND THE CLIENT WAS A LEFTY : FINAL VERSION

This is the front door of a bungalow in Southeast Portland. Just imagine the pride of the designer and the carpenter who created this entrance. The street number above is an example of a Depression Era Portland "make work" project when the city fathers encouraged the idea that houses should proudly show their addresses with ceramic tiles that would employ both craftsmen and carpenters.

                                                       AND YOU CAN RAKE LEAVES WITH IT! : FINAL VERSION

Or think about this exuberant porch detail on this small Victorian porch that ensures that this house is at least special if not unique.

                                                       CAN ARCHITECTURE BE SENSUOUS? : FINAL VERSION

When you get to an institutional client where price is no object, then budgets cease to matter. This is a detail of Louis Kahn's library at a small and over-privileged boarding school in New England. Forget the fact that you are looking at one of the corners of a four-story atrium at the center of the library, and that these concrete circles reveal the stacks and study carrels beyond. Think about the idea that this is some of the most sensuous concrete ever created, and that most every surface that is not concrete is incredibly detailed oak paneling that is worthy of fine furniture.

                                                      OKAY, ENOUGH ALREADY : FINAL VERSION

Sometimes detailing, like everything else, just goes too far. A recent development in architectural design is a celebration of detail that can become almost a substitute for the attention that must be paid to most other facets of design, in my humble opinion. It is no wonder that institutional projects can now cost $1500 per square foot. This is the emergency stair on a government office building in California, which if you look closely still requires a handrail behind its glass facade.

                            REFLECTION OF WHAT? : FINAL VERSION

I don't even remember where this facade was located. It amazes me that with all the attention to the incredible detailing of this curtain wall, that the architects did not realize that they were building an architectural Rorschach Test that would obscure their own efforts. It was up to me to notice this profound accident of intention meeting reality.

These images from my archives and from strolls last year show the range of delight that can be found when people - clients, architects, craftsmen, even societies - have a modicum of pride in their work. While the downside is that this can be a rarity, at least when I find it I like to pay attention.

This week I'd like to wish you all a happy new year and discuss the pleasures I get from observing trees. I'd say there are a number of reasons that I like to observe trees which relate to their beauty, their structure, and their refusal to either move or acknowledge mankind's presence at all.

Trees have always struck me as beautiful.  I always resisted removing trees from a site when planning an architectural project. I frequently told my clients that "only God can make a tree" which is pretty definitive coming from an atheist. One of the reasons I find trees beautiful is their structure, which can be mimicked by structural engineers but nevertheless seems to have little to do with our orthogonal strategy of dealing with gravity. As a photographer who tends to love subjects that are larger than me, don't move, and don't talk back, trees fall into my wheelhouse.

I've been looking through my archives for photos of my son at the same ages as my grandson for a photo book I've been working on. More on that in a future essay. While on that search I came upon some images of trees that caught my interest and prompted some efforts in Lightroom to make them a little "more interesting" so as to catch your attention as well. A few came from files lost in the last decade, while the remainder were captured last year.

                                                        TREE ALONG 37TH AVENUE : FINAL VERSION

These first two images capture the beauty of two trees through the employment of silhouettes, which emphasize the intricate structure of two very different specimens against the sky. The silhouette uses an overwhelming amount of contrast to reduce the photograph to almost a line drawing or an ink block print. I reduce any detail in the tree itself that might have survived the natural back-lit conditions by lowering the black point to render the shadows as pure a black as I like. Since our eyes and brains encounter such conditions in the natural world, we can lower the blacks to near zero without causing viewers to declare the result as "unnatural." The same latitude does not apply to the lightest portions of a scene, for our brains want some level of detail to remain in an image besides the natural white of the paper where no ink at all has been applied.

The first image  comes very close to a pure silhouette, with a series of trees standing tall against a featureless sky. It even appears to be a purely black and white photo until you notice that the gray sky that day was closer to very light tan. Of course this kind of image gives you  an excuse to walk in the woods during the Winter, when there are no pesky leaves obscure the sculptural structure.

The second image was taken on the street in Southeast Portland a few days ago. There is no statute saying that you can't raise your camera to the sky and ignore your surroundings to focus on the real beauty close at hand. This silhouette also proves that a little color will not ruin the effect, as long as you resist the desire to lighten up the tree itself.

                            LONE TREE ON THE SAVANNAH : FINAL VERSION

Here I encountered another lone tree with an interesting shape, but the overall conditions led to a more natural approach. The silhouette revealed an appearance more furry than leafy. As usual, I had no idea what kind of tree I was looking at - and as usual I masked my botanical ignorance with a delight in "mystery." In any case, I tried without much success to coax some detail out of the gray sky - but I did lighten the foreground enough to reveal a lot of detail and color in the prairie that surrounded our star. Photographers employ gradient filters to balance the exposure in different parts of scene. Our eyes and brains can adjust to wide differences in light levels much better than our stupid cameras. In most landscapes it becomes part of the drill to reduce light levels in the sky, and increase them in the foreground - but only to the point that our brain does not rebel at the lack of any true blacks or shadows.

                            THE CLUMP  OF TREES : FINAL VERSION

But there is more to trees than just their shapes. This clump of trees near the end of summer was just beginning to assert itself against the surrounding woodland. Not too showy, but they got my attention. As usual I tried to crop to reduce the gray Oregon sky to a bare minimum to allow the subtle colors to come through. Even Oregon skies are too bright in a woodland shot, and since our eyes are always attracted to the lightest part of a scene, it's best to eliminate as much of it as possible to concentrate on your real subject.

                                                        DOGWOOD DETAIL : FINAL VERSION

Of course in Spring and Fall our eyes are delighted by the color of the flowers of rebirth, and in a slightly morbid fashion in the flame-out of vegetation that signals imminent nakedness and death. This first image glorifies this Dogwood's plumage to the extent that I don't care about the out-of-square siding in the background and just appreciate that my neighbor painted his house a Portland Gray. I am always delighted when a scene does not need any additional saturation, thank you very much.                                                         YOU SHOULD OF SEEN ME LAST WEEK! : FINAL VERSION

Then we get to Autumn, when certain trees just want to go out in a blaze of glory. Portland is not really known for it's fall foliage, since we are solidly in the land of perpetually green forests - and that once our few deciduous species finally turn on the color, the autumn wind and rain firmly shuts it off in a few days if not hours. This year we had one of our latest Falls ever, and when I caught this Maple in full glory in the Japanese Garden the maples at my house hadn't even thought of turning. Another example of the power of the micro climate, since the garden is located more than several hundred feet higher than my bungalow. Like any good National Geographic photographer who has never appeared in the actual magazine, I lowered the exposure a tiny little bit to saturate the color without using the Saturation slider.

I hope you have enjoyed this brief look at trees, and encourage you to pay more attention to their mute beauty.

STATUE OF LIBERTY 1

This week I would like to deliver my annual report for my art business, which continues to astound me in  the incredible way it really doesn't make any sense. The more I try to be a better businessman, I seem to only succeed in being a better artist - the bottom line doesn't really change much at all. But I thought that some of you might be amused at my efforts, so I will share some of this year's round-number preliminary statistics. Since the State of Oregon finally delivered my tax refund this week, a mere eight months after I filed it in April, I don't think that anyone should mind if I make a first stab at assessing my year. The images in this annual report are my first attempt to determine my best images of the year. These 25 images survived an initial selection of about sixty out of 1300 photos I took or worked on this year. About half are "new" images that have little to do with the initial snapshots I might have taken a decade ago. This selection is pretty personal and few have had any impact on my sales - but they are this year's answer to "which one's do you like best?" Your mileage may differ.

     THE NORTH CAROLINA COAST WAS PRETTY BORING COMPARED TO OREGON, BUT THE ALPENGLOW WAS NOT, AND I TOOK VARIATIONS            OF THIS PHOTO EVERY DAY. 2022

                            AT LEAST I'M NOT A CHANDELIER SALESMAN! 2022

Before we get started with the grim statistics, let me first say that I am incredibly grateful that people respond to my images, sometimes even buy them, and that Saturday Market exists as a venue and that Fran still encourages me after all these years in every way possible. Her biggest achievement this year might be that after more than a dozen years I'm finally beginning to agree with her that none of this makes any sense, and that it really doesn't lend itself to MBA type analysis. The bottom line is that I do make money, incredibly rare for an artist, but that I don't come anywhere near to "making a living."

                            BAGDAD NOIR #4 2022

                            CASCADE LAKE : B&W CONVERSION OF 1996 PHOTO

I get most of my jollies from spreading my art around the globe not through the internet, where I have been a near total failure, but through my little booth at the market. This year I made around 350 sales, which averages nearly ten a day, which actually surprises me, but there you have it. It's the variability that can drive everyone nuts, which has led Fran to abandon any predictions of my mood when I come home exhausted at the end of the day. This year I put art in around 100 more houses in Portland, adding to my total after a dozen years of approximately 3500 homes and apartments where I might encounter my art. I sold art to about 240 more places in the rest of the United States, where I have sold art to people from every state in the Union. I have art in eight Canadian provinces - this year I "made" Yellowknife, in the Northwest Territories. My art now graces homes in 25 more places in sixty countries throughout the rest of the world; this year I sold art to people from Bosnia and the Czech republic for the first time. I frankly find this absolutely incredible.

                            BUG'S EYE VIEW : 2022 MACRO ENLARGEMENT

                            OREGON COAST SHIPWRECK : MY B&W SILHOUETTE CONVERSION OF 2016 IMAGE

The real story this year is that although I'm certainly not back to my sales totals before the Pandemic, I'm doing it in half the time. Saturday Market is now really Saturday Market, with no Sundays for the foreseeable future. So although I'm paying the same rent I used to pay for two days on the weekend, I am making just a little less in one day than I used to make in two. The slightly longer endurance required in more than 12 hours outside under the bridge is more than made up by Sunday at home. I have no complaints with earning about the same money in only about 60% of the time at the market.

                            MORRISON BRIDGE : 2022 B&W CONVERSION

                                                                     A REDISCOVERED, AND RECROPPED B&W CONVERSION OF 2012 PHOTO

Now let's take a deeper dive in how I actually make money. Since I compiled some of these statistics in the process of writing this essay, consider that I am actually kind of thinking aloud - and that your conclusions about how I should respond to this stuff bears little resemblance to the reality of the art world, especially under the Burnside Bridge.

                            OREGON COAST DUNE GRASS : REDISCOVERED 2016 IMAGE

                                                TILIKUM CROSSING : SEVERE B&W CONVERSION OF 2019 PHOTO

I am a coaster monger. Sales of coasters probably represent about a third of my total sales, and most of my profits if I really drilled down. I sold 527 coasters this year, about 150 less than in 2019. On any given Saturday probably 250 of my images are available as coasters, which is clearly nuts except that I've long held the belief that the one image that a person responds to is the key to a sale, despite the fact that nobody else except me ever gives a damn. So while the top ten coasters, including two ties, account for 43% of coaster sales, they might not be the reason a customer went for the set of four, but only the result of really liking another obscure image. 17% of my images sold just one time, which seems to reinforce that theory. On the other hand, 54% of my coaster images never found a buyer at all this year - they are clearly not pulling their weight, and even I have begun to cannibalize them for the creation of coasters that will actually sell.

                            AN ENCOUNTER IN LADD'S ADDITION : 2022

      PLOVER PANORAMA, NORTH CAROLINA : 2022

I have not bought a new coaster blank for months, which is great since they have gone up by almost 50% - talk about inflation! I actually recommended to the proprietor of one of my art supply stores that they install some defibrillators after I noticed that the felt sheets I used to buy have gone up in price from $.33/sheet to $1.49/sheet! It's a good thing that for some unknown reason I saved bags and bags of the felt trimmings over the years, so that I have not bought a felt sheet in years, and hopefully will not have to for several years to come.

     WILMINGTON COUP MEMORIAL : 2022

      BERLIN'S MEMORIAL TO THE MURDERED JEWS OF EUROPE : B&W CONVERSION OF 2006 PHOTO

Magnets are a subset of coaster sales. For years magnets drove me nuts, since I couldn't rationally decide what should be a coaster and what should be a magnet. Inevitably I chose wrong, leading to customer disappointment. It was only when I became disenchanted and eliminated magnets entirely, (which of course led to unprecedented demand for magnets), that I hit upon the solution. I now convert coasters into magnets while you wait, which lets me charge the highest price in the market for a magnet, while the customers cannot believe I do not charge a premium for the surgery. Even though I only sold 63 magnets this year,more than I thought, that's about a $500.00 in profit since I spent only $10.00 or so on the magnet sheets.

                            SCARY GERMAN GARGOYLE : B&W CONVERSION OF 2006 PHOTO

Another product I sell is also a direct response to my coasters. My "Miniatures" are the same size as coasters, but placed on a thicker wood frame which allows them to stand by themselves in a bookcase or on a table or hang on the wall. Of course the coasters can hang on a wall with a couple of pieces of velcro, but try to monetize that! Believe me, it doesn't work since my customers declare "but they're coasters!" and then graciously email their installations a few months later - on the wall. The mini's started out like gangbusters, but know I only sell about one a week. At least I finally showed some restraint by declaring there would only be one copy per image - but this was countered by my attempt to sell images that were not squares. After all, they were not coasters; but try explaining to me why a 4x4 is cute, but a 4x6 is too small? At least the dozens of disdained 4x6's can now be used as the hidden frames behind my metal prints.

                            THE RED CHAIRS : WILMINGTON, 2022

     MT. HOOD OVER VANCOUVER LAKE : 2022 B&W CONVERSION

Another victory this year was bringing back my small posters. They too were very popular until the 2018 Recession (oh you missed that one? it was true at the market) drove down market prices to the point where my posters, with my name on them, were selling for more than my competitor's matted prints. The posters survived in their bags as packing material for the small metal prints (they still are) until I decided to put them in a box on a table and see if anyone responded. I only sold 17 this year, but that's 17 more than I sold since 2018, and it's all profit. I probably have several years until I actually have to print another one.

                            BAMBURGH BEACH : B&W CONVERSION OF 2008 PHOTO

                            CRATER LAKE #1 : REDISCOVERED AND CROPPED 1994 PHOTO

My books are a total labor of love. I wrote four of them during the Pandemic, and thereupon learned that the only worse economic position than an artist was an author. If I could get these books into Powell's I would lose $1.00 with every sale, and even I realize that you can't make that up in volume. But I do sell about one a month, earning far more for each book, at a fair price, than most authors ever dream of. I'm very proud of them, and I dare say that you won't find another photo book with what Fran calls such "spirited" commentary.

                                                       SHADE HOUSE #1 : 2022

                                                     EASTERN OREGON MONOLITH : REDISCOVERED 1999 PHOTO

Which leaves my metal prints, the biggest source of sales, but also the biggest source of marketing frustration in my booth. These are my big ticket items, which grab the viewer's attention and show off my work better than any other medium that exists in the photographic market today. These prints are exquisite, but they are also very expensive, and inflation isn't helping at all. Thus they are pretty much billboards at this point, drawing customers into the booth but rarely leaving. My dream marketing plan would have me sell one or two each Saturday, but that rarely happens. I only sold 29 metal prints this year, and sold exactly zero of those larger than my smallest 8x8 size. I feel my prices are very fair, if not on the too fair side. And my colleagues, who have all converted to metal after I led the way, sell the larger sizes for some 100's of dollars less that I do. But I watch, and they DON'T sell them either, so lower prices doesn't seem to really matter. I'm at a loss, and I think I must stop bringing my larger metals if only to reduce the enormous time it takes to set up and tear down my gallery. Since they really are beautiful, it's pretty disappointing.

                            VINTAGE CANNON BEACH : A 2016 PHOTO, PROCESSED IN 2022, COULD BE 1942

So there you have my 2022 State of the Market. I remain optimistic but puzzled. One of the things that has kept me enthused this year is this blog. I realize that in some sense I have bitten off more than I can chew, that a blog a week might be too much, but I am still enjoying myself. When other artists say they have a blog, and I discover that they have written a dozen blog posts over four years, I can only shake my head. So I thank everyone for your attention, and hope you are enjoying these musings on my photographic journey. I once again invite you to tell me you are out there. My statistics tell me that on the average more than 200 of you are reading each week, but I have no idea who the vast majority of you are besides my wife, who provides her own "spirited" commentary each week. Happy Holidays, and a Happy New Year.

I'm often asked what kind of photography is my main focus, and over the years I have struggled with this question. The problem is complex; I would like my images to speak for themselves, despite my zeal about writing about my process in creating them. Attempts at characterization run the risk of artistic pretension combined with the feeling that my specialty is unusual enough to just lead to confusion - and that my real specialty is a niche in that already narrow focus. So I will give it another try. I am an urban photographer, in that most of my images are set in urban spaces. I am an urban landscape photographer, since my imagery is certainly in the landscape tradition, minus the beauty of the natural landscape. Since most of my imagery is not in the grand landscape mode, I would then characterize it as intimate urban landscapes and start on the road to descriptive confusion. My photos are certainly not in the "street" tradition, in that the scenes usually do not contain urban inhabitants - but I am beginning to be annoyed at the "no people" designation in one of the photo-sharing websites I contribute to, since I suspect that they think I do not have any friends. And while my photos contain buildings, I wouldn't really describe myself as an architectural photographer since I'm not usually trying to present a "hero shot" of a piece of architecture. The buildings are important in their role in the drama of the city as a whole.

Now that I've confused the issue, I would like to show a half-dozen examples to attempt to clarify my pursuit. They come from Portland, London, and New York, but they really are about the urban condition as a whole. They were taken during the last fifteen years, and there are no people in them (!).

                                                        ORIGINAL SNAPSHOT

This first snapshot was taken on a walk across the Broadway Bridge in Portland. I was interested in the juxtaposition of turn of the century pragmatic engineering with a heroic glass monolith that the bridge's designers couldn't fathom or even anticipate when they built the bridge. "Big Pink" is an icon in Portland, since it is one of our few real towers, standing apart in the skyline, and for God's sake it is pink. I could probably call this "Big Pink #10" and not be far off the mark. So if I am going to take yet another portrait of Big Pink I try to make it a little unusual.

While I said that the bridge structure was pragmatic, it's celebration of the art of the truss verges on the romantic. The joints, like this asymmetrical one involving five girders and wonderful collection of rivets, are almost poetic. When later City Fathers decided to paint the bridge red it only increased the drama.

The final image tries to do a few things. I've lightened the exposure to show off the bridge. I subtly cropped the composition to get rid of the annoying portion of the Koin Tower at the right edge, and to reduce the visual clutter of all those rails on the bridge. Lightroom allowed me to increase the saturation of the blue portions of the sky that were not even there in the original snapshot. Finally, I played with perspective correction tools to try to straighten both Big Pink and the vertical parts of the bridge truss, all to mostly no avail. The camera reveals that the bridge is not really square with the ground, so that this anal architect can have a straight Big Pink, or a straight bridge, but not both.

                                                       LONDON AT DUSK : FINAL VERSION

On to London. I think this scene is on a side street somewhere in the West End, but that is not really important. You would have to be a London Cabbie to convince me that you were certain of the exact location, but it contains enough details -the partial street sign, the stone and brick palate, and the typical church tower in the distance - to say "London." My frame of reference is those two yellow lines near the curb, which denotes the bike lane where I was allowed to ride on the street in 1976. This is Xmas 2008, and despite the lights, the mood was pretty grim.

                                                        ORIGINAL SNAPSHOT

Not as grim as the original exposure, which was probably more realistic considering it's a little past four in December. But I tried to lighten the dark shadows in the street to reveal details and in fact also reveal a little bit of the street lighting and the facades of the buildings forming this lane. Once again I tried to straighten up those buildings and the church tower, which necessitated some more cropping of the foreground.

                                                       LONDON AT DUSK : FINAL B&W VERSION

Somehow this black and white version seems to capture the mood better, even though it reduces the festivities. To each his own.

      ORIGINAL SALMON SPRINGS SNAPSHOT

This snapshot of the Salmon Springs Fountain proves two things - I can take a photo through the windshield while waiting for the light (it's Portland so probably no one blew their horn when I failed to anticipate the green light) and that I can take a photo with a person in it, even if she is obscured by the fountain. Obviously this impromtu shot needs a lot of work, unless you're partial to street signs.

      PANORAMIC CROP 

The panoramic crop focuses our attention on the fountain and emphasizes its width.  I can live with the red chair, but those posts have just got to go.       SALMON SPRINGS PANORAMA : FINAL B&W VERSION

While we're at it, let's get rid of the red chair too. Converting to black and white eliminates the red chair, while the "perfect eraser" removes those posts without any fuss. And its not like their was a whole lot of color in the shot in the first place.

                                                       PARK TABLE AND CHAIRS : ORIGINAL SNAPSHOT

A study in light, shadows, and pattern in an urban park. I can't go back and give the chairs more room, but I can "clean up the area" in such a minimalist composition. And straighten that leaning table post!

                                                       CROPPED AND STRAIGHTENED TABLE AND CHAIRS

I straightened the table and cropped out the mess at the top edge of the photo. When I converted to black and white instead of tan and white, I also got rid of as much litter and gunk as I could - you've got to tidy up!

                                                       TIDIED UP BLACK AND WHITE VERSION

                                                        REFLECTIONS ON PORTLAND : ORIGINAL SNAPSHOT

Another Portland Icon, the Portland sign at the Performing Arts Center. I was intrigued by this natural double exposure which combines a mirror image reflection in the staircase glass of the street scene beyond with a reflection of the staircase itself. Or something like that. Once again, this intriguing image needed just a little less wonk.

                                                        REFLECTIONS ON PORTLAND : FINAL VERSION

Okay, now we are under control, even if we still don't know what is actually going on. A little selective saturation of the aqua sign and the red railings helps things along. Even if I specialize in the "intimate urban landscape", it doesn't mean that I can't approach the surreal.

                                                      WATER STREET : ORIGINAL SNAPSHOT

Sometimes you are just walking along, minding your own business, and the absurdity of urban life smacks you in the face. Which way is one way? Even though Water Street and Dock Street might be perpendicular, how can Dock Street run past Water Street? It is now up to me to not only make you laugh, but to make sure that nothing distracts from the joke.

                            WATER STREET : FINAL VERSION

Time for a coaster. Heighten the contrast on the sign, eliminate most of the lower portion of the image, and most importantly strongly reduce the saturation of the distracting red sign. Even though the wall wasn't red, it also was rendered down to almost nothing when we blunted the sign. Now there is nothing left to look at except the rather confusing directional aids at the intersection.

I hope you have enjoyed these urban explorations. Get out and take a walk, and bring your camera.

While I was on yet another rescue mission in my archives I noticed that a number of the formerly neglected images that I had saved from the trash heap had one common theme. This theme of repetition was apparent despite the widely divergent "subjects" of the photographs. I feel that this compositional device can both draw viewers into the image and serve as an organizing principle that can ground the viewers in your way of seeing. I think of it as a more subtle expression of "leading lines", with volumes or objects or areas of an image repeating across an image and subtly holding it together. Let's look at six images for clues on how you can use this idea in your compositions, both when you are viewing the world and maybe years later when you are wondering what in the heck drew you to taking that photograph in the first place. Post processing allows you to both improve the image in all the usual ways - sharpening, cropping, etc. - and then enhance the image by emphasizing the repetition that you hope the viewer will wrap their brains around.

                                                        CONCRETE WALL : ORIGINAL SNAPSHOT

This first image has all the attractions of a dull concrete wall, the kind of scene that architects like me decried and tried to ban from the urban fabric of Downtown Portland. This doesn't make for a lively cityscape. Even in our miniature city, with it's tiny 200-foot long blocks that promise quick relief no matter how bad the building that is ruining your walk, it is hard to love such a forbidding wall. But the photographer can come to the rescue by seeing the hidden beauty of this landscape! The first thing I did was to adjust the color balance to more accurately reflect the lighting conditions on that day a decade ago. Who am I kidding - I don't remember what that day was like, and I am glad that a detective is not interrogating me about it. But the shadows on the wall hinted that it was a little sunny out, and these shadows "allowed" me to pretend that that the photograph was taken in the shade. This warmed up the scene considerably, and if the concrete is not exactly "golden", it is certainly more attractive. But the real reason I was suddenly intrigued by the photograph was the repetitive vertical lines of the concrete panels that drew my eye down the street. Since the image was now all bout those lines, this anal photographer had to correct the verticals by straightening the center vertical panel line. This is easier than actually warping the perspective, but in this case it worked like a charm, and even the line next to the right edge of the frame is no longer wonky. All that was left to do was to lighten the exposure a little, but increase the contrast so that the lines would rule the composition by becoming true black. A very nice side benefit was that this also brought out the slanting light and shadow of the sunlight against the concrete as another repetitive element in the image.

      THE QUEEN'S STEPS : ORIGINAL SNAPSHOT

If my art can enliven a dull wall, what about a series of stone steps? I was drawn to these scalloped terraces near Buckingham Palace in just the way that the designer had hoped. It was now up to me to heighten that sense of repetition that I felt. The square crop was one way to eliminate the pesky human legs in the upper right corner, and I moved it around the original shot to find the right combination of repetitive scallops that would please my eye. Of course there are dozens more, and maybe a horizontal crop would even be better, but a man's got to sell coasters doesn't he?

                            THE KING'S STEPS, 15 YEARS LATER : FINAL VERSION

The levels are now foreshortened, the blue cast has been eliminated, and sharpening has brought out the textures and solidity of the steps. They are beautiful, but you certainly wouldn't want to take a tumble if you don't watch your step, so to speak.

                                                        PEARL TOWER : ORIGINAL SNAPSHOT

On to facade graphics. I was intrigued by the overwhelming repetitive nature of these balconies climbing up the exterior of a Pearl District condo tower, complete with a perfect reflection in the mirror glass that only added to the graphic nature of the image. Upon investigation, the overall blue tint was actually not really out of line with the actual light of that afternoon. Mirror glass will reflect a rare blue sky, after all. As a retired architect, I don't usually enjoy tilted buildings, but in this case I thought it useful to emphasize the height of the tower by getting the most I could get with my standard lens. Portland towers suffer from our urban design codes in that they most often resemble the base of the skyscrapers we are used to in other larger cities - they just aren't tall enough, especially for a New Yorker.

                                                                     PEARL TOWER : FINAL VERTICAL PANORAMA

Your framing can certainly emphasize the image's proportions, so I converted the conventional vertical frame into a 2:1 vertical panorama to further heighten the visual experience. Sharpening and increasing the contrast brought out the divisions in the glass curtain wall and darkened these lines to continue the repetitive dance across the entire facade beyond the balconies. I finally slightly lightened the overall exposure and lowered the exposure of the triangular piece of blue sky to further define the building's lines.

                                                                     PEARL TOWER VERTICAL PANORAMA : FINAL B&W VERSION

You want graphics, I'll give you graphics! By eliminating the blue, the black and white version further emphasizes the lines and sun/shadow interface that is now the entire image. I don't know which version is my favorite, but it is interesting that the black and white version finally allows the viewer to really see that balconies don't bite into the building - the "column" holding them up is actually another mullion in the curtain wall.

      GERDING THEATER LOBBY INSTALLATION : ORIGINAL SNAPSHOT

                            GERDING THEATER 4 X 4 : FINAL VERSION

These next two images show that you as the artist get to control the repetition even when another artist has set it up for you. This first photo is of an art installation in the lobby of Portland's Gerding Theater. The red glass squares set into the stone wall, with their lamps mimicking candles, are certainly striking and repetitive. But I get to show the extent of the pattern that I like, so the reality of 63 or so squares is first reduced to six and finally to four, because four squares fit the square coaster. You decide if I've gone too far.

                                                       ELLIS ISLAND WINDOWS : ORIGINAL SNAPSHOT

                            ELLIS ISLAND WINDOWS : FINAL VERSION

These are two versions of the same image. The original snapshot of the windows at the Grand Hall at Ellis Island attracted me because I love patterns and the silhouettes I can make through exposure modifications to emphasize those patterns. The final result increased the contrast to emphasize the repetitive frames of the beautiful windows. The square crop also eliminated the reality of the badly proportioned square fragments at the edge, along with the vintage radiator in front of the windows. I subtly did some work on the exterior view to heighten the fall foliage, downplay the yellow railing, and allow the viewer to be more aware of the Empire State Building beyond.

                                                       TANNER SPRINGS #2 : ORIGINAL SNAPSHOT

We will end this essay on repetition by showing another segment of an artistic repetition that I can make my own. Just because another artist has provided me with a work of art doesn't mean that I can't interpret it in my art. This railroad rail sculpture in Portland's Pearl District snakes along the edge of an entire city block, and is meant to hearken back to the neighborhood's former existence as a giant rail yard. This snapshot shows just a tiny portion of the sculpture in the afternoon sun. I carefully framed the scene to use the trees as a background to screen the buildings beyond the park. But when I viewed the photograph last week, five years after capture, I was dissatisfied with the deep shadows obscuring the bottom of the frame. I will now show two ways to eliminate those shadows, and you can decide which one is more successful - based on the idea of emphasizing the repetitive quality of the sculpture that originally caused me to press the shutter button.

                                                       EXPOSURE FIX ELIMINATES DISTRACTING SHADOW

I raised the shadows in a realistic fashion in the bottom third of the frame to eliminate the shadow's distraction from the subject at hand, the repetitive railroad rails, and it certainly helps.

                            CROPPING ELIMINATES DISTRACTING SHADOW : FINAL VERSION?

But what if I eliminate the shadow by just cropping it out? I am not sure which way is the answer. While the rails' height and proportions are certainly diminished by the square crop, in a funny way their repetitive nature is emphasized by what is now a more horizontal sequence across the square frame. I'm still debating this, and you can certainly disagree with me without being wrong.

Without repeating myself, I hope that you have enjoyed this discussion of repetition in photographic composition and try to integrate it into your own photographic journey. Repeat after Me!

CHINESE RED

This week I thought that I would celebrate Thanksgiving by taking a look at some photos that I had created in the last 15 years at around this time of year, the tail end of November. In looking through the archives, I had the usual problems of misplaced images, but I did manage to find about ten images that fit this Thanksgiving criteria. And as usual I also discovered one image that deserved to be rescued from the murky depths of the archives - now I just have make sure that it doesn't disappear again now that it has been anointed as a "keeper."

                            LAN-SU POND : FINAL VERSION

I've agreed in the past that Ansel Adams was correct when he cited a ratio of 1 keeper out of 100 photos taken as a realistic goal to shoot for when heading out for a photo excursion. While this might seem depressing, it does free up some room for experimentation, and reinforces the belief that we are in this for the experience, the process of taking and creating images, rather than for the rare result of a winner. Getting outside, and learning our art, really provides most of the excuse we need to try once again in the face of the fact that most of our results will not measure up to our own standards. In regards to the 1/100 ratio we've discussed, it is interesting that the oft-cited rule that a real education requires 10,000 hours, or in this case 10,000 photos, that the results of such an effort would yield a nice portfolio of 100 images - which would be more than enough to justify the pursuit.

                            LAN-SU WEEPING WILLOW : FINAL VERSION

So imagine my shock when in investigating my Thanksgiving work over the years I uncovered two very interesting statistics. The first did not surprise me in the least - the paucity of images from late November. Portland, Oregon is not known for its great weather in late Fall, and I'm not alone in feeling that there is nothing as nasty as rain and 42 degrees, even though it's not a blizzard. It's not invigorating "football weather" either, so it did not surprise me when there were not that many images in the archives from late November. On the other hand, in the space of ten days at the end of November in 2009, I captured six images that rank among the best I have ever created - a run of imagery that resembles an undefeated college football team vying for the playoffs. Four of these images were taken on the same day, which I now realize was probably my best day ever as an artist.

THE PATH                             LAN-SU GARDEN WALK : FINAL VERSION

These first four images were taken on one trip to the Lan-Su Chinese Garden on November 21, 2009. I obviously was having a very good day artistically, and after ten years of further visits to to the Garden I probably have not created much better imagery than on that day. The garden's beauty obviously didn't hurt, but I can honestly say that after taking and seeing hundreds of fine photographs of the Garden, these are pretty damn good. More importantly, they exhibit the qualities that run through my work - they are obviously my take on the Garden, and fit in with my best work, whatever the subject. When viewed in my tent in the Market, they are exemplary examples of my "photographic voice".

The first image is just such a "Rich"photo. It is a beautiful Japanese Maple, on the best day of its life. It takes up so much of the frame that it doesn't matter that I did not include the whole tree. Further inspection of the image might reveal its surroundings, including the pond just behind it, but the tree is almost the idea of a tree, or at least a Japanese Maple. It only adds to my pride in the fact that "My Tree" is not "The Tree" which is such a popular photographic subject that people must wait on line in order to capture the same image that they have seen thousands of times before.

The second image is of one of the iconic buildings in the Garden. I am very proud of what I didn't include in my tight framing - the only really bad detail in the Garden - the ugly concrete bridges that lead to this island, as well as the exceedingly blase office building rising above the pavilion. This building which i managed to ignore is in fact one of the few hints in the Garden that you are actually in Portland and not in China.

The third image is even more "quiet", but I did grab another great reflection while appreciating the skill the Garden's designers in placing four different foliage types and some crazy rocks in such a small space. I'm a sucker for weeping willows, and yellow is one of my favorite colors.

The fourth image is one of my favorites, since it combines my love of craftsmanship with a bent toward the abstract. Viewers are frequently very confused by what they are admiring, which some imagine as an aerial shot of some ancient city. Almost all of the Garden's pathways are paved in rocks imported from China, placed by artisans in a concrete base between slate borders. Each garden room has its own design.This is a detail of the "Garden of Cracked Ice". I thought that I could increase the abstraction by not including any hints of what surrounds this beautiful floor. Another level of abstraction is achieved in that while this is a color photo - note those radioactive leaves - I have increased the contrast to such a high level that the  brown stone floor is now rendered in near black to almost white.

FALLEN LEAVES                             FALLEN GINGKO LEAVES : FINAL VERSION

The Garden is so beautiful that even it's debris is worthy of photographic attention. These fallen Gingko leaves, somewhere between orange and yellow, covered the planting strip outside the Garden's perimeter wall. The viewer has no idea whether this pattern extends for another few feet or only another few inches. The reality of the situation was that any less of an intensive view would have revealed that this was just a pile of leaves on the street and that I was sitting on a fire hydrant. Art is not reality.

MERCY REFLECTIONS       REFLECTIONS ON NATURE : FINAL VERSION

As it happens, within a few days I captured another two of my most admired images. This first is of a reflection of a tree in the glass facade of the Mercy Corps headquarters building across from Saturday Market. It is a straight shot - all I did was crop to eliminate any building edges and turn the green shade of glass, which I hate, to a more pleasing gray by rendering the image in black and white. It says something about our photographic moment in that most viewers think that this is a triumph of my post-processing technique; they think that this is a composite, which each portion of the tree placed skillfully by yours truly in the spaces of the grid. My artistic skill of actual observation and composition is only revealed when I draw their attention to the tree and the building across the street.

CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF LANTERNS       CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF LANTERNS : FINAL VERSION

I then went to a Chinese art exhibit at the Portland Art Museum. The exhibit was okay, but the Chinese lanterns placed over the sculpture court were absolutely beautiful and pretty surreal in contrast with the stolid brick of the museum beyond. My tight crop which neglected any of the sculptures and the edge of the museum beyond further contributes to the weird atmosphere of the image. By the way, those two slits in the obscured-glass wall that separates the interior sculpture court from the public pedestrian walkway beyond are my only contribution to the architecture of Downtown Portland. I insisted that the public deserved some glimpses of the sculpture through the block-long wall, and in a rare show of good sense the powers-that-be actually agreed with me.

                                                       SATURDAY MARKET : FOR GOD'S SAKE, TAKE THE PICTURE!

                            SATURDAY MARKET : COASTER

That same week at the Market it finally occurred to me (duh!) that it might be a good idea to include a Saturday Market image as a coaster to sell  to visitors at the Market! I patiently waited to cross the street and took this wobbly snapshot that eventually became the image below. Sometimes a smaller portion of a photograph clearly says more than the actual scene you captured in the moment.

     LONE TREE : ORIGINAL SNAPSHOT

A few days later Fran dragged me out for one of her forays into obscure natural areas surrounding Portland that she finds on the Web. She finds Nature Preserves without wildlife and her specialty, wetlands without water. We always have a good time despite the false advertising. This noble tree stood alone, with not a bird in sight. In my search for Thanksgiving imagery, I couldn't believe that I had neglected this tree.

     LONE TREE : FINAL PANORAMA VERSION

I adjusted the tonal values of the sky and the foreground grasses, opening up the shadows but still leaving the silhouette of the tree intact. I tried for my usual 2:1 wide crop to emphasize the extent of the tree and to reduce the foreground, but it was too tight. For this shot the slightly more open 16:9 crop gave me the surroundings I needed. I usually avoid the 16:9 ratio which I feel is totally arbitrary since it is based on the proportions of your wide screen television. I don't see what that has to do with photography, so I usually just go with 18:9, but there you go.

      LONE TREE : FINAL B&W VERSION

Faced with muted colors, I invariably reach for a black and white conversion. I like the mood of this version a little better, and it allows me to add a little more sharpening for more detail and darken the tree for a more graphic rendition.

                                                        THE MUSE, ON THE TRAIL : FINAL VERSION

So sometimes it does seem that a particular time and place can lead to an artistic winning streak. While I am always grateful for our life in such a beautiful environment, and for Saturday Market which has allowed me a unique venue to exhibit and sell my art, it goes without saying that Fran, my biggest supporter, in every sense of the term, has allowed me the space to pursue my artistic journey. On this Thanksgiving I once again reserve most of my thanks to her.

This week I would like to take you on a short walk through Portland's Japanese Garden. We finally had "football weather" yesterday, clear, sunny, and cold so I finally got out on a photo excursion with my friend Al. The Garden was absolutely spectacular, probably only a week past peak fall foliage, and the tourists were out in droves. This was my first visit to the Garden since Covid, so I really enjoyed the walk despite the cold. What's funny about Portland micro climates is that Fall is so late this year that the trees on my block or at the Saturday Market site at Waterfront Park have not even begun to turn color at all, while the higher elevation of the Garden finally let me see some Fall colors. I renewed my membership at the Garden after I realized that like a lot of other activities, I had not been there in three years.

Portland's Japanese Garden is nearly 60 years old and is thought to be the most authentic Japanese garden outside of Japan itself. The plantings, design, and details at the garden are so wonderful that a visit can elevate your opinion of the human race as a whole, which goes a long way in these trying times. I'm going to highlight six photos from this latest visit, to illustrate how relatively easy it is to come away from such a visit with memorable images - even if they are not on the greatest hits list at the postcard stand at the gift shop. This is my visit, or your visit after all, and your photos should reflect what actually moved you at the garden. After many years, not only have I have versions of these usual suspects, but I have multiple versions, so my interests have to focus on different takes on the garden. These six images were selected from about sixty photos that I captured yesterday, and each was enhanced by only a few minutes of post processing.

      ENTRANCE FOUNTAIN : ORIGINAL SNAPSHOT

This first image was literally taken while standing on line at the entrance to the Garden. The most recent renovations and additions to the Garden completely reshaped and enhanced the entry sequence up the hill to the new cultural exhibits, gift shop, cafe and courtyard which gives the garden the entry it always deserved. The design and detailing of this new "Cultural Crossing" by renowned architect Kengo Kuma is enough to take your breath away and wonder about what can be accomplished by an architect when price is no object. My editing brought more attention to the leaves caught in the fountain, and enhanced the colors through both saturation controls and bring down the exposure, which has enhanced saturation since slide film days.

                                    COLOR THROUGH THE TREES : FINAL VERSION

This image didn't need much help beyond the usual sharpening and raising the shadows in the foreground. My framing of this view on the entrance path up the hill had already solved most of the problems with woodland (or garden) photos, by restricting the sky to a very small part of the image. Now your attention is focused on the color beyond the trees instead of the bright sky which always compete with what you are actually trying to show the viewer.

                                                        ROCK IN POOL : ORIGINAL SNAPSHOT

This is an example of a "quiet image" whose discovery can thrill me after I have walked by the greatest hits, or the dozens of photographers who are taking photos of said greatest hit. "The Tree", made famous in the National Geographic, is just around the corner overlooking this same pond. The path up there is divided so that visitors can get around the line of photographers and their tripods who are allocated ten minutes each to get the shot. Since it was a week after peak, and not soon after sunrise, there was no point in taking another shot. But this rock caugt muy attention for the first time, mostly because of the leaves collecting in the water around it.

                                                        ROCK IN POOL : FINAL VERSION

I hope you agree that I have improved the image without going so far that it now lacks credibility. The slight crop naturally enlarges the rock by eliminating some boredom to the left and top of the original. More important is the adjusted color balance which eliminates a frightful blue shift apparent once you have adjusted it - sometimes our brains, which adjust colors on their own, can ignore an obvious color shift that our stupid cameras cannot ignore. Some subtle saturation to only the relevant colors bring out the orange leaves around the rock. But I am most proud of all of the subtle brushing that lightened the star rock while darkening the rocks behind it. This dodging and burning, just like in the darkroom, is so subtle that you almost can't see it while you are manipulating the controls. It's only after you compare before and after that you can see the dramatic, but hopefully "invisible" results of all your work.

                                                        WINDING STAIR : ORIGINAL SNAPSHOT

Don't throw anything away. Just because you grossly underexposed a shot in camera, rendering what might be a nice composition into a muddy mess, doesn't mean you cannot redeem yourself later. I probably committed such an error only because I was contemplating how far I now had to climb back up the hill.

                                                        WINDING STAIR : FINAL VERSION

Now you can see what caused me to take the shot in the first place. I raised the exposure a full stop overall, and then went to work on the shadows of the stonework on the left. I then painted back the exposure of those two sunny steps at the bottom which had gotten too bright and drew you attention away from the lovely curve of the stair. Its this kind of attention to detail that can make your heart sing on a walk through the Garden.

                                                        WOW : ORIGINAL SNAPSHOT

Okay, the Garden is at the top of a hill in Washington Park, and of course you deserve a view from the Garden. In Portland, a view means the Mountain, which might not appear when you most want to see it. This snapshot needs some work to make it deserve its subject.

                           WOW : FINAL VERSION

You can argue with the square crop, but I've got to sell coasters. I would have needed to erase the overhanging tree in any case. I shifted the color balance a little from the original blue, and lowered the exposure of the sky to balance it with the foreground. I then painted it back to brighten the mountain, which is nicely covered with snow after a very dry Summer. You might not care, but as a retired architect I had to straighten the towers so they would not fall down. I finally lightened the shadows in the foreground to bring out the tree and prove it was Autumn.

                            PORTLAND PARADISE : FINAL VERSION

We are our own toughest critics. I've obviously been here before, and have sold many  coasters of this image. Which one is better? Does it even matter? They are not different enough that they can both "survive", but we must compare and contrast. The Autumn tree is an obvious improvement, I guess, but I somehow like the bluer sky even if it is less realistic. A subtle shift in perspective - probably only ten feet to the right - has now revealed some irrelevant buildings to the left, but has eliminated the disorderly base of the taller tower. Does the improvement in the tree make up for the intriguing colors in the windows of the tower? I probably will take another stab at the new image and bring back some of the blue in the sky. Frequently I only can really stop working on an image when I show Fran the final two versions. When she questions my sanity while declaring that they really are the same - then I know that I've probably reached an end point, at least for today.

      THE VIEW OFF THE PORCH : ORIGINAL SNAPSHOT

I have taken this image many times. It is almost impossible not to respond to this artful arrangement of dozens of beautiful trees of all shapes, colors, and sizes across the pond of white sand.  The Fall colors only add to the scene. What was interesting was that for the first time since I have been going to the Garden in the last thirty years, the traditional garden pavilion was actually open when I stood on this porch.

     THE VIEW OFF THE PORCH : FINAL VERSION

Now we have a picture! Some very judicious cropping has tightened up the composition, but the composition has come alive by allowing the colors to shine, by virtually, but realistically, screaming Autumn! What is interesting is that this again is mostly accomplished by removing that pesky blue tint, most apparent in the now white sand. And when you have such a perfect scene as this one, you must spend a little time cleaning up the sand by eliminating any debris that has encroached on the sand since the staff cleaned it this morning.

I hope you have enjoyed this short virtual visit to the Garden. The most important reason we should attempt to create images of wonders like this garden is that it provides yet another excuse for going there for the first time, or the fiftieth time. The search for a new take on what is for me a very familiar but wonderful subject provided me an excuse for an engaging day with a friend, far more important than any image I might capture at the same time.

This week I'd like to make a return trip to Dartmoor, at least through the magic of Lightroom. I've been fortunate to have visited this extraordinary National Park in Southwest England twice, alone in 1976 and with Fran in 2009. For this city boy it is one of the most wonderful landscapes I have ever encountered, wild but not wilderness. This 30-mile square patch of moorland has successfully resisted human occupation and improvement for over 2000 years, even though it is the midst of England's "green and pleasant land." There are only two roads that cross the moor, meeting at the United Kingdom's highest security prison, which is not that fortified at all. Unless you have a getaway car or helicopter waiting outside the prison walls, you will almost certainly die trying to cross the moorland at night. It's that forbidding. The only thing that seems to have changed in the years since my last visit is that you can now watch videos of hikers who walk across the moor in one day, since it is only 30 miles across, but I certainly don't think it's for the faint of heart. For the usual visitor, an excursion around the moor, skirting its edges, is more than enough to get the flavor without the risk. While there are some picturesque villages on the edge of the moor, there is nothing between them, and you might never see another car as you wander about.

While I frequently misplace images in my archives, I very rarely delete them. For one thing the neighboring images provide clues as I search for the mislaid files; but they also provide the opportunity to revisit the day I captured the original images more than a decade ago. I am frequently taken aback at the quality of the images that I have ignored all this time. We are so determined to find the "best" image of the day that we overlook other shots that deserve another look. The opportunity of hindsight, fond memories, and the advent of new software technologies allows you to realize that your new skills can transform the original snapshots you ignored into images that you can be proud of. While they might not be the original "keepers", how else can I walk around Dartmoor again without traveling 6000 miles to get there?

      ON THE EDGE OF THE MOOR : ORIGINAL SNAPSHOT

This first shot is a lot better than most that will follow. It's certainly a little dull, but nothing to be ashamed of, taken from the side of the road. It gives a hint of the emptiness beyond the road - but the final image shows the benefits of a panoramic crop that eliminates most of the dull sky and foreground that adds nothing to the scene. The usual sharpening required of digital images reveals the texture of the moor that dissuades casual exploration even before the ground gives way to the wilderness beyond. Judicious dodging and burning of the rolling landscape beyond brings out the details and reveals the variations in that landscape that encouraged me to stop in the first place. As usual the idea is to create some "pop" without losing the feeling of the original reality that the viewer can believe in. You are the ultimate judge.

     DARTMOOR TOR : ORIGINAL SNAPSHOT

One of the features of the landscape of the moor are the occasional rocky outcroppings that can provide the only guide posts as you attempt to cross the forbidding landscape. This is a rare example right off the road. While there are cairns that are landmarks left by hikers who died way before you were born, it is obvious that no humans moved these rocks. They are the rocks underlying the entire area which have appeared above the surface, and grow more prominent as the surrounding soils are laid down and eroded. This being England, of course the 360 known Tors in Dartmoor have been mapped and named, for posterity.

     GET CLOSER! DARTMOOR TOR : FINAL VERSION

Lightroom allows me to get closer to the real subject, without losing all of the sky, through a crop that highlights the subject without losing all of the context. But the real heavy lifting on this image was to lift the shadows below the rocks and to sharpen the image to reveal the texture and details in the boulders themselves.

     MOOR CHURCH : ORIGINAL SNAPSHOT

One of the villages at the edge of the moor had a splendid church, mysteriously grand for the village while fitting in with the grand landscape beyond. My original snapshot concentrated on the tower but still included too much of the surroundings I was trying to ignore.

                     MOOR CHURCH : FINAL IMAGE

This vertical crop left out the confusing roof tops on the right of the original image. In addition sharpening brought out the details of the church tower, and a "Sunshine " filter reinforced the sunlight on the tower without blowing out the sky. Noise reduction software reduced the digital noise present in the sky.

                                            MOOR CHURCH : FINAL B&W VERSION

This image gained a lot of "mood" in this black and white variation. While I miss the warm masonry, the sky is very much more interesting than the color version. The contrast in this sky would not be realistic in color.

     WILD HORSES ON THE MOOR : ORIGINAL SNAPSHOT

Dartmoor's lack of human habitation has allowed a distinctive form of wild horses to thrive on the moor for thousands of years. My original snapshot from the road captures the environment but neglects the real subject. The sky is completely blown out. The photo also illustrates the problem of "two" of anything, since the two horses compete for your attention - odd numbers are almost always better, for some reason that brain research has still not answered.

                           WILD HORSE ON THE MOOR : FINAL VERSION

I'm still too far away, but at least there is only one horse, and you can begin to appreciate the heather as much as the horse does. The contrast in the scene has drastically improved,  and the feeling of desolation has not been lessened by the absence of a featureless sky.

     BACK-LIT WILD HORSE : ORIGINAL SNAPSHOT

This original snapshot illustrates the truism that it is perfectly possible to belittle your photographic efforts because after all, you are not a nature photographer. Well, I'm not, but this isn't half bad, and it does have some nice back lighting. It just need a little help.

      BACK-LIT WILD HORSE : FINAL VERSION

The image has now gotten the attention it deserves. Stretching the white and black points has enriched the image without raising the exposure - the scene is brighter, and the increased contrast has really brought out the tree, as has the sharpening overall. The back lighting is still there, but the horse is now black and white rather than gray and white. Dodging and burning, which involves darkening the darker areas on the hill while lightening the lighter areas, has enlivened the background. This tactic is so subtle that I can't even appreciate it all while I am doing it - the brush, set at 10%, doesn't seem to be having an effect. It's only when you toggle before and after that you see how much it really changes the image.

     MOOR OVERVIEW : ORIGINAL SNAPSHOT

Finally we have the most dramatic transformation. Don't throw anything away! This snapshot was so underexposed that it is a wonder that I just didn't hit delete. It had nothing to do with the scene in front of me, but the raw file's hidden information allows you to overcome your initial miscalculation.

     CORRECT THE EXPOSURE

Now you can see why I stopped to take the photograph. The sunlit hill is glorious, and there is now both a foreground and a background where there was just murk.

      MOOR OVERVIEW : FINAL VERSION

Now that we have an actual photograph we can work on the image. The panoramic crop loses some sky and a lot of foreground along with the inconsequential horses. And even though the moorland is not flat, "correcting" the horizon just feels better even if it is not strictly correct. Lightening the shadow areas and adding some "sun" to the sunlit areas adds to the richness of the scene. Sharpening helps both the textures on the hill and defines the fields beyond it.

These six images are prime examples of the value in not throwing anything away. Storage is getting cheaper all of the time, and nobody else will ever delve into your archives, so at least take a look every once in a while to see if there is anything there that can whet your interest. You will most certainly not regret it.

This week I would like to continue my discussion of finding images within images by exploring the idea of creating new images of such small pieces of existing images that they could be considered macro photos, after the fact. These drastic crops allow you to explore imagery that relates to your original image but that is such a different scale that it could possibly constitute an entirely new photograph. These new images allow you to explore different aspects of the scene that were just not available at the time you captured the image - and might be considered a different composition based on a lens that was not on your camera at the time. Software innovations allow us to seemingly acquire new photographic hardware, years after the fact, without reaching for our charge cards at the camera store.

I have recently acquired two new software plug-ins from a Portland company called On One that make these radical crops possible. They both use Artificial Intelligence to improve on existing programs, and are probably the best of their kind, at least until another company inevitably improves on them. These programs try to deal with two problems that come up when you try to enlarge photos without reducing them to a pixilated mess. Enlarging is essentially what you are doing when you radically crop a photo - you are taking what was a small part of your original image and throwing away a good portion of the pixels in the original image.

Any digital noise in the image, which is the digital equivalent of film grain (but not as aesthetically pleasing to us old film guys, even though we didn't really like grain either), will only be heightened in the the smaller "negative." On One "AI Noise" is essentially a miracle - it can almost completely clean up the noisiest digital image, without the usual problems of just rendering it a fuzzy, jelly remnant of its formally sharp self. It works so well that sometimes it cleans up images that you didn't realize were noisy in the first place, so running every digital image through this program as a first move before doing anything else is not a bad idea at all - especially when you will be doing some heavy cropping.

On One AI Resize is a new generation of enlarging programs which allow you to enlarge an image way beyond the size possible using the native resolution of your camera. Any digital photo (or film photo for that matter) has a native enlargement ratio based on the laws of physics and math.  In the days of film, the size of the negative basically determined how large an enlargement, with good detail, that you could achieve, assuming you could find photo paper that large anyway. An 8x10 camera produced an 8x10 negative, which did not require any enlargement  to create an 8x10 print. A 35 mm negative required an 8x enlargement for the same 8x10, so it couldn't possibly hold as much detail in the resultant print. The same physical constraints exist in digital printing, which is why digital camera sensors have increased in resolution from 3 megapixels to sometimes 100 megapixels in the last twenty years. Camera companies of course engaged in an arms race, based on the promise of prints of ginormous sizes that no one could afford and place in their homes. My fourteen-year old camera's 18 megapixel sensor is considered antiquated, but thatbsensor is powerful enough to produce prints so large that you couldn't afford them even if I did not make any money when I sold them to you.

But that is not really the point of the megapixel race, if you desire to heavily crop your images - remember that you are throwing away those very pixels you just paid good money for. So it pays to have 40 megapixels if you are just going to use 1/4 of the "negative" - you will still have 10 megapixels of information, while my camera is reduced to about 4 megapixels. While I still could produce a coaster, anything larger would be problematic. Resize software attempts to solve this problem by literally creating new pixels to give you more to work with - algorithms determine that within reason, that next created pixel would probably be pretty close to the existing one. Of course this is an educated computer guess, and the claims that you can now enlarge your file to 10x the size are overblown - but 4 or 5 times is well within reach. In theory this allows you to take 1/4 of your photo, and now enlarge it to the size that the larger photo could achieve, without any noticeable loss of detail. Now for the big reveal.

                            ART DECO ORNAMENT : FINAL VERSION

The original image of one of Portland's finest Art Deco department stores is already a small detail of the overall facade, a storm design in a rare black Terra Cotta facade. Terra Cotta was a very popular early Twentieth Century material, a ceramic substitute for stone that severely reduced construction time and costs without  restricting creativity. If you look at the bottom left corner of the original sculptural panel, you will find this flower - and now you can explore it in intimate detail. I'm not saying this is "better" than the original image, but it certainly offers something very new from the original photo. You can almost feel the clay in the hands of the craftsman.

                            SPACE NEEDLE #2 : FINAL VERSION

My take on an overall view of the Seattle landmark is already somewhat of a miracle, mostly due that great Seattle sky and the detail my telephoto lens could hold even from the deck of a moving ferry. But what if you wanted to just concentrate on the top of the Needle?

                            SPACE NEEDLE SUMMIT : FINAL VERSION

Yes, there is still a little noise in the sky, but you can count the number of people on the platform, which is kind of incredible. Only a telescope could get any closer.

PURPLE & GREEN                             HEUCHAERA LEAF : FINAL VERSION

This is a more conventional macro shot, of a beautifully variegated leaf. While it is not "macro" in the traditional sense of achieving a 1:1 ratio between the subject and the size of the image, this shot is pretty damn close and contains lots of detail. Now software can let me "buy" that macro lens I cannot afford.

PURPLE & GREEN                             HEUCHERA LEAF DETAIL : FINAL VERSION

If you have ever felt a Heuchera leaf at your local garden store, you now that's not digital noise, but "fuzz" - look at the edges of the leaf. There is no noise in the black background, and noise is always more apparent in the the darker tones of an image.

                            BIG ISLAND TREE : FINAL VERSION

This Hawaiian landscape is one small section of one of the Big Island's beautiful beaches on the dry side of the island. I focused on the lone tree on this thin outcropping which served to separate this beach from the resort beyond. This image was already a crop of the larger horizontal original, but I wanted to see what a closer crop would look like.

                            LONE TREE, BIG ISLAND : FINAL VERSION

Get closer! This closer crop is all about the tree. The sea loses it's "distracting" waves, and the closer crop even required erasing a lone figure that I hadn't even seen before lurking behind the tree.

STATUE OF LIBERTY 1                            LADY LIBERTY : FINAL VERSION

This has been my take on the Statue of Liberty ever since I went on the ferry ten years ago. It's already cropped, but would it gain some power by cropping even closer?

STATUE OF LIBERTY 1                             DETAILS ONLY BIRDS GET TO SEE : FINAL VERSION

This proves you can create a macro shot of the largest copper-hammered statue in the world. I would suggest that the last humans to see this level of detail were the sculptor and the workmen who erected this marvel. Any plane flying this close would risk a look-see from the Air Force.

                                             FILMER'S COUNTER : ORIGINAL CROP

                                             FULMER'S COUNTER : CLOSER CROP

Finally, we can see how these software tools have allowed me to improve this image, in my humble opinion. I noticed the reflections on the counter through a storefront window at a venerable downtown diner. It was pretty dark, and the resultant photograph certainly contained a lot of noise. I also managed to focus on the second set of shakers rather than the first, which was now out of focus. My new software has eliminated almost all of the noise, and enlarging the photo to crop even closer has eliminated that first place setting. The entire image now appears sharper even though it really isn't, and the image is now more about the reflections rather than the line of empty place settings.

These close crops are not for everyone, but I hope you can see how they can open up whole new worlds within your existing images. Once again, we can see that the click of the shutter is not the last time you get to create an image - it is just the first.

This week I would like to show how you can usually find a few more good images within an exemplary image. This process of cropping to discover several new versions of the original photo is based on two basic theories of photographic composition. The first is that the framing of an image - what you include and what you leave out of the frame - is critical to your interpretation of the scene in front of you. This continues after you make an initial crop, because that frame is not the last word either. The use of different aspect ratios - the ratio between the horizontal and vertical dimensions of an image - can also completely change the way a viewer can interpret a scene. The second theory of composition that is one of my particular touchstones is to "get closer." My way of seeing is based on the idea that an image's impact will increase the closer you are to the real subject of the image. The admonition to "get closer" rules your cropping strategy until you have obviously gotten too close and lost all context for your subject. These two different cropping strategies will reappear in the variants I will show you of half a dozen or so images, most over a decade old. The fact that I am "used to" one way of cropping an image doesn't mean that another way will always be inferior. These different interpretations have intrinsic value in that they can break you out of the box, if you forgive the pun. The alternatives do not have to blow your mind either - your original decisions might still be the best.

The confession I have to make before we proceed is that in looking over my archives I have rediscovered two truths about my imagery. While I always say that a good landscape contains two or three other good images, I have realized that my particular way of seeing - a tight frame around a graphic image - actually makes that truism not as true for yours truly. The other aspect of my imagery that makes it tougher to find additional images is that contrary to most photographers, I usually frame my images vertically; this makes it harder to find interior images because the images do not contain as much breathing space as the more typical horizontal landscape. Yet I did still discover images within my images. Let's explore.

                                                       HADRIAN'S WALL : ORIGINAL

This first image was captured on a very cold day on the border between England and Scotland. Hadrian's wall stretched across the north of  Roman Britain, from the Irish Sea to the North Sea to preserve civilization from the depredations of the primitive Scots to the North, who had never been conquered by the Romans. The analogies to the Game of Thrones are more than obvious. The wall still stands today, complete with fortifications every few miles or so; it used to be a lot taller only because the dust of two thousand years has raised the ground level around it. My original square crop of the original image obviously helped for several reasons, as did exposure tweaks. The square crop eliminates the unkempt snow on my side of the wall as a good portion of unexciting overcast sky.

      HADRIAN'S WALL, SNAKING THROUGH THE LANDSCAPE TO THE HILLS BEYOND

      HADRIAN'S WALL PANORAMA

                            HADRIAN'S WALL, UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL

Here are three new interpretations. The first ignores the nearest portion of the wall in favor of the snaking portions in the distance. The second leaves out the mountains and that boring sky completely. Both use a panoramic 1:2 aspect ratio to emphasize the wide extent of the wall. The third square crop concentrates on the texture of the wall itself and the incredible skill of its builders on the edge of known civilization. Again, different doesn't necessarily mean better or worse, just different. In case you aren't feeling cold enough, see what the black and white version does to your bloodstream.

                            A BITTERLY COLD DAY AT HADRIAN'S WALL

We now move South to London, to Horse Guards Parade, which might be familiar from the Queens funeral. This parade ground is literally where the Horse Guards strut their stuff behind Whitehall in the center of the capital.

     HORSE GUARDS PARADE : ORIGINAL

                           HORSE GUARDS PARADE : FINAL VERSION

                            HORSE GUARDS PARADE : BLACK AND WHITE

The square crop of the original snapshot is a vast improvement in my humble opinion, as the extra room on the right doesn't add anything to the composition; leaving it out also puts more emphasis on the surreal appearance of the London Eye in the distance. I can't decide whether I like the color or the black and white version better.

      HORSE GUARDS PARADE : THE PEDESTRIAN EXPERIENCE

                            LONDON JUXTAPOSITION

These two new crops concentrate on parts of the scene to emphasize either the more traditional scene or the Ferris Wheel in the distance. Again, the overall crop might still be the best.

BATH                                                         BATH : ORIGINAL SNAPSHOT

We now move onto Bath, home of some of the first multifamily housing in Great Britain. This is a sliver of the Royal Circus, a complete circle around a park, covered in the "Bath Stone" typical of the city.

BATH                            BATH : FINAL VERSION

The square crop brings you closer to the scene by eliminating the top floor and a little of the sidewalk. But what if we get even closer?

BATH                             ONE BICYCLE IN BATH

We can now give our attention to that modern invention, the bicycle, which lagged a clear half-century after these houses were built in 1824. The Royal Circus has been subtly humanized.

SOUTH BANK PROMENADE                                                         SOUTH BANK 4 X 6

The promenade on the South Bank of the Thames is a continuous walkway, complete with Victorian sculpted lamp posts every twenty feet or so. This was the venue for the recent "Que" to pay respects to the Queen, a line which extended ten miles over three days and nights. These tow additional crops show how subtle differences in aspect ratios can affect an image. While these are subtle, it is interesting how different people can really respond to a change in aspect ratio. The original is a standard 3:2 vertical; the narrower image is a vertical 2:1 panorama, while the last image is a very traditional 5:4 vertical to fit your 8 x 10 frame from the drugstore.

SOUTH BANK PROMENADE                                                                      SOUTH BANK - VERTICAL 2:1 PANORAMA

SOUTH BANK PROMENADE                                                        SOUTH BANK - 8 X 10

      DARTMOOR 1:3 PANORAMA

This is a ridiculously wide crop, a 1:3 horizontal, of a wild scene on the edge of Dartmoor in Southwest England. Beyond that hill is thirty miles of wilderness, so barren that when I walked on the edge I later realized that I had walked through an RAF bombing range. These two crops were easy, since there are obviously multiple images within this one.

     DARTMOOR 1:2 PANORAMA

      DARTMOOR : STANDARD 4 X 6 CROP

The first image is an under control 2:1 panorama, with the hill nicely balancing out the tree. And if you think the tree deserves its own image, the the standard 3:2 crop now looks like an absolute close-up. I lightened the overall exposure one stop and then darkened everything around the tree to let the tree stand out a little more than the original exposure, which I kept dark to hide the multiple artifacts from this panoramic stitching experiment, which used 5 different images!

                             CROWN POINT : SQUARE CROP FINAL VERSION

And finally we get closer to home, with this view of what I call "God's Restroom", Vista House at Crown Point in the Columbia Gorge. As a retired architect, I naturally emphasized the man-made intervention in this incredible scene. What a site! If you don't think civilization can improve on Nature, cover up the building with your finger and then form an opinion. Since I made this image, I have always been upset by the grim sky above, the result of raging forest fires deeper within the Gorge. If any image cried out for sky replacement, it is this one, but my ethics and lack of post-processing skill have always prevented me from further investigation of this image - until now! Could a different crop make a difference?

                             GET CLOSER! : SQUARE CROP WITH GUSTO

Get closer, while keeping to the square. The sky is diminished, and the building is even more important in  the slightly less grand landscape.

      CROWN POINT : HORIZONTAL

Does a horizontal aspect ratio help widen the scene while ignoring the sky?

      CROWN POINT : PANORAMA

Get closer! This time by going even wider, since the 1:2 panorama cuts out the sky completely by leaving out the tops of the Gorge cliffs beyond.

                                                        CROWN POINT : VERTICAL PANORAMA

And finally, maybe perversely, will a vertical aspect ratio heighten the drama by drawing Beacon Rock visually closer to the Crown Point? If you've hiked in the Gorge, you know that the real killer is vertical gain, so why not narrow the scene to emphasize that grandeur? That brown sky is again reduced to just a sliver at the top of a vertical panorama.

I hope you have enjoyed this exploration of the art of the crop. It proves once again that there is more than one way to skin a cat, even if you have been looking at an image one way for more than a decade.

I've been thinking about New York even more than usual this week, mostly because my beloved team, the New York Metropolitans, have somehow succeeded in disappointing me once again. I had successfully resisted their charms all season until the final two weekend series against the Braves and the Padres reduced the season to ashes. The Yankees still remain, but of course they are not only the ancient enemy but also seem to to be the worst 99-win team in recent memory. Optimism does not reign.

I've lived in Portland now for thirty years, but I will always be a New Yorker. Fran is frequently  confused by my latest rant until she realizes that the mayor that I'm complaining about lives three thousand miles away. As an urban landscape photographer I do envy the photographic opportunities available in "The City that Never Sleeps" as opposed to our own "City that Works." Along with London and Paris, New York serves as the scene of most of the world's history of photography in an urban setting. I do try my best with Portland, but it remains obvious to me that their is more potential for imagery on one block of New York than in the entire Rose City.

This week, in another attempt to find some of "The Missing", those important images that I have somehow lost once again, I happened upon a half a dozen images from New York that I had neglected over the years. I enjoyed processing them, and it proved to me that I can capture some of the beauty and absurdity of the place that I was born 66 years ago, but visit very infrequently. These images are from the last ten years, but somehow seem to be timeless glimpses of the New York of my imagination.

The first image above is a view looking down on Midtown. My telephoto lens provides some compression, so that four blocks can seem even busier than they are. Normally I would convert to black and white for what I consider a more realistic "naked city" monochromatic vision, but of course I would then lose those yellow cabs which provide some sense of visual order in the jumble of New York traffic.

                                                        MY FLATIRON : FINAL VERSION

Here is another classic view of New York. The Flatiron building has been one of the world's most famous photographic subjects since the beginning of the 20th Century. I've read one photo book which pretty successfully recounted the entire history of photography through images of just this one skyscraper. I'm not really adding much new here, but in restricting my view to just a portion of the facade I think that I have stressed the building's ability to be part of the fabric of the city even though it's height and shape and location was astounding to pedestrians when it was first built. By leaving out the famous curved end of the building, as well as both the sky and the ground, I can concentrate on what must be the most subtle bay windows ever drawn by an architect. I had never even noticed that the stone on these bays was a little darker than the flat portions of the facade. This facade serves as the proof, in my opinion, of the notion that older masonry skyscrapers achieve more "readability" than newer glass facades, in that we can readily imagine ourselves looking out from those clearly human-sized openings. In leaving out the base of the building, the image is rendered more timeless, since the Flatiron is always the same, but the pedestrians, the storefronts, and the "transportation conveyances" change over the decades. The only clue that this is a modern photo are those window air conditioners that look like they could be in my childhood bedroom. I converted the image to black and white, but I find this color image, so tan as to be monochromatic, to be more convincing.

                                                       EMPIRE STATE IN THE CITY : TWO VERSIONS

Which is not to say that I can be convinced in the other direction. Of these two versions of the Empire State Building, I find the black and white version so much more "New York" than the color version that I think the debate in this case is over. In fact, even though I know that the colors in the first image are "true", to my eyes they appear completely fake. Both images do illustrate what I like best about this tower, that it appears to fit the fabric of the city despite its overwhelming size. From a few blocks away it complements the older buildings that surround it; a lot of it's charm on the street is that even when you walk right by it, you cannot tell that something is going on until you look straight up.

                            A BLOSSOM IN NEW YORK (BLACK GARLIC AKA NEW YORK IRONWEED) : FINAL VERSION                         

Nature sometimes asserts itself. This image is from the High Line, the genius of an urban park created out of a ruined elevated freight line on the West Side. Here I've been charmed by the appearance of not one, but two butterflies, on a flower blossom two stories above the street. Drastic underexposure of the background has made the chain-link fence a distant memory.

     BOOKS #2 : FINAL VERSION

     BOOKS #2 : BLACK AND WHITE VERSION

Sometimes the choice of color or monochrome is just a matter of taste. This interior view of a small portion of the Chelsea Market works in both, but I really love yellow and orange, so that's where I fall on this argument. I love the way that the various light sources - the incandesent paper lanterns, the neon store sign, and the natural light streaming in from stage right - combine to create a harmonious atmosphere. As usual, the black and white reveals more detail, while those yellow and orange lanterns brings the image to life. What is interesting to me is that to my eyes the Books sign shows even more contrast in the black and white version, set against gray, than it does in color set against what should be a more contrasting tan. In both versions I feel that the image is very balanced, with the visual weight of the lanterns on the left holding serve with the power of the bright letters on the right.

CHELSEA MARKET (BOOKS)                             BOOKS : FINAL VERSION

Another reason that I was charmed by this rediscovered image is that it provided a complete contrast with one of my most venerable images. I have sold hundreds of copies of this shot, taken ten feet away, and ten seconds after this forgotten image. "Books" has always provided me with all the proof I needed  of the value of print in the photographic image. I never could decide the value of a neon sign on a clear background that could be seen from both the front and the back, but there was no denying the power of letters to engage viewers, even if they were backwards. It was nice to rediscover the cousin of "Books", now known as "Books #2."

                                                        14TH STREET : FINAL VERSION

This final image only works in monochrome, as we have entered the belly of the beast. I am forever grateful that I had the chance to grow up in New York, but I often find it impossible to understand how anyone who did not grow up there can overcome the urban angst that becomes second nature to a native. I know I am really back in the city when I descend below to take in the awesome reality of the subway, where every day more people than live in the entire State of Oregon somehow get to work, to the ballgame, or just back home, without questioning their very existence. As in a lot of the magic of the city, it is truly a miracle that it works at all.

If you question your sanity in relation to the average New Yorker, I leave you with this final thought, gleaned yesterday from the "Newspaper of Record." In an effort to do something about the filth of the city's streets, the powers to be have decided that they will not allow garbage to be placed on the street until 8:00 P.M., thus shortening the city's rat buffet by four hours. This proposed "solution", was taken by the only major city in the United States which in fact allows garbage to be placed on the street without that modern invention, the garbage can. This is yet another example of what constitutes the truly "Unique New York" quality of life in the city of my birth.

                            XMAS ABSTRACT : FINAL VERSION

This week I would like to show off another half a dozen images that I rediscovered in my archives while searching for another round of "The Missing", the important photos that I have somehow misplaced once again. The current "Missing" files number ten, indicating that no matter how I try to improve, I cannot overcome my natural tendencies toward disorder if not outright anarchy. In any case, about the only benefit of these frequently hopeless searches are the rediscoveries of other images. Upon rediscovery, it is usually only a small bout of post-processing to render these new images into something wonderful that I can be upset if I then lose them at a later date. This circular destiny is both funny and frightening.

This first image didn't require much work at all beyond just finding it again. It dates back about ten years,taken during an especially dismal evening when I tried to sell my work at an offshoot of the Market at Pioneer Courthouse Square in Downtown. As usual, a retail opportunity that should have worked - selling art at Christmas in the heart of Downtown - didn't work at all. The image is a very abstract view of the Xmas lights on the annual tree in the middle of the Square which towered over my booth. I was so cold that I couldn't possibly hold my iPhone reasonably still, and the result is this hyphenated and caffeinated view of Christmas. All I did was to darken the black of the tree; the lights needed no saturation.

                                                       YARN BOMBING : ORIGINAL

This snap, and it really doesn't even deserve that characterization, was taken during another Christmas in the Square a few years later. In my usual resistance to all things entrepreneurial, I had somehow neglected to try my hand at one of the most popular tourist shots in Portland. This is the "Allow Me" statue in the Square is by J. Seward Johnson, Jr., who duplicated it in various poses around the country. It pictures a typical downtown businessman about to aid some hapless tourist. Unfortunately, while the typical Portlander can be helpful, he holds only disdain for the "Suits", and certainly does not carry an umbrella.  The whole thing is rendered somewhat inauthentic. But at Christmas the statue is redeemed by a truly characteristic  act of "yarn bombing" which subjects a lot of our public art to knitted additions in the dead of night. 

                            YARN BOMBING : FINAL VERSION

Let me help you with some work in Lightroom.  First the square crop, since this has some potential as a coaster, and the crop will eliminate some of the completely washed out sky that was the result of my overexposure. Then I used the angle tool to straighten the photo, on the theory that the lamp post in the rear was probably not falling over. To isolate the subject as if he was a supermodel, I simulated a two thousand dollar portrait lens by not only darkening the background, but also reducing it's sharpness and clarity, so that attention will be paid to our businessman. The final touch was to darken the umbrella and subtly lighten his bronze face to overcome the original backlighting.

                                                        PORTLAND JUXTAPOSITION #4 : ORIGINAL

I rediscovered another of my "Portland Juxtapositions", this one that pits City Hall, a 1895 confectionery inspired by the  1888 design of the Old Executive Office Building next to the White House in Washington, D.C. That building is famous for governmental skullduggery, as well as being so over the top that it somehow survived numerous attempts at demolition by later generations overcome by its sheer wedding cake audaciousness. Our City Hall is fairly modest in comparison, and stands as another example of a building which survives mostly because we kind of know that we would only replace it with something worse. To the rear is one of our modern skyscrapers, the Pac West Center, built one hundred and six years later in1984. The building looks like it was zeroxed from the  1977 City Corp Building in New York. Its architect, Hugh Stubbins, probably said "why the hell not, no one will notice, it's three thousand miles away!" Portland has several examples of such architectural duplication. One of our bank buildings downtown has exactly the same window grills as the Lincoln Memorial, done by the same architect, which would only be recognized by another architect doing too much poking around Downtown. Thus it is somewhat ironic that this Portland Juxtaposition involves two buildings whose designs are moved from two cities on the East Coast to stand next to each other on the West Coast.

                                                        PORTLAND JUXTAPOSITION #4 : FINAL VERSION

All I did to improve this image was to lower the highlights and raise the shadows, which is not my usual strategy which involves adding, not subtracting contrast. But in this case it revealed detail and color in both the sunlit facade and the elaborate cornice details, formerly hidden in shadows. The rest involved subtle cropping and straightening that probably only a photographer/architect truly cares about. If you notice, those pesky branches in the bottom left corner have disappeared, as have both the upper and lower window stripe fragments on our Citycorp copy in the rear.

                                                        REFLECTIONS ON NEW YORK : ORIGINAL

We now move to New York for a couple of images that I took while we were attending Benjamin and Margaret's wedding twelve years ago. This image is an example of my fascination with both minimalist glass facades and the reflections that are endemic in such buildings. Here you see what can happen if the architect is so bold as to throw in a corner - thus creating a dual reflection on the angled facade.

                                                        REFLECTIONS ON NEW YORK : FINAL VERSION

I tried here heighten this effect by both increasing the overall exposure of the photo while lowering the luminosity of just the tan solid portions of the facade. This both brightens the overall scene while increasing contrast without really darkening anything. The only added contrast is in the curving lines of the right portion of the facade. And while I appreciate the height of a New York tower compared to Stumptown's examples, I had to eliminate the sky at the upper left corner to heighten the graphic effect.

                                                        NEW YORK STATE OF MIND : ORIGINAL

If you thought the Father of the Groom was nervous before his son's wedding, imagine how these unfortunate souls felt a dozen stories down on the street. Here we have what might be characterized as a typical example what can only be described as traffic malfeasance. And you wonder why it's not a good idea to allow more handguns on the streets of New York?

                                                        NEW YORK STATE OF MIND : FINAL VERSION

It took far less time for me to improve this image than it took to unravel this little vehicular nightmare. A little cropping to reduce a little of the chaos at the edges, like the upper torso of the jaywalker and the unnecessary  extra cab on the bottom edge, focused our attentions on the mess at the heart of the image. I reduced the glare on the right side of the street not bey reducing the exposure, which made it too dull and dark, but by selectively reducing the luminosity of the yellows which allowed for more detail on the sidewalk and the awning. Lightroom's Hue/Saturation/Luminosity controls can reveal the underlying colors of your image better, or at least different, than what your own eyes and brain tell you. Notice that reducing the sidewalk and the awning luminosity, which Lightroom told me was "yellow", actually revealed the yellow curb. When I tried to recover some punch in the yellow cab, it helped that Lightroom thought that the iconic New York yellow cab was really a little more orange than yellow.

      MYSTERY IN THE DESERT : ORIGINAL

Finally we have this surrealistic scene on the highway from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. I am not making this up, and it was not Area 51. With remnants of LA smog over the mountains beyond, we are looking at fields of solar collectors which are also functioning as mirrors to concentrate light, in reverse light house fashion, on those mysterious towers. Or at least that's what I think I saw.

     MYSTERY IN THE DESERT : FINAL VERSION

It's not often that I use a 3:1 crop, because it's really very wide, but this scene seemed to justify such a frame. The drama and mystery was concentrated in a narrow wide band, and very little smoggy sky was needed above the mountain range. And if you think this was a weird spot, well you are a few minutes from Las Vegas, so it will get you in the mood.

I hope you have enjoyed another rescue mission, and encourage your own forays into your own photo archives - and hope you are more succesful than yours truly in keeping track of your images.

BLUE FLOWER)

                            LOVE IN THE MIST - THE ONLY VOLUNTEER : FINAL VERSION

I have another confession to make this week. Last Saturday was our Oregon Day, thirty years to the day when our family arrived in Portland after our trip on our Oregon Trail from Washington, D.C. This week we will celebrate Fran's birthday, when she is once again one year older than me so that I canclaim my status as her "boy toy." In the midst of these events, I want to acknowledge that my wife, in addition to all of her other stellar qualities, has created an incredibly beautiful garden around our bungalow. This is all her doing, with little or no effort on my part, so much so that I readily acknowledge that it is her garden, created around my indifference, ignorance, and generally bad attitude towards working in the dirt.

SPRING 2 (PINK TULIPS)

                            TIPTOE THROUGH THE TULIPS : FINAL VERSION

The only contribution I ever made to the garden was my brief devotion to planting tulips, when I realized that all I had to do was dig a hole, and that they seemed to come back every year. the only problem was that they would emerge in a blaze of glory, and then just be a mess which Fran had to take care of - she was not amused.

                             CANNA LILY : FINAL VERSION

                                                    ZEBRA (PORCUPINE)-GRASS : FINAL VERSION                                            

My tulip phase was followed by a Hosta phase, wherein I would buy any plant I saw, as long as it was a Hosta which could grow in the perpetual shade of our street, where giant Maples, now banned by the city, spread completely across 37th Avenue. When we turned the corner the temperature would drop at least 5 degrees. Since our address didn't read Laurelhurst or Ladd's Addition we did not get any leaf pickup. I stopped all efforts when I reached twenty bags one year, which we had to pay a surplus $5.00 a bag to get hauled away. After careful observation I observed that our tree was the last on the street to lose it's leaves, and that the wind currents seemed to bring everyone else's leaves right to our doorstep. My gardening efforts came to a halt both in front and behind our house.

                                                A CORNER OF THE GARDEN : FINAL VERSION

In my defense, which I sustain only to withstand the shame of my non-participation, Fran's garden started with more than two strikes against it. We have a very small lot, with very little privacy from our neighbors, and without knowing it we had bought on the "stupid" side of the street. In Portland, as opposed to back East, the hottest part of the day is the end of a Summer day when the sun has been beating down on our west facing garden for nearly eight hours. I could call myself a designer, even though I had never actually planted anything in my life, and considered any plant a gift from a God I constantly argued with but didn't quite believe in. Fran was certainly inexperienced as well, but responded to my lack of energy and unwillingness to engage in "stoop labor" with a drive to create a garden out of nothing.

                            THE WORLD'S SMALLEST FIELD OF BLACK-EYED SUSAN'S : FINAL VERSION

                            PENSTEMON OSPREY FLOWER : FINAL VERSION

My inability to contemplate doing anything with our garden had in fact created a pretty good approximation of a prairie, dominated with, I kid you not, thistles so thick, and taller than Fran, that you couldn't even see our back fence, much less walk to it. Three events led to Fran's garden. The first was when our neighbor's fence actually collapsed, held up only by my thistles. I agreed to design a new fence and pay for the materials if my handy neighbor would build it. I finally had some privacy and something behind my house that I could believe in. Fran then paid to have the entire yard cleared of my prairie. Finally our friends agreed to plant an entire preliminary garden of flowers for their wedding. Fran was on her way.

                            WHITE ON WHITE, OAKLEAF HYDRANGEA : FINAL VERSION

                           LADY FOXGLOVE DETAIL : FINAL VERSION

I designed the broad outlines of the garden, with a gravel path dividing the area into several sections. Fran had the rosemary bush removed, which had taken over anything the thistles hadn't controlled. I was told to get my rosemary elsewhere, which in my neighborhood was every other house within walking distance. Once Fran realized that I had very little interest in actually doing any work in the garden, any thoughts I occasionally offered were treated with the derision they deserved. As Fran's gardening experience and knowledge increased, my opinions became even less welcome. The garden was hers.

                           CAPE FUCHSIA : FINAL VERSION

There were two more garden conflicts between us. It soon became obvious that we had differing opinions on "volunteers", those plants which somehow arrived in the garden. These delighted me for some reason, maybe because I didn't have to do any work to enjoy them; Fran considered them a nuisance if not an outright affront. This was her garden, and neither me nor God had any say in the matter. The first image at the start of this essay is the last volunteer that was ever allowed even a brief stay in the garden. Our other conflict was over my misunderstanding of the "process", which demanded the purchase of such small plant speceimens at the garden store that I couldn't even appreciate them most of the time. This was then compounded by Fran's discovery of the discount section, which I derided as where they put "social worker" plants, which of course only endeared them to my social worker wife. I sometimes concluded that Fran's latest purchase was right out of the Monty Python skit - this plant you just bought is dead!

                            BUTTON HOLED, CALENDULA MARIGOLD : FINAL VERSION

                            BLACK AND WHITE VERSION

Needless to say, I was completely wrong about almost everything in the garden and after ten years or so I get to enjoy pretty much a small paradise behind our house. I still only move the occasional bag of compost, and actually enjoy the garden more than I think Fran does, since like most "makers" she usually sees only what still needs to be done. But I have tried to get her to actually appreciate what she has create all by herself, starting from less than zero. The thing is that she so enjoys her puttering that sometime the only thing I can do is to try to get her to stop working on the garden. I know if we put in a lighting system she would work way into the night. When she retires I think that she should volunteer to weed in the Japanese Garden or the Chinese Garden in Portland to find another venue for her weeding energy.

                                                 BUTTERFLY BUSH, WHITE GAURA : FINAL VERSION

                             FRENCH HYDRANGEA :  FINAL VERSION

Almost all of these photos were taken on my iPhone, another argument for it absolute suitability for this type of photography. It is actually a fine macro camera, especially if you take the time to import the images into Lightroom and improve them there. I am sure that if you actually became proficient with some of the more advanced apps for the phone in the app store you could accomplish similar results there as well. As usual the key is cropping, simplifying, and exposure manipulation to highlight the subject instead of the chaotic surroundings. Sharpening is required as well, since every digital image, whether taken on a phone or a $10,000 camera requires some sharpening to counter the digital process itself.

                            LOOK AT ME! (LIVING LIBATIONS ROCK ROSE) : FINAL VERSION

I am by no means an outstanding garden photographer; I can only do my best in creating what I call "floral portraits" which concentrate on a single flower. I leave the overall garden images which can make sense of an entire garden scene to the professionals. I only hope that these modest efforts do some justice to the small paradise which Fran has created and she still lets me enjoy.

                            GOD IS IN THE DETAILS (JAPANESE THIMBLEWEED) : FINAL VERSION

I'd like to make a couple of confessions this week. I've been writing these essays for almost two years, and I have become a little cocky about my ability to write what I call a weekly column, as long as I have no editor, no word limit, high or low, or even a topic I have to cover. So cocky that I have even begun to not even know what I'm going to be writing about before I sit down to write my blog post. This week I even had the nerve to start a blog post about images I hadn't even created yet! The other confession I have to admit is that while I can mansplain with the best of them, I usually am a little uncomfortable with entering a project without the slightest idea of how I'm actually going to accomplish my goals. I tend to overthink things rather than just winging it.

                            LIBERTY : FINAL B&W VERSION

So today I want to address the value of trying something new, especially when you don't know what the hell you are doing. While frustration can ensue, the shear terror and understanding that your inexperience will not just betray you but completely undermine your efforts can lead to the excitement and liberation of very low expectations.

                            ONE DOLLAR : FINAL VERSION

People often ask me about my photographic training and skill set, and my usual answer is that I am an artist who happens to use a camera, but that I have large gaps in my photographic knowledge. I know how to make the images that I make, and do a damn good job of it, but if you ask me to shoot sports, or wildlife, or portraits for that matter, I am working on instinct. It's not that I might know more than you, but I certainly know less than a photographer who shoots those type of images, sometimes a lot less. My self-labeling myself as an artist relieves me of the expectations others might have that I can pick up a camera and of course shoot a ballgame or a wedding or even their dog.

     ALL IN : FINAL VERSION

My training as an architect gave me a skill set as an artist when it quickly occurred to me that since I was an absolutely terrible businessman, my future in architecture relied on my skills as an artist that happened to be an architect. So it was a natural progression when I needed to take photographs of my architectural projects and couldn't or wouldn't afford to hire a "real" architectural photographer.  It took me years to realize that even though I might never have their technical skills and wizadry, most architectural photographers didn't have a real clue about what the architects had been thinking when they designed the project - and I did. My architectural images thus combined the skill sets I had honed as an architect with the self-taught experience I gained as an artist whose subjects were usually far away, did not move, and certainly did not talk back.

     ALL IN, IN BLACK AND WHITE

These images I am showing today are the result of a deliberate effort to try something completely new - not for the universe, but at least for me. I had little expectation that I would exhibit incredible skill as a still life macro photographer. A big part of the fun was the idea that I could accomplish anything at all, since I really didn't know what I was doing beyond holding the camera reasonably still. I even flubbed the things I did have experience with, like realizing that my tripod was still so full of North Carolina beach sand that it was really unusable. I set out to shoot some macro still lifes without a backdrop, or a real macro lens, or any flash equipment beyond my on-camera flash, which I had used about a dozen times in as many years - what could go wrong?

                           BROTHER, CAN YOU SPARE A DIME? : FINAL B&W VERSION

Amid a lot of frustration I did have a lot of fun in the ensuing hour or so of shooting three subjects that were all available in my studio, hiding in plain site. These included a pile of coins which I haven't even had the energy to take to the bank, a collection of paperclips that fell on the floor as I reached for the coins, and a few cherry tomatoes that I snacked on just slowly enough to allow me to use some of them in several images. Out of about one hundred images, here are a dozen or so that are not completely embarrassing.

                            DEPTH OF FIELD SO NARROW IT CLEARLY CAN'T HANDLE MORE THAN LIBERTY : FINAL VERSION

I started with the coins since I had a few bad puns to at least work with, even though I knew that I wasn't going to make a profound statement about inflation or inequality with a pile of coins on a white background. Window light and one architectural lamp provided some good light before I dared to turn on the flash. Even though I did find the button to turn on the flash, something that has eluded me in the past, it was quite humbling to realize that my characteristic vertical grip on my camera was actually placing my hand in front of the flash. Talk about a newbie! I tried to use my reversing ring to achieve true macro enlargements that allow for 1:1 ratios between subject size and image size, without much success. The reversing ring is a simple metal ring that allows you to reverse your lens and attach it to your camera backwards - making it into a very low powered microscope. The only trouble is that all electronic connections between the camera and the lens are lost, which makes for a trial and error shooting style that can only be mastered with about several years more experience that I possess. I could never overcome the incredibly narrow depth of field that results from such close-focusing. That is why one part of something even as small as a penny can be tack sharp,while the other edge is very soft. I soon abandoned the reversing ring for just using my zoom lens which can achieve somewhat close to macro  magnifications - but only after almost mangling it when I didn't realize that removing the reversing ring required me to push the usual lens removal button on my camera body. It's a good thing that this photo session was not taped for posterity.

                            MY TWO CENTS : FINAL VERSION

After several bad photo puns, and the realization from Fran's casual chuckles and comments revealed that she had far better ideas for possible shots using coins, I moved on to paperclips. At least I learned that a casual pile of paper clips wasn't as exciting as a pile of coins, so that I had to do at least a little compositional thinking. But not much.

                            CLIP ART : FINAL VERSION

     IN ANOTHER FEW YEARS I MIGHT ACTUALLY COME UP WITH A STILL LIFE : FINAL VERSION

I finally moved on to cherry tomatoes. What was interesting was that I actually had to remove a lot of the light to control the hot spots on the tomatoes, so off went the flash. In the end, a collection of tomatoes wasn't much more than a few tomatoes, but at least they are colorful. The coins and the paperclips both seemed to gain interest when rendered in black and white. The extra detail and contrast seemed to more than make up for the lack of color.

                                                        GOOD ENOUGH TO EAT : FINAL VERSION

I hope that my experiments might encourage you to allow yourselves to engage in something way out of your comfort zone, whether in photography or some other endeavor. Don't start with skydiving.

                            CHERRY TOMATO BABY! : FINAL VERSION

     ELLIS ISLAND PANORAMA : FINAL VERSION

This week I would like to throw caution to the wind and insist that the real reason that you should try to learn post-processing software is not to improve your images and to communicate your artistic intent to viewers, but to have fun. I simply get a kick out of trying new things, not out of an effort to be weird, but to use these computer manipulations to get out of my comfort zone. The goal is to get a "better" image, but the fun is in the process, and the liberation that can come out of experiments beyond my normal "work flow." All of these images were rediscovered on a fruitful search in the archives after I had once again lost one of my most popular images, which I fortunately rescued from the "missing" file.

                                                       JOSHUA TREE, DEATH VALLEY : FINAL VERSION

                                                        JOSHUA TREE, DEATH VALLEY : ORIGINAL IMAGE

Sometimes the result is just a far better rendition of an image - not saving a photo per se, but attempting to find the potential I saw when I pressed the shutter and somehow missed when I viewed the result. Often this is simply the result of the perfectly ordinary fact that photographs do not directly relate to reality, which is one of the reasons we take them in the first place. The camera sees things differently from you and me, and while that often leads to wonder, it sometimes can disappoint. There is nothing wrong with continuing your artistic pursuits beyond your efforts "in camera."

                                                       DEATH VALLEY ROCK FORMATION : ORIGINAL IMAGE

                                                       DEATH VALLEY ROCK FORMATION : FINAL IMAGE

These first two images were created on my only visit to Death Valley, which I recommend to everyone - just don't go in the Summer, and please skip Las Vegas, which exemplifies everything wrong with our country if not the entire world. My post processing efforts are not dramatic, but I think they clearly improve these two images which were initially lost in the shuffle. Judicious cropping, increased saturation and contrast,sharpening and you've gone a long way to a better rendition.

                                                       STERN WHEEL : ORIGINAL IMAGE

                                                       STERN WHEEL : FINAL IMAGE

                                                        STERN WHEEL : BLACK AND WHITE VERSION

The next two images show how these efforts can improve the graphical bent that is one of my chief ways of seeing the world in the first place. Even these simple compositions can benefit from efforts that make them even more simpler. The switch to black and white can also be a major move towards abstraction, further removing the images from the morass of documentation. I didn't care "what" I was taking, and these post-processing moves can further highlight my intent. Structural ingenuity, separated by one hundred years, can also be treated as beautiful sculptures devoid of a purpose far beyond their maker's intent. Not that I don't think for a minute that those makers didn't delight in the beauty of what they had made - they just didn't revel in it for fear of it being removed by "value engineering."

                                                        SAFECO TRUSS : ORIGINAL

                                                        SAFECO TRUSS : THE COLOR IS BETTER, AND DON'T YOU SEE IT'S STRAIGHT? COME ON, MAN!

                                                        I HATE THAT SICK GREEN ANYWAY, SO LET'S GO BLACK AND WHITE

Sometimes my efforts can be totally arbitrary, often in my pursuit of a photo coaster which requires a square crop. While certain images can only be compromised, if not ruined, by such treatment, others are strengthened by this stringent simplification.

      ART INSTALLATION AT GERDING THEATER : ORIGINAL

                            CLEARLY, FOUR IS BETTER THAN SIX!

      TOOLS FOR TOOLS : ORIGINAL

                            CLOSER, BUT NOT CLOSE ENOUGH

                            THAT'S GETTING THERE, AND TEXTURE AND DETAIL REPLACES COLOR

If you have been wondering where all these wild moves I initially talked about went, I would remind you that I am inherently a pretty conservative photographer. My liberation might be your straight jacket. But in discussing this final image, I hope I can show how I can loosen up a little.

      ELLIS ISLAND SNAP : ORIGINAL

This image was taken several years ago on a trip to the Statue of Liberty. As we sailed past I tried to capture an overall view of Ellis Island, the beginning of many of our families' American journeys. It's not a bad snap, but the first things I did were to straighten my wonky horizon and crop out some meaningless sky and water to achieve the real wider angle the building deserved. The usual sharpening, a little saturation -especially of the overall brick and the remaining fall foliage - and we have arrived at what would ordinarily be my "final version."

      ELLIS ISLAND PANORAMA : "FINAL VERSION"

     ELLIS ISLAND POSTCARD

Then I just decided to have some fun, and use some filters that I had previously avoided. The color image was first subjected to what the software world calls a LUT - a "Look Up Table", which are color filters that come out of Hollywood, used by cinematographers to achieve their overall "look" for a film. This look can become their career signature or at least the color cast for that movie. Think of "Chinatown", or "The French Connection", or even "The Lord of The Rings" - there was something going on in the rendition of color that gave them a certain feel, even if you couldn't put your finger on it. This LUT was labeled "Branaugh" by my software, which was good enough for me. It clearly muted the colors in such a way that I could temporarily forgive him for leaving Emma Thompson. I finally added a "texture" layer in the background, that added enough crunch and wrinkles that the image now can begin to resemble a postcard from the last century. Maybe yes, maybe no, but I certainly haven't "ruined" anything.

      ELLIS ISLAND PANORAMA : BLACK AND WHITE

      ELLIS ISLAND PANORAMA : SEPIA IN THE SUN

I then switched to black and white. The first effort is the result of my normal procedure in monochrome, and as usual the result focuses on sharper details and allows for more contrast overall and especially in the sky that can be achieved in color. I believe my efforts achieve a stronger image, especially if you don't miss the color. This final attempt lightened up everything, using a "sunshine" filter to brighten up the image a little more subtly than by increasing the exposure - as if the Sun just came out for a minute when I snapped the shot. Add some "glow" and the Sun can begin to really beat down on the lighter tones. Of course use restraint unless you are going for a radioactive representation. Finally a very subtle sepia tone was added to achieve an element of nostalgia, which is really just apparent if you view this rendition side by side with my standard black and white.

A great tip for working with images is not only to learn when to stop, but to go back the next day or a week later. It will instantly become apparent where your have gone too far, and then you can dial back your "radical" moves. Goldilocks learned an important lesson which can become your motto when working with images.

Non of this stuff is earth shattering, but I did have fun, and I encourage you to also move past your comfort zone, maybe even beyond my conservative parameters. When people ask me if I have had fun taking any photographs lately, I often tell them how much fun I have discovering the hidden value in images that I captured many years ago.

This week I would like to show you the images I captured on two hikes in the Columbia Gorge ten years ago. The commentary will be short and sweet, since my organizational talents have left me completely bereft of any real idea of where exactly these two walks took place. I know I should be upset, but what is the point? These images function as reminders of how blessed we are to live in such a beautiful place; they can stand in for generic Oregon Beauty Shots without too many more specifics. The real point I am trying to make is that this first image is the only one I have ever actually printed from those walks ten years ago. The value of Lightroom and my archives, disorganized as they are, is that I can take another look at images that would be lost otherwise, and find some that clearly deserve the light of day. It is that ability to go back in time, and post-process images from ten years ago with better software, and more importantly, better skill at using the software, that makes these forays so delightful. Yes, I'd "rather be out shooting", but what is wrong with going on a hike that you barely remember going on?

If I racked my brain I probably could remember exactly where these images were taken, but I think the images can stand by themselves without GPS coordinates. So let's take a look at some as photographs without worrying about their exact subjects.                                                        OREGON TRAIL : FINAL VERSION

Fran and I are not world-class hikers, and my photographic efforts, and my incredibly slow pace, serve to slow down and shorten our trips into the woods. This image above illustrates the beauty and civilized nature of our typical hike - a nice, safe trail, so that the hike is about the surroundings, not the effort and danger involved in the trip.

                                                        TWO "SMALL" MOUNTAINS, TWO DIFFERENT DAYS : FINAL VERSION

Which is not to say that the surroundings can tend to be spectacular. Some readers might even recognize these two mountains, which are no big deal in the context of volcanoes like Mt. Hood, but which served as the focus of the two hikes. Getting anywhere near the top is not on my list of things to do, but I can still admire their stature, even without remembering their names. I can take comfort in the knowledge that whatever the settlers called them, their native names were probably more evocative and had a several thousand year head start.

                                                       INTIMATE NORTHWEST LANDSCAPE : FINAL VERSION

Sometimes a very quiet spot on the trail can mean more than the hike's apparent goal. This intimate landscape reveals the wide variety of tones present in what can seem an overwhelmingly green environment. I also frequently delight in the fact that I can walk in such  settings without worrying about the violent nature of how they were probably formed hundreds if not thousands of years ago.

                            ONE BRIDGE, TWO WAYS : FINAL IMAGES

Often as a retired architect I can really appreciate the efforts that went into the creation of these trails that allow for my casual walks in the woods. Most of these trails were probably the result of "make work" projects by the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) during the Depression, and you don't have to be a socialist to wish for such energy today. These two views of this bridge, miles from civilization, show how their efforts both enhance and make it possible for ordinary people to appreciate this beautiful environment.

                                                       FRAMING THE WATERFALL : FINAL VERSION

                                                       HORSETAIL FERN : FINAL VERSION

Of course it can help if you really slow down to enjoy the small wonders which can often be overlooked on the way to the overview. These two images highlight such moments.

                                                        TWO WATERFALLS : FINAL VERSIONS

Then there are the waterfalls which are the usual "goals" of these trails. You can't beat a waterfall, although I sometimes wonder why mankind is so mesmerized by these water features as a proof of gravity. The Native Americans and hunters that forged these trails out of animal byways surely weren't in for the views, were they, so why do waterfalls provide our excuse for these walks in the woods? But you cannot deny their power, especially when you consider that the water formed the immediate environment. Aren't you glad you were not around the day those rocks arrived at this beauty spot?

                                                       WEEPING WALL, TWO VERSIONS

The gorge environment is generally so wet that you don't even have to name the waterfall. These two images show what happens when the very walls of the canyon seem to be weeping. The black and white version allows for more subtle manipulation of tones to bring out the wispy water down the cliff, but both versions are enhanced by very subtle "dodging and burning" of light and dark areas to bring out the contrast an make the image really pop. Sometimes these efforts can seem so subtle as to be a waste of time, until you throw the "switch" and see how much of a difference your work can make in bringing out what you saw in the first place.

                                                        A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT : ORIGINAL

                            A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT : FINAL VERSION

                            A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT : FINAL B&W VERSION

Finally, let's get back to the one image I thought I had gotten out of these two hikes ten years ago. On the way to the waterfall it is easy to overlook the stream that will make it all possible. On this day those trail builders had fashioned a bridge right over the river, allowing me to focus on the beautiful leading line that it provided in the forest. The square coaster crop eliminated some of the foreground, bringing you closer to the action. This final image also shows how sharpening, enhancing contrast to bring out the rapids, and some subtle saturation of those gorgeous greens can make an image pop. It's a matter of taste, but the details and range of tones in the the black and white version show that you don't really have to rely on the green at all.

Obviously, you have to appreciate the process in photography, since you can hope for only one "keeper" out of one hundred shots you might take on a hike, or in a month. While this is generally true, and nothing to be ashamed of, I hope you can see that  you can find more than one image from a trip that is worthy of your efforts. You just have to be willing to take the walk again.

                            ONE CLOUD OVER BAMBURGH BEACH : FINAL VERSION

I would like to take the opportunity this week to take you on a photographic journey through a small portion of Northumberland, an English county on the edge of Scotland. This area serves as the model for "The North" in the "Game of Thrones", which Benjamin introduced to me as "The War of the Roses, with dragons." Benjamin, Fran, and I had the incredibly good fortune to visit there in the winter of 2008, which I cannot believe is now almost 14 years ago. We were traveling to Scotland on the wrong side of the road, and needed a base of operations on the way for a few days. I chose the coastal village of Bamburgh when I discovered it in Powell's while looking at a book on great English seaside villages. I hope these following images will reveal why I suddenly knew we had to stop at this small place on the map.

     ONE PERSON ON BAMBURGH BEACH : FINAL B&W VERSION

Bamburgh entered my thoughts this week for a number of reasons. One was all the renewed talk of dragons and such with the advent of the new series. Another was the completely depressing news from the UK, which seemed to mirror the mood of England and the world during our visit in the Winter of 2008-2009. In case you think that we are the only english speaking country that can so mess up it's own politics, I would recommend that you pay some attention to London. We were on holiday that winter in the midst of the economic crash, and most Brits we met seemed to think that we might be the last Yanks they would see for some time. The drumbeat of bad news got so bad that the mayor of London, Boris Johnson (!) went on the "tele" and said that while things were bad, Britain had obviously gotten through more trying times in the past, and everything would be alright. The next day the Archbishop of Canterbury responded by calling him a "cockeyed optimist." The third item that jolted my memories was an article in the New York Times that highlighted the Holy Island of Lindisfarne that is a short drive from Bamburgh and that we also got to visit on this trip.

     BAMBURGH DUNES : FINAL VERSION

Bamburgh is a small prosperous village of 400 or so souls on the Northeast coast of England, one of several in this area north of Newcastle. It really doesn't feel like a tourist mecca, especially in December. It resembles an exclusive town on the Oregon Coast like Gearhart, which only caters to people who can afford a beach house. But of course it is 1500 years old, and those uncouth tourists included real Vikings from time to time. December travel in England is certainly unusual unless you are visiting Grandma, so we had the Bed and Breakfast to ourselves, and got to sample the three pubs which were within walking distance for our entertainment and dinner after sunset at about 3:00 P.M. each night.

                            BAMBURGH SEASCAPE : FINAL B&W VERSION

These first few images are seascapes which could be really anywhere with an ocean view, though the beach was certainly very nice and fit into Fran's love of the "Winter Beach Experience" very well. I've done my usual bought of post-processing to make them my own, converted some to black and white, and I think they can stand in for a nice coastal image of a non-tropical beach. But then you turn your back to the North Sea, and realize why you came here, and that this is certainly not the Oregon Coast.

     BAMBURGH CASTLE PANORAMA : FINAL B&W VERSION

Bamburgh Castle is right on the beach above the dunes. Built in stages and occupied  at least since 500 A.D. it was saved and refurbished by a wealthy Victorian aristocrat into a private home (!) in the early 20th Century.  The castle served as the seat of the Kings of Northumbria, a northern kingdom that controlled the area way before the English did. Henry VIII seized the castle and the monastery when he "dissolved" the monateries in 1500. It is one of a series of castles on this coast that protected the North from the current marauders, who changed over the years from the Vikings to the Scots. They were placed so that fires could signal of trouble for the next castle down the coast - think of the pyres of Middle Earth.

     DUNSTANBURGH, THE NEXT CASTLE TO THE SOUTH : FINAL VERSION

My castle shot isn't bad, but of course it pales compared to those of photographers who live nearby and can come before dawn. What is funny and only occurred to me later is that these include most of the best photographer authors of "how to" books on my bookshelf. I swear it must be the water, but they all could gather in the local pub, and I am no longer surprised to turn the page of yet another book and once again find another spectacular shot of Bamburgh Castle.

      BAMBURGH CASTLE FROM "DOWNTOWN" : FINAL VERSION

                                                       A "FRIENDLY" AT A UNIQUE PITCH : FINAL VERSION

                                                       LOCAL PHONE BOX - IS IT STILL THERE? : FINAL VERSION

The castle dominates the beach as well as the central part of "downtown" Bamburgh, serving as an understated backdrop that only an Englishman could learn to just get used to. The local football pitch literally fronts the castle, so this might be the only place where you can score a goal in such an environment. Our B&B and those pubs and this phone box were a few blocks away.

                            TWO LOCAL HOUSES - NO NEED FOR NUMBERS : FINAL VERSION

Part of the charm, and tribulations, of touring through such a small place in pre-Google days was that map reading was required, and English addresses were sometimes "quaint." These two examples were actually pretty user-friendly, since most addresses and street names were set into unlit stonework so that our usual post sunset arrivals were always an adventure.

                                                       HOLY ISLAND, LOW TIDE : FINAL VERSION

Five miles up the road from Bamburgh is another incredible spot, the Holy Island of Lindisfarne, Northumberland's answer to France's Mont Saint-Michel. This monastery/castle stands on a very small island off the coast which is reachable by foot only at low tide. Several hundred people and a lot of sheep live on the island, and day-trippers have a penchant for, shall we say, pushing their luck. My photo of the warning signs still don't seem to work, and I wonder what you tell the agency when they find dead fish in your rental. Last week's Times article showed a recent innovation - seemingly random-spaced emergency stairs to decks above the twice daily waterline so that you don't have to wait on the roof of your car to get rescued.

                                                       DARWIN'S WORD TO THE WISE : FINAL VERSION

When you successfully arrive on the island you can view the low-lying landscape that will soon be underwater, and the local architecture that even include storage sheds that might be overturned fishing boats. Just be sure to check the tide tables - when we were there there were no overnight accommodations.

                                                       HOLY ISLAND CANALS : FINAL VERSION

     STORAGE SHEDS AS OVERTURNED BOATS, WITH MY SHADOWY COMPANIONS

                                                        PARTNERS IN CRIME : FINAL VERSION

I hope you have enjoyed this short trip to the Northeast Coast of England. And I hope that it might inspire you to include an "obscure" spot on your next road trip, for not every great spot can command the world's attention.

My troubles with my photographic archives have not caught the attentions of the FBI, but that doesn't relieve the headaches that can ensue during a simple search for an image that I have somehow lost. The fear is that the image is gone, but it's usually just hiding on my computer somewhere, out of sight of Lightroom. The analogy that software engineers use when discussing programs like Lightroom or iTunes, for that matter, are that these database compilations are like the library catalogs where you search for a book that is somewhere on the shelves. Bear with me if you have never seen a library catalog, or searched among the shelves. Let's just say that my photos are not in Lightroom, but hopefully in one photo file on my computer, or more accurately, on one of three auxiliary hard drives that are plugged into the computer. One of Fran's favorite curse words is "dongle", the annoying series of wires that connect these drives to my computer. The trouble is that Lightroom sometimes doesn't remember where the file is, since yours truly has messed up something once again. The converse is that the original file, if you find it, is not enough, since you are really interested in the post-processing you did in Lightroom, which is contained in my Lightroom catalog. Continuing with the library analogy, my organizational skills often lead to a situation where the librarian has lost both the dog-eared card in the library catalog, or has not put the book back on the right shelf, or maybe both.

PUMICE PANORAMA                             LOST, AND NOW REDISCOVERED MT. BACHELOR : FINAL B&W VERSION

The result is that I literally have a continually updated list titled "The Missing", which lists the images that I currently have misplaced. The "Missing" are not some random forgettable images, but are often photos that have actually proven themselves in the marketplace. Frustration abounds. Recently I have tried to respond to the current economic conditions by re-emphasizing the position of coasters as central to my marketing efforts, such as they are. Customers are back, but they seem worried. I have returned to the idea that each coaster can trigger a sale, especially as a solo item, so that variety is again more important than concentrating on my best sellers. That single coaster, with an image that appeals to a tiny minority, can turn a complement into an actual transaction. Of course this only works if you can find the bloody image in the first place.

TEACHER'S FOUNTAIN                             REDISCOVERED TEACHERS FOUNTAIN : FINAL VERSION

My recent forays into the archives have been actually more successful than usual. This past week I did find these two out of seven on my current list. What  I would like to tell you about this week are about the half a dozen images that I discovered hiding in-not-so-plain sight during my search. These kinds of discoveries can find some hidden "gems" which I have never even realized that were there.

Sometimes my initial exposure decisions were so out of whack that I passed over an image that had some potential. This Oregon stream, don't ask me where it is, was lost in the forest murk until I raised the exposure a full stop in Lightroom. This is the kind of corrections that are possible if you shoot in RAW, which doesn't touch your original file, but allows you to retroactively rescue an image from yourself.

                                                       OREGON STREAM, BEFORE AND AFTER

This next image shows the value of emphasizing the image's original strengths while eliminating superfluous issues. Here the crop tool works to play to the wide angle view I like at the coast, and subtle exposure fiddling emphasizes the incredible light conditions that prompted my interest in the first place.

      COAST SUNSET : ORIGINAL
 

      COAST SUNSET, REFINED : FINAL VERSION

Occasionally I discover an image that I wonder why I ignored in the first place. In our search for "the winner" we sometimes overlook an image that deserves some attention. This reflection in a neighboring building is the kind of thing that caused me to put aside my polarizing filter, a landscape photographer's constant companion, once I started to concentrate on architecture and cityscapes. Reflections are just too much fun to try to eliminate - they are often what creates a unique view in the city. I just tweaked the image a little to brighten it up; the black and white version further emphasized the distorted details in the reflection.

                                                        REFLECTIONS ON ARCHITECTURE : ORIGINAL, REFINED, AND BLACK AND WHITE

This image of a water tower in Portland  required a lot more processing to show it's potential. The vast differences in exposure required multiple graduated filters to both balance the exposure and then tweak it further to bring out the contrast. As usual, black and white allowed for more aggressive manipulation, especially in the sky. The sky had been so boring initially that I had felt that I only could improve the photo by croopin it out.

                                                        THREE WATER TOWERS : POLISHING A GEM?

The wreck of the Peter Iredale on the Northern Oregon Coast is a on every landscape photographer's bucket list. As is often the case, the image becomes so ubiquitous as to render your version somewhat superfluous. Here I set out to convert one of my efforts into a striking coaster, cropping to a square, and manipulating the exposure to render the wreck as a silhouette. Finally the black and white conversion makes the image even more graphic, and my Peter Iredale is certainly different, if not better than yours.

                            MY PETER IREDALE : WORTHY OF YOUR ATTENTION?

And finally we come to an overlooked image that might serve as a postage stamp or in a dictionary to illustrate the term "Oregon." I cropped to my usual square and used multiple graduated filters and some subtle dodging and burning to bring out all the variations of tone on one Oregon hillside.

     AN OREGON HILLSIDE : ORIGINAL

                            OREGON : FINAL VERSION

I hope you've enjoyed this trip through the archives, and I encourage you to try a journey through your own so that you might also find some fine image amongst the murk. Otherwise that gem might be hidden in the warehouse next to the "Ark of the Covenant" at the end of Indiana Jones.

KIND OF BLUE

This week I would like to discuss a topic that is a big part of my work, which is abstraction in photography. To some observers, this topic is pretty senseless, since photography is in many ways the most concrete of the arts. Photographers don't start out with a blank page, but with the real world, which they then endeavor to organize, frame, and simplify in order to present their view to the rest of the world. So we seem to some extent to be stuck with the real world, although Photoshop has changed that to a certain degree.

ORIGAMI @ EAST ASIAN LIBRARY, BERKELEY                             ORIGAMI : FINAL VERSION

But of course a photograph is a two-dimensional abstraction of the real three-dimensional world in front of the camera. Photographers inately understand this, even if the viewing public often searches for the "truth" which is not really there. Some photographers compose their images to try to use every strategy they can to make their images more three-dimensional, through contrast, layering, or emphasis on foreground, middle ground and background in a single epic view. Others embrace the differences between a photograph and real life; Gary Winogrand famously declared that he took photographs to see what he pointed his camera at would look like in a photograph. And the extra level of abstraction that is a large part of the charm of black and white photography is often lost on the public, even those who admire that abstract art.

TURQUOISE, SAN FRANCISCO                                                    TURQUOISE : FINAL VERSION

So there is no doubt in my mind that while photographs are abstract art, there are various levels of abstraction, ranging from the seemingly documentary image to the images that are so divorced from a subject that they are mostly about themselves. I find playing with these levels of abstraction a lot of fun, even though I know that the more abstract an image, the less chance I have of actually making a sale. People generally do not like to be challenged or confused by an image, and their desire to find out "what is that" directly undercuts the artist's belief that it really  shouldn't matter. Most of the time viewers who have been drawn to an abstract image are very disappointed when they find out what it really "is" - almost as if the magician has been conning them rather than delighting them. So it is okay if many of these images leave you a little cold - I will understand, even if I never stop trying to provoke a positive reaction.

I think that there are probably about five "levels of abstraction" available to the photographer; some overlap, and you could argue that I am often confusing the issue. I present these three views of one subject to try to illustrate these levels before I explore my five levels one by one.

                            GREEN SCREEN : FINAL VERSION

                                             LAYERS : FINAL VERSION

                            THE GATES OF MORDOR : FINAL VERSION

These three images are all renditions of an heroic sun screen on the western facade of a federal government office building in downtown Portland. Like a lot of my images, they don't really appeal to tourists, but are more oriented to Portlanders who will recognize the subject even if they would never look at it that way. The first image is actually the most realistic in terms of color, even though it is inherently abstract since this is only a small portion of a 15-story facade. While the second image appears to reveal more of the structure, I still don't know where those green and blue background colors came from, since I do not think they really "are there." The third image is so abstract that it appears to be a black and white rendition until you notice the dark blue in the windows. I've exposed so much for the bright aluminum fins that everything else has faded to black, and I think my title conveys mysterious power that the image conveys, at least to its creator. I hope you can see the different levels of abstraction, even if all of the images are certainly abstract.

The first level of abstraction might not be abstraction at all, but I think it is the introduction of the subject at hand. "Minimalism" is a type of photographic image that deliberately simplifies to the point of abstraction. There is a lot of "negative space", which is a fancy way of saying emptiness, and while the viewer might know what they are looking at, they often might not know why in the hell they should care. There is a lot of overlap between minimal and downright boredom, often hidden behind the emperor's new clothes. Here are a few examples of minimalism you might either hate or love; try to remember that there are entire photography magazines devoted to this genre. Most minimalists might argue that these images are far too complicated!

                                             DAMN NEAR CLOSE TO PERFECT : FINAL VERSION

                                             BAMBURGH BEACH : FINAL VERSION

                           BIKE RACK : FINAL VERSION

LIGHT SHAFT (BRITISH MUSEUM)                                              BRITISH MUSEUM : FINAL VERSION

                            LIGHT, SHADOW, AND STUCCO : FINAL VERSION

                                            THREE LINES AND A CROW : FINAL VERSION

If you can control your laughter, realize that the "single cloud" image is sometimes a photographer's best seller, even though mine leaves me cold. Some portfolios are stuffed with obscure scenes that are mostly collections of lines, shadows, or colors without a clear subject to even caption. And of course the last shot is my response to Portlandia's "put a bird on it."

An interesting inversion of minimalism are images devoted to deliberate obfuscation, either through photographic technique or just a weird subject. This is difficult to pull off, since we are supposed to be engaging in visual communication.

SURREAL STAIR (PORTLAND STATE UNIVERSITY)                             SURREAL STAIR : FINAL VERSION

                            REFLECTIONS ON WILMINGTON : FINAL B&W VERSION

                                                        ARCH ABSTRACT : FINAL VERSION

The first image is actually a pretty "straight" rendition of a facade on the Portland State campus. The only weirdness that I added was my white balance shift which rendered everything blue. The strangely drunk architecture is due to placing two glass facades opposite each other, and then allowing the glass windows to be just a hair too large. The strange reflections are available to anyone who walks by. The second image is a trip to a perfectly ordinary coffee shop in St. Louis, where I happened to be beguiled by multiple reflections of reflections that transformed the scene into a multiple exposure without making a multiple exposure. The last image is of a reflection that I spied at the Gateway Arch, and I can honestly say that I have no memory of actually capturing it, or how I managed to create it in camera, or what it is in the hard reality of the architectural context.

A wild sub-category of the abstract pursuit is what happen when you take photographs of abstract art itself. The art is already abstract, but now the photographer is tasked with making their own interpretation, which will inevitably lead to another additional level of abstraction.

                            VETERANS' MEMORIAL : FINAL VERSION

                                                       WILMINGTON COUP MEMORIAL : FINAL B&W VERSION

                            TANNERS CREEK #2 : FINAL VERSION

                            REFLECTIONS ON THE PICKET FENCE IN AMERICA : FINAL VERSION

                                                                   GATEWAY ARCH : FINAL VERSION

I feel that my abstract images of abstract art contribute an additional level of abstraction, my own, to what is already an artistic intent to render an idea in an abstract manner. The first image is of a sculpture of hundreds of dog tags that memorialize service and sacrifice at a memorial to North Carolina's veterans. The second image is of an abstract sculpture that serves as a memorial to the only documented coup d'etat that ever occurred in the United States, when the white citizens of Wilmington, N.C. overthrew the legally elected mixed race municipal government. Next comes a portion of an abstract sculpture of railroad rails that reminds visitors that Portland's Pearl District was a giant rail yard before it became a sexy place to live and eat and shop. The picket fence is an abstract sculptural comment on the American ideal of the picket fence. My choice of exposure makes the mirrored sculpture even more abstract by removing the context beyond the fence to black - now the only reality is the field in front of the fence. And finally I have attempted to make an abstract image of the Gateway Arch, an abstract symbol of Western expansion that is a very real sixty-stories tall.

Photographers can also render very real subjects into abstracts by emphasizing patterns that "could" go on forever, even though we know they do not.

                            THE RED CHAIRS : FINAL VERSION

                            COILS OF STEEL FINAL VERSION

                            GERONIMO! : FINAL VERSION

                            FRACTAL POND : FINAL VERSION

Images like these are almost an attempt to create an abstract image out of the real world without distorting reality but by framing it in an abstract manner. They are all about patterns, rather than the actual subjects, without obscuring their ordinary subjects. These four abstract images started out as a portion of a beach condo facade, a stack of rattan cafe chairs, the underside of a parachute display at an Airborne Museum, and an ordinary collection of leaves in a pond. If you don't recognize the patterns, you might wonder why I created the images at all.

Now we can explore subjects that are more or less divorced from their contexts, so that while the viewer knows what they are looking at, it is an unusually detailed portion of the subject at hand. We are on they way to the point where the subject of the photograph is the photograph.

                                             GARDEN POND : FINAL VERSION

This color study is all about the ripples and the mysterious colors, which are actually reflections of the fall foliage overlooking the pond.

FACADE STUDY 2 (NEW MUSEUM)                            NEW MUSEUM : FINAL VERSION

A detail of the facade at the New Museum in NYC that is such a close-up view that only adds mystery to an already opaque facade.

                            GLASS CEILING : FINAL VERSION

Incredible detailing of the glass roof of the shelter at Director Park in Downtown Portland, taken from above instead of below. My exposure also eliminated the busy context of the mediocre architectural surroundings of the park.

                            AFTER THE RAIN : FINAL VERSION

One of my most popular images; people love the rain drops, love the tree shadows, but are usually somehow disappointed when they find out that I found this image on a TriMet bus shelter.

KOIN CORNER                             M.C. ESCHER MEETS THE KOIN TOWER

SPACE NEEDLE 2 B&W                                                         A SLIVER OF THE SPACE NEEDLE, WHICH SOWS CONFUSION IN MOST PEOPLE

                            DRAGONFLY TENT : IT'S JUST MY IMAGINATION