“Beach Succulents” Photo of the Week #38, selected in February, 2020
Ever taken a photo that makes you stop and stare at it every time you see it? This is such a photo for me. There’s something about the combination of hues, the flowers and the sharpness of the plants against the blurry beach in the background that always drags me in.
This shot was taken during one of our journeys up the Pacific coast. One resort we stayed in was near Crescent City, California, and this pic is from a sandy rise above the beach and ocean. Crescent City sits about 20 miles south of the Oregon border. It has a very moderate climate and, interestingly, is particularly susceptible to tsunamis, having suffered tsunami conditions 31 times since 1933.
“Little White Steeple” Photo of the Week #37, selected in January, 2020
In our whirlwind tour of Maine a few years ago, we traversed the Penobscot Bay Bridge several times. On one of our jaunts through the area, we observed a quaint town with a unique white steeple in its center, just across the bay. Fortunately, I was able to capture it with my telephoto lens, but my camera did not record its GPS coordinates. There are many small towns around the bay, so I retraced our route that day and can only surmise that this is the town of Castine.
Penobscot Bay is between Muscongus Bay and Blue Hill Bay, just west of Acadia National Park. The drive along the bay is very enjoyable, weather permitting.
Sometimes I think about a problem or situation that doesn’t have an obvious solution. I don’t always keep those ruminations myself, since I often have hope that someone else can come up with funding or a program to help. So, please bear with me.
The situation? Follow my thinking here.
My dad passed away 30 years ago, prior to the digital age, or at least before it developed into what it is now. I remember that he had artistic talent, but his color blindness made painting almost impossible, though I remember he did a watercolor mural of a winter scene that was remarkable (even with green-tinted snow). He started a sci-fi novel once. I’m not sure how far he got with it, but it was about a family on vacation when an atomic war began.
My mother-in-law kept a written journal. She started it in 1953 when she married my father-in-law and kept them up until she passed away in 2010. Along with those journals, we picked up about 20 boxes of photographs from family outings and other events over the decades.
Personally, as a photographer and author, I have created over 50,000 photos, 350 poems, 7 completed novels and 2 partial manuscripts, a movie script, almost 50 published and unpublished articles, a poet’s how-to and two published non-fiction books.
When my wife and I are gone, what will become of all of that data? I know next to nothing about any writing, diaries, art, painting or interests of my past relatives, mostly because computers didn’t exist for most of it. It would be great to be able to read my great-great-grandfather’s short stories or see my aunt’s black-and-white photos, all long gone.
So, my ruminations. There should be an organization that digitizes, for free, a person’s lifetime of work and creativity, for the ages. Yes, you can find birth and employment records on an online genealogy service, but good luck finding someone’s incomplete novel or their collection of pencil drawings. What I envision is a non-profit company, either funded by the government or branches of current technology companies (Facebook, FamilyTree and the like), with an easy to use uploading service. In my mind, the data collected wouldn’t be readily available to the general public until the owner passes away, and would be controlled by that person’s executor or administrator, neither of which would preclude someone uploading theoir own or family member’s content.
Now, remember — I said I hadn’t completely thought it through. Is there a negative of storing personal data? Of course. Maybe someone is found to have been a pedophile or murderer. Should those events be attached? Who gets to make that decision? Should an unpopular or infamous family member get the same consideration as others in the family, and, if so, who will make that happen? Do you really want Jeffery Dahmer’s childhood drawings or Charles Manson’s manifestos available? Perhaps.
I have other reservations as well, but, overall, the thought of all my content that has taken years to create is worth saving for future generations, just like the work of my dad or the daily memories of my mother-in-law.
Someone younger than myself should look into a grant or other funding to start up a digital family legacy program and let us start uploading to it. With drive space so cheap and bandwidth so available, it’s not going to take a billion dollars to set up. I could be wrong about that, I suppose.
“An Audience” Photo of the Week #36, selected in January, 2020
We have had the good fortune of visiting old friends in Wyoming several times when we lived in the Denver area. There in the plains of Southern Wyoming we met a sculptor of metal art pieces, usually playfully utilizing garden tools and tractor parts to create birds and colorful characters. While visiting Dutch the first time we met on his property, this sculpture had interesting company and I snapped the pic. He was gracious enough to let me purchase a couple of his pieces and we displayed them in our front yard before moving into our RV full-time.
Nestled among the Medicine Bow Mountains, the Sierra Madres and the Snowy Range is the Front Range of Southern Wyoming. It is comprised of wide open plains with several flat, dry and brushy areas, most of which is above 7,000 feet. We always enjoyed our visits in the summer and fall, usually seeing an abundance of wildlife.
“Mush!” Photo of the Week #35, selected in January, 2020
There is no iconic Iditarod race in Colorado, but that doesn’t mean the conditions in some parts of the state don’t dictate a certain mode of transportation. This photo was taken from State Highway 9, about an hour or so northwest of Pueblo. When the wind is blowing and the snow is drifting over the highway, this musher can actually move faster than traffic on the road.
According to Colrado.com, “From mid-November until mid-April, depending on snow conditions, several operators throughout the state offer a variety of dog-sledding tours. Owners, mushers and handlers all take a great amount of pride in their dogs. And if you ask around, you’ll find that they don’t just run dogs to make a living — they hook them up to the sled every winter to see them do two things they love: pull and run.”
“Brilliant Sunset over Lake Ontario” Photo of the Week #34, selected in January, 2020
Sunsets, one of the subjects I enjoy capturing often, especially over bodies of water, come in varying degrees of color and interest. This one, however, taken from Brennan Beach in Upstate New York, is a bit more brilliant than most. It is by far one of my favorite photographs and I remember vividly taking a series of photos every evening during our stay. I even shot video of the moon over the waves there at the beach.
Brennan Beach enjoys the geographical advantage of sitting on the far eastern shore of Lake Ontario, giving residents and tourists there superb views of sunsets and moonsets on most summer evenings. I achieved the effect in this shot by using a long telephoto lens and the sunset mode on my Sony digital camera.
“Early Winter in Clinton Gulch” Photo of the Week #33, selected in December, 2019
The reservoir behind the Clinton Gulch Dam near Copper Mountain and Breckenridge in Colorado has always been photogenic. Fortunately, I was never scared off by a few inches of snow in this part of the state and was eventually rewarded. I was astounded by this beautiful reflected image of the alpine backdrop of the Tenmile Range that includes Fletcher Mountain, Wheeler Mountain, Clinton Peak, and Bartlett Mountain, along with a nice layer of contrasting snow.
Easily accessed along the Top of the Rockies Byway (CO Highway 91), just 20 minutes northeast of Leadville, the reservoir is a very popular tourist stop. It’s mountain trail is about 2.5 miles round-trip and sits between 10,986′ and 11,125′ of elevation.
“A Rugged Coastline” Photo of the Week #32, selected in December, 2019
There are sections of the Northern California coast that are just as awe inspiring as its Oregon neighbor. This shot of the coastline at Bodega Head, north of San Francisco and west of Santa Rosa, is one such section. Even high up on the cliff overlooking the bay the waves were roaring. From here to Astoria is the most spectacular stretch of thunderous, rocky bays and crashing waves in the country, and you can see most of it from the highway.
By the way, most of this coastline is open to the public- no fences, no “Keep Out” signs, no closed parking lots. Pull over off the road where the beach is easily accessible and, well, access it!
“Waiting for a Friend” Photo of the Week #31, selected in December, 2019
This photo was taken in St. Elmo, a renovated ghost town in Central Colorado. Here, blue jays, chipmunks and other species seem to live in harmony, as this photo of a Steller’s jay sharing a snack with a chipmunk clearly demonstrates.
Founded in 1880, the former mining town lies in the heart of the Sawatch Mountain Range off Highway 285, around 20 miles from Buena Vista. It rests at an elevation of 9,961 feet and is definitely worth a visit
“Inspiration Strikes” Photo of the Week #30, selected in December, 2019
One aspect of living in Kansas that I still miss is the spectacle of the spring and summer storms we had the excellent fortune to observe, especially lightning. This photo was taken right from my back door and was one of maybe 300 strikes that night. (I got lots of practice shooting lightning that night.)
I love that this bolt seems to come from an opening in the clouds, as if the sky opened up just to project it to earth, just as one’s mind can open up to create inspiration. Interestingly, we lived in Kansas for almost four years and never did witness a tornado, though we sat through many, many severe storms.
Trappings of the Years 