When Boyd was in college he took a class called agrostology. Imagine spending a whole college quarter learning the basics of the study of grasses. The main book in the class weighs in at almost 3-1/4 lbs. Yes, we know this because the book is still on Boyd’s bookshelf and we weighed it. You probably can name more grasses than you think: bamboo, barley, Kentucky bluegrass, cheatgrass just to get you started. Some you probably haven’t heard of: hairgrass, dropseed, bristlegrass. Agrostologists (yes there are such people) and agrostology students learn to tell the 12,000 species of grass (worldwide) apart by the nature of the awn, glumes and panicles, among other features. Don’t worry we won’t make you look up those terms. but we do want to give you a small taste of the world of Poaceae (the grass family). Boyd gathered the following examples here in Central Oregon. We hope this stimulates a desire to look a little more closely at those “weeds” along the trail and road as you get outside and enjoy the summer.
Spring west of the Oregon Cascade crest can be grim. Weeks of cloudy days and frequent spring rains replace the crisp days and snows of winter and precede the sun-dappled forest floor of summer. But it isn’t entirely dreary. There is an elevational belt where the Rhododendron grows under the heavy canopy of Douglas fir. And there is a belt of time when the Rhododendron blossoms splash pink through the deep spring shade. The combination of large pink blooms and persistent rain define the season. It’s spring in glorious, dripping wet, pinkness. Rhododendron spring.
The Sacramento Valley of California is one of those places that lies (mostly) between destinations. Trying to get to Oregon from the Bay Area? Make a speed run up Interstate 5. Need to get to an international airport from anywhere in California north of Sacramento? Time for another speed run down I5. Headed to Disneyland from Seattle? Yep down the Sacramento Valley on I5. It seems as if everyone has somewhere else to be.
But what if you take a little time off the freeway?
At first you may still be in a gray mood.
But the flowers and sky can brighten the day.
A wall of almond flowers fills the air with a sweet scent.
The sound of millions of honeybees hard at work fills the quiet.
Odd birds lurk in the ditch lines.
All of this might leave you a bit frazzled.
But as you merge back onto the industrial artery of I5 even the agroindustrial scenes blend into the darkening sky and the trip is a little brighter.
Someday we need to shoot the Sac Valley in the fog. But for now we have somewhere else to be.
For landscape and nature photographers a trip to Yosemite Valley is filled with longing and dread. We long to stand in the spots made famous by Ansel Adams and so many other incredible photographers. We long to bask in those magnificent views. We dread having our images compared to those famous shots. We fear we will find our work so far short of the mark that we ask ourselves the existential question: “Why am I doing this?”
We visited Yosemite Valley for a few days in late February. We stood at some of the famous places. We stood in some unknown places. We made a lot of images. We hope we made some images that show Yosemite Valley in a way you might not have seen before or in ways that rekindle your own memories. And yes, the Valley smiled on us and we avoided the existential question of why. This trip.
(All these images are lightboxed so if you click on them they will open in a separate window. This should help you to see the whole image for vertical crops and larger images for horizontal crops)
Blue skies over Mirror Lake on a sunny afternoon
Yosemite Falls on a cold winter morning refracting the sun
Detail of Bridalveil Fall
The Captain’s Mirror
Ground fog and a hint of morning color fortell a return of winter
Red sky at night, photographer’s delight
Sunrise of gray
Gathering storm over the Gates of the Valley
Horsetail Fall
The blue sky is a memory as the granite is caressed with gray mist
The clouds release the rain
the gray mists envelope the Valley and force our retreat from the storm.
Robins drop from sky
Snow collects on the branches
Winter in Robin Wood
Yes, it’s almost February. We had a busy year, so it took a while to select some of our current favorites from 2023. We started with a big group of favorites we liked in our own work. In other words Kathy picked from her catalog and Boyd picked from his catalog. Then Boyd picked some of Kathy’s and Kathy picked some of Boyd’s. Then we whittled them down. To get this down to just a few images each requires eliminating some favorites. I’ve read that other photographers compare the last step in this process to “drowning puppies.” That might be harsh but it is undeniably hard to not include some images.
So here are 14 of our favs from 2023. As usual they are “lightboxed” so you can click on an image and see it full screen on which ever device you are using. (Personally we favor a BIG high res monitor.) Enjoy!
Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Colorado
His Majesty’s Royal Cabbage - Balmoral, Scotland
Overwhelmed - Yellowstone National Park
Dance of the Costa - Patagonia State Park, Arizona
Highlands steer - Scotland
Buns of Sand - White Sands National Park, New Mexico
Rings and Bubbles - Yellowstone National Park
Sunset Ribbons - Yellowstone
Beach gold and azure - Cape Blanco, Oregon
Scottish Blues - Tobermory, Isle of Mull, Scotland
Sentinals of the North Sea - Scotland
Castle and birds - Scotland
Cathedral detail - Edinburgh, Scotland
Cape Blanco light - Oregon
Light, line, shape, color, and gesture make photos we love. But texture also attracts our eyes and our cameras. Here’s a dozen of our favorites from 2023. We love the feel of these images from wispy to gritty. Hope you love them too. Click on each to see a larger version.
When in the night we wake and hear the rain
Like myriad merry footfalls on the grass,
And, on the roof, the friendly, threatening crash
Of sweeping, cloud-sped messengers, that pass
Far through the clamoring night; or loudly dash
Against the rattling windows; storming, still
In swift recurrence, each dim-streaming pane,
Insistent that the dreamer wake, within,
And dancing in the darkness on the sill:
How is it, then, with us—amidst the din,
Recalled from Sleep's dim, vision-swept domain—
When in the night we wake and hear the rain?
Robert Burns
Castles come in many shapes and sizes. How would you like your castle to be? Big? Small? Here are some ways to have your castle if you are in England or Scotland.
Maybe you want your castle traditional, royal and large.
Maybe you want your castle tall and brooding over a strategic body of water.
Maybe you want your castle with turrets and cannon.
Maybe you want your castle to have a small entrance, difficult for enemies to force.
Maybe you want your castle to have a grand entrance over a bridge.
Maybe you want your castle in the middle of the Loch.
Maybe you want your castle with armored knights.
Maybe you want your castle protection a little more modern.
Maybe you want your castle with a pensive princess waiting on her prince.
Maybe you want music in and around your castle.
Maybe you want a fixer-upper.
Whatever you want in a castle, there are plenty of ideas in the Great Britain castle design center.
As we travel, we seem to find there are certain features that stand out about an area. Maybe it’s the hummingbirds in Costa Rica. Maybe it’s the walls of Tuscany. Maybe it’s the flowers of a desert springtime. For us, in Yellowstone, the features that stand out are the textures.
Yellowstone is rightfully famous for the geothermal features. But as photographers it is hard to get photographically excited about Old Faithful. Millions of photos have been taken of Old Faithful just this summer. But by spending a little more time in the park, we noticed the geothermal areas also had a wide variety of textures. And then we started seeing textures all around the park. There are the smooth pool surfaces and the rough edges at hot springs.
There are the textures where deposits have built up for millennia creating ledges on ledges on ledges.
And the frothing of the mud pots generates textures that hint at somewhere that may exceed Dante’s imagination, a place of boiling souls screaming to escape.
Yet some pools are calm with a zen-like, meditative feel to their texture. How long does the bubble exist?
Besides the geothermal areas, the grasses of midsummer are a tangle of lines and texture and color shifting away from the greens of spring.
Even the wildlife contribute to the palette of texture.
And as the grass dries and the bison shed, eat and procreate, the hot springs, mud pots and geysers provide a show of building new textures.
Meanwhile above the geyser basins and hot springs, above the bison and the grass, the sky is also textured and hints at changes to come and the end of the shortest season.
