Some of you know that I occasionally shoot infrared and I brought my IR camera along to the Northwest. You can convert a digital sensor for a reasonable cost and choose from different parts of the IR range. I got the default. Bright green plants go almost white and blue skies get very dark. This is a view across Lake Quinault, the place we stayed when we visited the Olympics.
Anyone who looks at my work knows about the giant stainless steel arch on the St. Louis riverfront. There are plenty of other interesting arches, and I'm not talking McDonald's. This view is along a path in the upper Hoh valley rain forest. I do not know if the tree grew and collapsed this way naturally or whether the park rangers did something to it in laying out the trail.
Still on Ruby Beach. This is why putting non-functional rock cairns on drift logs does no harm here. It's just an open expanse of rough beach where you can see on and on. If you walk up into the forest, though, you're on your own.
Strange signs on Ruby Beach. These little piles are usually referred to as rock cairns. They are designed to mark trails in our national parks, often with very specific meanings. However, I've seen them in other places I love and love to photograph, particularly the side canyons in Death Valley, where they are obviously just for fun.
If you do a little Googling on the subject, the outdoorsy sites tell you not to do this. The purpose is to prevent people from getting lost. But there is no getting lost straight across the beach. These cairns on a huge drift log look to me like a system of antennas. Whom they communicate with is left to your imagination.
Home again but it will take me awhile to collect local material and there is still lots from the trip. There are only a few places in the world where you can find a cool rain forest. The western side of the Olympic mountains is one of them. Several rivers begin in the high glaciers and flow to the Pacific, with heavy rain going in the other direction. This is a trail called the Hall of Mosses in the upper Hoh River valley. It varies a lot by season but the area receives up to 12 feet / 3 2/3 meters of rain a year.
Greetings from beautiful Dallas - Fort Worth International Airport, where American Airlines customers spend part of their lives. This is another shot of Ruby Beach on the Pacific coast of Washington's Olympic Peninsula. I think it's one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen, with different approaches to photography in every kind of weather and every hour of the day. (It would be something special with a tripod on a clear, moonlit night.)
Home in a few hours but I'll be running trip pictures for a while.
It's late Thursday night here in Seattle and we have to get up early on Friday for our flight home. I'll edit on the plane but for now another Pacific beach picture. Whoever sits in these chairs might be waiting for the apocalypse to arise out of the mist on the ocean horizon.
Ruby Beach on Washington's Olympic Peninsula is one of my favorite places in the world to photograph. We've been here a couple of other times over the years but every visit is different. We got there yesterday not long before sunset and the light was stunning. I've got more of these I'll publish somewhere.
We took a roundabout route from Seattle to the place we are staying in the Olympic National Park, Lake Quinault Lodge. Our plan took us to the ocean for some distance before cutting back inland to the rain forest. The Pacific coast up here is wild and desolate, with a few pullouts from the coastal road. This beach was wide and flat, damp and packed enough you could drive well out in a 4WD vehicle. The sky was clear above but a constant mist rolled in. That's the kind of optics I like in this part of the country.
Yesterday's picture of a statue of Lenin was set in Fremont, perhaps Seattle's oddest neighborhood. It goes further. Under the Aurora Avenue viaduct lurks the Fremont Troll, certainly one of America's strangest pieces of public art. This design actually won a competition for what do do with a place that had become habituated with drug dealers. Again, there is a fascinating backstory you can check out at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fremont_Troll.
Seattle has its curiosities. Prominent among them is a 16 foot tall bronze statue of Vladimir Lenin in the quirky Fremont neighborhood. Why and how if got there is a complicated story, set out in detail on Wikipedia at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Lenin_(Seattle). It is obviously controversial, often vandalized, often decorated for special occasions and usually with red paint on the hands symbolizing Lenin's bloody career.
Some people have strenuously objected to it but it is privately owned and on private land. The city can do nothing about it. I can only imagine what would happen if something like this appeared in St. Louis, even in our funkiest neighborhoods. The howls would be deafening.
The roots of an upturned tree seen on the lower slopes of Mt. Rainier. As the trunk decays it becomes the source and nourishment of lichens, moss, fungi, bacteria and, in time, young sapling trees. At that stage it is known as a nurse log.
I usually shy away from posting pictures of other people's art but some things are so representative of a particular location it's worth doing. Dale Chihuly, originally from Tacoma, Washington, in the Puget Sound region, has become one of the world's leading glass artists. https://www.chihuly.com/work Seattle has a museum and outdoor garden dedicated to his work. It's a big crowd pleaser and a must-visit stop on the local tourist circuit. https://www.chihulygardenandglass.com/
The weather here is turning terrible over the weekend so opportunities for new material will be limited. However, I've got lots of stuff from the usual places and they are worth revisiting.
The State of Washington has a complex inland water system with Puget Sound and its many branches. There is an extensive state-run ferry system to get people and cars where they need to go. This picture of a departure from downtown Seattle was taken last night while we had dinner on the waterfront.
This is a travel day for us. Our original plan would have put us in Vienna right about now but Covid travel restrictions in Europe made that impractical. So, change of plans. We're off to Seattle today where we have friends, there is lots to see and do and photograph, and it's cool and moist (which St. Louis is not). This picture was taken a few years ago looking up at the Space Needle from the Dale Chihuly glass museum and garden.
Sometimes words cannot encompass an experience that appears before you. It is only possible to open the eyes and become part of what is happening.
We are traveling tomorrow. Mrs. C and I will be away for 10 days with a significant change of scene. I think we'll have a preview.
From certain angles the flags we saw yesterday seem go on and on. It is fitting to honor those who gave their lives for all of us, although we may disagree with their commanders' intentions. What saddens and frightens me is how many of our countrymen are willing to violate what I thought the flag stood for and create a de facto dictatorship of the minority.
There is an event on Art Hill this week called Flags of Valor, https://flagsofvalorstl.com/. More than 7,000 American flags have been planted in orderly military rows, one for each member of the armed forces who died in the line of duty since September 11, 2001. It is overwhelming and this shows only a small part. A lot of people were there on a sunny Friday afternoon.
No American who was old enough at the time can forget where they were when they heard the news. I don't.
A wide view of some of the flood wall at Paint Louis. The Mississippi lies a short distance behind. This is freshly painted - you can see one of the artists in the left background - but I have no idea what it means. Not the first time that has happened to me with a painting. I just like the color and scope of the scene.
A large section of the Paint Louis mural wall. The times we live in may be the inspiration for the work.
The artist dangling from the ladder at the far right makes me queasy. It was interesting to see how ladder design has changes for improved safety.
Back to Paint Louis. I may need to use pictures from there until we arrive in Seattle next week. (We were going to arrive in Prague today but that went down the drain.) Lots of colorful things to look at so no problem.
The wall faces roughly west so on a sunny day it becomes brilliant in late afternoon light. Of course, dramatic shadows, too.
Back at the Japanese Festival. The show these sumo wrestlers put on is always a big hit. Perhaps it is in part due to their inhuman scale but their speed, flexibility and strength is awesome. One of them demonstrated doing sitting splits with the legs almost straight out to the sides. It's an entry level requirement. And the whole thing is over in a matter of seconds - all you have to do is throw your opponent to the ground or push him out of the ring.
It's interesting that neither of these champions is Japanese (although the one in the background is). The one in front is Egyptian and the other is American.
I went back to the Japanese Festival at the botanical garden yesterday. The weather was better but it was impossibly crowded; I lasted two hours before I had enough. At one point I sat on a bench, picked up the camera with the telephoto and tried to take sniper shots. This one worked. Is her costume based on an anime character? That's beyond my experience even though I've been to Japan a few times and have plans to return.
There is a big Japanese festival at our big botanical garden over Labor Day weekend. It rained until mid-afternoon, when I went over for a while. A lot of the activities were canceled due to the weather or soggy grounds. The ever-popular sumo demonstration was in an amphitheater with a covered stage. Got some pretty good shots.
Sunday's forecast is good. I plan to go back to the garden in the morning and then return to Paint Louis in the afternoon.
Paint Louis, which takes place here over Labor Day weekend, is a big international gathering of graffiti artists, taggers, DJs and hip-hoppers. It's arguably the largest single graffiti event in the world, covering a 2 mile / 3.2 km stretch of the Mississippi River floodwall south of the Arch, all sanctioned by the city. The result is considered the longest mural in existence by the Guinness Book of World Records. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paint_Louis
I went for a look late yesterday afternoon and things were just getting started. It's supposed to rain most of today and I don't know how it will affect the schedule. https://www.facebook.com/PaintLouis/ I'll be back when the weather permits.
Part of the mechanism that moves the wheels on the Big Boy locomotive. I have no idea how it actually works. There is a big water tank and boiler, formerly powered by coal and now by diesel fuel. That creates steam which makes something or other turn, which in turn is connected to a series of levers and wheels. That's as far as I go with the concept.
I confess that I didn't work very hard on this theme so I dipped into some old archives. The common meaning of this phrase refers to something that is obvious but unnoticed but I took it literally. I wonder if the horse thinks she smells good,
The Big Boy locomotive didn't travel alone. Several other cars trailed behind, including a modern engine for some extra push. The companion cars didn't seem to have a purpose other than to show off the primary colors of the Union Pacific railroad. Why or how would you experience the UP? Private rail companies don't carry passengers in this country.
As the massive Big Boy locomotive left St. Louis it made a stop Monday morning in the suburb of Kirkwood, a town big enough to have an Amtrak station. There was quite a crowd but I squeezed my way to the front, looking for a clear shot. The backlighting was terrible but this will do.
As the train pulled to a stop right in front of me it let go a mighty blast of its whistle. Ow! The sound meter on my phone said it was 113 db but I bet the reading would have been higher if the phone hadn't been tucked into a holster. Half a minute of that can cause ear damage according to some web page I found (so it must be true). I haven't experienced the like since maybe the last Led Zeppelin concert I attended.
