This is an older shot from the Riverside Park in Spokane Washington. I believe this is one of my first outings with a digital slr. I went to the park often taking pictures of everything I could. A lot of those shots show up on this site.

I liked the reflective quality of the burnt bark. The area had suffered a large forest fire years before and was slowly recovering. From the holes in the bark, you can tell that the tree already had bug problems long before the fire got to it.

Well there goes my New Year's resolution. "I am gonna post everyday", I told myself. Its not like I am gonna run out of photos..

This was a picture I took while I lived in Spokane and hiked down by Riverside Park. This male was keeping an eye on his family across the river. The area around their nest had been ravaged by a forest fire a few years before.

I find it interesting that so much of my life revolves around light. This site is full of pictures capturing it. My job at work is to create stories and images out of little squares of colored light.

One of my photography teachers, when I was in school, taught the science behind light as part of his courses. He was a big inspiration to me, more for his passion for it than anything else. He really made you understand the complex nature and harmony that enters your lens.

Ansel Adams used his experience in music in working on his photographs. He saw scales in his pictures, as in his music. It is hard not to think of that when I am at work adjusting colors to be just right. People often say that images aren't as powerful as music... but I think when you tune them, those frequencies of light, they sing.

At the riverfront in downtown Spokane.

I had intended these to be the last images I posted before leaving Spokane, but as it is, I forgot and was on the road to LA. Thought they were a good farewell to the area.

Both were taken on the same day as the sun set in one view and the moon rose from another.

With the trees gone the smaller plants have a chance to flourish...

... along a trail....

...in the bare branches....

.... or on the edge of the riverbank.

A river (Spokane or Little Spokane River, not sure which this part is) runs through the area where the fire took place. The fire actually jumped it. As the days went by I began to explore the riverbank. I began with the idea of capturing the brilliant sunsets reflected in the river as the fire must have been when it reached the river.

These shots I took completely on different days. I was trying to catch the many colors the sky was during the days I was there. The sunset each day on the hill which can be seen in the picture from yesterdays post.

The sky slowly visited each range of the spectrum before its color faded and it quietly exited to give the stars their time. It was silent and remarkable. I will always envy the colors of the skies here. I have never seen anything like it.

Since this is my last week in Spokane I thought it would be cool to show some of the first pictures I took here with my camera.

When I first got my camera, I spent the first few weeks heading down to Riverside Park before sunset everyday after work. I hiked mostly through an area that had been ravaged by a fire years before. I wanted to explore the idea of regrowth after such an event. Here a young sapling sprouts from the remains of other evergreens.

Same as it ever was... (Belated Birthday Post)

"Into the blue again, into the silent water... Once in a lifetime, water flowing underground...."

The world is my beautiful house. This is my beautiful life. How did I get here? My god, look at what I have done. Where does that highway go?

"same as it ever was... letting the days go by... water flowing under... letting the days go by.. here comes the twister.... same as it ever was..once in a lifetime..."

A close up of lichen on the trees on Mt. Spokane. Looking back in the other pictures, it is interesting to think about all the hidden green in the predominantly blue pics.

Another close up shot from the weekend up on Mt. Spokane.

Every time it snows, I find myself thinking about the power of sound. Snow deafens, it isolates. It makes you concentrate on the visceral. I found myself looking at what was immediately around me.

It is also intimate and safe. The whole world is suddenly padded for your safety.

Quick shot of the fire hydrant in the work parking lot with a new 20mm. Looked like one of those mushroom guys from Fantasia with chain handcuffs on to me.

Sunrise through some weeds outside of work this morning.

The sunset across ice in a strip mall parking lot on Thanksgiving.

It was nice because the clouds broke just for sunset. On the way back from downtown fog rolled in, not 15 minutes after these.

We were downtown at sunset yesterday and I grabbed a few quick shots at the top of the parking ramp with my back to the sunset. Its funny because these shots are only about three hours after the shots I posted of the foggy trees on yesterdays post.

The country sure is beautiful in this area. I took this picture just north of where I work back a couple of months ago when the wheat fields were golden. Summer is gone. I don't feel like I took as much advantage of the area as I could of. I had hoped to get out a bunch.

Ah well... no use having regrets. I am looking forward to winter (but not the cold). Nice thing about the area is that it doesn't go totally grey. I noticed last winter when I took that train ride to visit my brother Chris and his family, how much of a contrast there was between the evergreen country and the grey Minnesota and Illinois areas. I am hoping to get a bunch of snowy landscape pics and the like.

Haven't been taking that many pictures over the past month. The weather has been very bland. I missed the week or so of leaves turning. It was colorful and beautiful, but I just didn't feel the urge to pull out the camera.

Starting to feel like taking pictures again. I am waiting for a good opportunity and some good light. I am back to carrying my camera with me everywhere. Feels good to do that... though I think it hovers that border of being a dedicated artist and a male tourist type fellow (ie gadget man). I try to keep it simple. Sometimes I wonder why I didn't study photography exclusively when I was in college. I took a lot of photography classes and spent a ton of time in the dark rooms. I love it so much. Its about being out there and in it. It my two favorite things rolled into one, hiking and art.

I want to get used to shooting people more and not just landscapes. I need to get more comfortable with it. Living in a inner city for years, I got in the habit of not being overly friendly to people on the street and avoiding too much contact. I think to get into doing street photography, I would have to gain back some of that small town mentality I grew up with.