Category: Polar Coordinates

Homes and Houses

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A house is not necessarily a home.
Until voices and smells
Crying and laughing
Struggles and discovery
Make it so

(Draft started 3/30/22)
It’s been awhile since I’ve caught up on my WordPress reading/writing.
My wife Robin and I are moving to a new location.
After thirty-two years in the same location.
And, our daughter and her husband will be moving with us. (I know, don’t start a sentence with “and”).

What an utter disruption. All of the legality(s), buying, selling, upgrading, fixing, budgeting, signing, soon-to-be-light-construction is trying its best to kill my creative side. Through it all, I find the decompression of nature to be the finest balm. If I have a camera with me, even better.

When it came time to “stage” the house, I packed my main computer and have been using my laptop. I am grateful to have the laptop. It is very powerful. Old guy that I am, I prefer my PC. A nice big screen, a sure footed mouse, and no battery shenanigans. I wanted to go get it out of storage, but I haven’t been walking in several days and that comes first. After a brief search in the storage facility, I realized it’s behind a mass of boxes and stuff. Motivation won out and the PC is back in business.

I found a nesting hummingbird about a week ago at Mission Trails. I think I’ll go visit her today and forget about the floors, paint, counter tops, tree trimming,1% good faith down payment, caulking, electrical trim, new refrigerator, docu-sign, fix the gutters at the new place stuff (short list).

Update: I’ve returned several times to see the hummingbird and she’s a no-show.

Things will be different in the new location. Less light at night, less noise, fewer crowds. I’ve never lived that way. I’ve always lived near a freeway or main thoroughfare. The hum of the city and all its trappings will be something I go to and not live in. Hope we like it.

I am pretty sure I will not be visiting Mission Trails Regional Park as often as I do.
That story will need to wait. Too much emotion attached.

Photograph – multiple exposures- black phoebe – color manipulations and Polar Coordinates in PSE

Orange Vanilla

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It tastes like heat
Waking you up
In the uncomfortable closeness
Of summer

Patched knees on my pants
Smell of sweaty boyhood
Hands dirty and cut
Breaking bottles in the alley

We learned about fighting
When to run
And other times
There were no places to run

But that treat
So cold
Orange chemical sweetness outside
Sugary vanilla explosion inside

It was worth the walk
Four blocks to the market
A few pennies
For a few minutes

This photo reminds me of the 50/50 ice cream bars of my youth.

Tubular

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To be specific
It’s the Pacific
That’s terrific

All photographs require “pre-visualization”.

Polar Coordinates is an action performed in Photoshop to create “tiny worlds”. In this case, I use the inexpensive Elements version. It requires a little clean up and manipulation….but is a bunch of fun, and mind bending results sometimes.

2019 -Was Eclectic

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It’s always an interesting exercise to review the work from the previous year. It’s sort of a snapshot of the previous 12 months and reveals how much effort was put into the craft.
As expected, my photographic output was “less than usual”. That happens when artistic efforts are divided among other mediums.
Still, 2019 was a year dedicated to returning to older habits that have suffered over the last four years. Most specifically, just getting out there to make photographs.

Here are some one-second snippets from last year:

Trail Encounter1

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A little hummingbird friend
Watching me from a safe distance

I ask, “How’s the trail today?”
“Grass is making a comeback.
You know how grass is!
Always shows up early to the party.

And tree…
Well you know tree.
He hangs on to leaves
To the bitter end
Here,
Where it is freezing in the morning
And balmy in the afternoons.

Tree,
Is a little confused.
Have a nice walk.”

“Thank you.
Have a nice…
A nice…
Fly.”