A privacy fence, they are all over here and with the crowds you can understand why.

A windy chilly day at the beach at lunch.

This is a new favorite. Just a quick shot I took to document the yellow growth on the cement. The composition looked nice to me with the fence breaking through diagonally. For me what saves it is the one yellow/red leaf that offsets all the colors.

VW Vans are everywhere in the neighborhood near work. This particular orange one caught my eye on several occasions when I didn't have my camera. Finally with camera in hand I got this shot early in the morning. I cropped it from the original, thought the composition was better this way.

Bubbles near the Santa Monica Pier.

I love bounced light. This is the door to a closed down restaruant.

A post with some history.

Outside of work, I appreciated the texture of the sign.

We've turned the weekend routine of doing laundry into a pleasant weekly ritual. In that rat race of everything it is actually a comfort to have some rituals. We go to a laundry mat and have been going early in the morning and getting coffee and a bagel for the wait. While our clothes spin away in the antiquated machines we sit and talk about whatever comes to mind. I have found myself looking forward to it each week.

On a side note, after a few comments about wondering what I looked like. It got me thinking about doing an "about" page. I was happy to point out a place where I actually do show up in the pictures and I appreciated the comment, but I decided I didn't want to put up such a page. Seemed to undermine why I started doing this blog in the first place. (I am worried this is going to sound like arguing, when really it just brought up a train of thought) The whole page is about me. Every picture is a self portrait in a way, a very real way. I grew up in a fashion that always made me feel like I was an intergral part of the environment and vice versa. The Forgotten Grain title was based around that feeling... you know.. when you are a little kid and you are moving.. or just going on a car trip with your parents and you look back at your house and watch it go... you appreciate it in a whole different light. You even notice things you never did before. This site just gave me a way of looking back at them again, those moments. Its funny but I bet I frequent this site more than all others combined. : ) Staring at the pictures of the tracks where I grew up when I feel homesick or the picture of Cal everyday because... well ... just because.

I really appreciate all the comments lately. I have been amazed and suprised anyone even looks at these besides myself. I always feel like I take pictures that are only interesting to myself. I just realized yesterday that two of my all time favorite photoblogs have links to mine. What a compliment! It made me realize I need to update my links section. : ) I went immediately and revoted for them at photoblogs.org. You should too. They are perpetualkarma and shutterbabe.org. Another one of my favorites is waytoblue.org. At any rate thanks all.

Ride home from work the other day.

Another picture on the way home from work. I am always on my way home at what photographers call "the golden hour", so its hard to resist the urge to snap a few. : )

I was looking for a photo I took a couple years ago the other day and while I was browsing through them I found a lot of others I took long before forgottengrain ever existed that I thought deserved a little screen time.

A fish with a slow shutter speed at the Minnesota Zoo.

Moss growing in the bumper of an abandon car in rural Minnesota. This is another snapshot from the past. Honestly the idea of it is mostly why I like it, the picture could have been better. : )

I do like how you can see ocala and I in the bumper reflections and some of the big expansive field too.

At the riverfront in downtown Spokane.

A hood ornament with my old camera in a junk yard north of Spokane. I loved the variation of color in the hood.

I wandered around that junkyard for sometime. It had a lot of inspiration for texture work. I always love abandoned cars and houses. It reminds me of where I grew up. There were old farm houses everywhere.

A friend of mine and I carefully crossed the collapsed floor of one such house miles away from anywhere. In one far side of a room was a table and chair. On the table was an old corroded pistol and a jar of empty bullets. There was a book about the county I grew up in called "Bloody Williamson". I never read it, but it was supposed to be about the days of prohibition and how the mob from Chicago brewed all the alcohol in the backwoods where I grew up. Evidence of it was everywhere. It always seemed like when prohibition was repealed they must have just dropped everything and left. At that same house a boat was still tied to the pier in a small pond. It sank the minute my friend touched it. I have no idea how it managed to stay afloat all that time. It was a bizarre and memorable moment.

These cars reminded me of even older ones abandoned in a field near my house back then. The way they were left made them ideal for playing through chase scenes for hours. Imagining shooting out the glass that was already gone.....I'll stop now, I could go on for hours. : ) ah childhood...

Peace sign in pavement down by venice beach, complete with green drinking straw.

Everyday down at the beach new graffiti goes up. It is really cool. Makes me wonder how many coats are on those walls.

The glow of the beach sand on the shimmer of the paint.

Poor tree, but I liked the effect that time and growth has had on the letters.

Bounced light on a door to a closed down restaurant.

This tree was amazing. The bark was flowing over the whole surface. I didn't expect this picture to turn out, but as it is, its a favorite.

Weather from the ocean is quite interesting here. The clouds behave differently than what I am used to.