Blog Archives
A five-member herd
I drive this highway every day on my way to work. It’s not a very exciting trip, most of the time – just 30 miles or so of mostly straight 4-lane highway. Sure, it curves a couple of times, and the speed limit drops through the little town of Smyer.
A few months ago I started to notice the chairs outside the fence of a junkyard that’s along the way. Sometimes there are two or three, other times there are as many as five. Sometimes they face each other, sometimes the highway, and sometimes one or two of them are on their side. I always look when I go by; it gives me something to do.
Toward the end of last week, I noticed the chair census had grown from two all the way to five. So on Saturday morning, I took a drive out that way to make a portrait of the herd of chairs.
Highway 114
Hockley County, Texas
photographed 5.9.2015
Water color
Usually, the Victoria Clipper goes on a relatively straight line from Seattle to Victoria. On the day of my trip, a storm in the Strait of Juan de Fuca would have made for a rough trip*, so we took an alternate – and much longer – route north through the San Juan Islands. It was less open water, and more to look at. Like water on the windows…
on board the Victoria Clipper
San Juan Islands, Washington
photographed 4.21.2015
*Prior to departure an announcement was made regarding the availability of motion-sick medicine onboard. It was, “If you know you are prone to motion sickness, if you think you are prone to motion sickness, or you don’t want to find out if you are prone to motion sickness, you can purchase tablets at the concession stand.” It was the best twenty five cents I’ve ever spent.
The shape of every day
This was the scene on the porch of a little food market in Port Renfrew. While we were there, a man and a dog arrived. The man was driving a three-wheeled motorized scooter, which traveled so slowly that the dog could easily trot alongside. The dog had a tennis ball in its mouth. The man got off the scooter, filled a plastic jug from the water spigot between the chairs. Then he and the dog continued along their day’s journey.
It was very ordinary, and I was glad to have seen it.
Port Renfrew, BC
photographed 4.22.2015
The remains of last week’s offering
My friend Ehpem lives only a couple of blocks from the Chinese Cemetery. I’d gone there on my previous visit but was so captivated by the ocean that I forgot to photograph the cemetery, an astounding oversight on my part.
On my recent visit, Ehpem and I were eating dinner when he interrupted his own sentence and said, “Look at the light! We need to get to the cemetery right now!” And off we went.
A bank of clouds meant that the light wasn’t quite what we were expecting, but we did what we could. And finished dinner after the sun was down.
There’s an interesting article on the cemetery here, if you’re interested.
Chinese Cemetery
Victoria, BC
photographed 4.23.2015
As if the rocks were holding them
Rocks. Seaweed. Low sun. Ocean.
I don’t know what else to say.
Point No Point Resort
near Shirley, BC
photographed 4.21.2015
PS. I know: two color photos in two day’s time!
