Monochrome Sunday

Mood, some days it is the Light that creates it, some days it is the mood that creates the Light.

Sunday, birding with Jenn in Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge mood created the impression; still, curiously quiet, muted, monochromatic.

I created but one image all day, a fraction of the norm, but only one whispered, caught my eyes.

End of the Land, Edge of the Shining Sea

The Light shines from above, spilling onto the land, and the sea. Few of us ever see Light from whence it comes, only where it spills, reflects, illuminates. Aloft the world is transformed by that Light.

Of late I have been floating on gossamer wings, staring down from the sky with the Light, on the thin horizon at the end of the land, edge of the shining sea.

Thank you Tom Hutchings for giving me this gift - I am eternally grateful.

Last Light of the Year

Light fades in falling hue,

Tonight tomorrow rests,

Lingering on new wings to fly,

The palette clean, an empty sky.

It was only fitting that the last Light I would see in the passing year be the alpine glow melting away across the bayou of southwest Louisiana. After spending so much of the past six months photographing there, a clear, cloudless evening was the purity I needed to begin thinking about a New Year, new hopes for this terrorized landscape and remember, how serenely beautiful is this wetscape and sky.

Light Flight Magic

It's hard to convey the sheer joy I have in looking at this image. Not because I created it, because a magical marriage of Light and flight created it.

In the long night of editing Gulf images I came upon this one, #5678. A number. But instantly it was so much more. Magic had happened. Weeks ago, in a place far away from now. A moment so quick I had only time to react and instantly move on. Somewhere between eye and brain it registered for that fleeting fraction and then released so the next moment could be realized, and then the next, and the next, and so on. Photography is like that more than not.

Feathers are in many ways natures gift to Light, nearly perfect in their embrace of one another. Easy to see in a peacock or Quetzal feather, but no less elegant and exquisite in less flashy form, like the under-wing of a Brown Pelican in flight. Maybe more so without distraction.

It's one of my loves about photography and Light - that embrace of moments fleeting or unseen - Light flight magic.

Last night I stared at the screen for an eternity soaking in every texture and sculpture revealed through shadow and Light. I stared as though it might fly away. As if moving on with the editing would permanently release the magic. This morning the first thing I did after turning on the computer was to check, it was still there, the magic was real.

Last Light

Last Light,

Fading through black pine,

Falls on bamboo.

Back home in Portland and the Fall has drifted over the Northwest while I was away - the colors have not shifted, but the season has. Light is low, and warm, and gentle. There is no rush to it's traverse.

Bayou Giverny

Once in a great while I happen into a place where I'm overwhelmed by a feeling of something that has gone before me. I feel the Light as if seen before. The Light whispers. And I just raise the camera and do as my soul tells me and in turn is being told - This is not the time to think, analyze, contemplate. This is the time to do as the Light inspires my soul.

Beyond the Disaster

Over the past few weeks I have been scuttling forth and back along America's Gulf Coast documenting the aftermath of the greatest human-caused disaster so far on Earth. Between the frustrations and the ugliness of crude oil spewed into the coastal environment there were moments of beauty that transported me to kinder moments on Earth. These two images are apair that sang to me - of the sea and the lure that draws every human soul down to the shore.