Nearly as soon as I saw the lineup for Outside Lands 2009, I had tickets in my hand. It had to happen and it was very worth it. San Francisco is a blast in itself, but to also see a ton of bands I love made it even more of a blast!
I only spent a few days in Oklahoma City, but it was a nice city, minus some confusing driving situations! I stayed downtown at The Skirvin Hilton, ventured out a couple of evenings, and visited the Oklahoma City National Memorial – as you can see below, it’s a very serene and peaceful memorial.
This was a fun project. I setup my camera on a tripod inside my condo (too cold outside!) and had it snap a photo every five minutes over several hours. The results are pretty nice and actually pretty interesting – we get big tides here and this video is a good example of that. Note the level of the boats and buildings in the harbor from the beginning of the video to the end. Quite the change!
Around we go!
Juneau has a great trail and cabin system within a short driving distance of pretty much anywhere in town. In the winter, reservations for these cabins are easy to come by and getting out to one is a great way to spend a wintery weekend!
The Peterson Lake trail is about 4.3 miles each way and is relatively flat. I’d brought snowshoes with me for this hike, though you really don’t need them for the trail. They’re fun to have once you get to the cabin if you want to explore the lake, however. This particular trip didn’t start so well: I reached the trailhead, parked, and when getting everything together, I realized I’d forgotten all my water. I figured I could make it the length of the trail without water, which I did with no difficulty. Once at the cabin, I did need water to cook with, so I used a hatchet and cut a hole in the ice over the lake at the end of the dock – it wasn’t too hard since someone had done it previously, so the ice wasn’t very thick. I then spent the evening reading in super quiet solitude… then cranked some music. Ah, ALASKA!
I was born in Tucson, AZ, so it was a treat to visit for a week. Although I’ve been in Alaska for most of my life, I still love the desert – the heat, sand, wildlife, and the views. If you’ve ever watched an old western, chances are it was either filmed in Tucson or filmed on a set modeled after the Tucson area!
Since the movie 3:10 to Yuma had just been released around the time I was visiting and the old mining town of Bisbee, AZ was heavily featured, I took a small roadtrip to see it. A couple of photos of Bisbee are noted at the end of the gallery. It definitely still reflects its mining history, with large mining pits and old mining buildings dotting the landscape.
The summer of 2007 was a fantastic bear year in Juneau.
If you visited the Mendenhall Glacier anytime between late-July and August of that year, you were nearly guaranteed a black bear viewing. There were 13 black bears concentrated in a roughly 1.5 mile stretch of Steep Creek, feeding on the spawning salmon making their way upstream. The raised viewing platforms of the Moraine Trail – originally built to enhance salmon viewing – proved to be a wonderful and safe way to watch the bears and their cubs go about their feeding.
I don’t know the proper name of this creek, only that me and my camera were in it while shooting this 360 degree panorama.
I was taking a walk at Sandy Beach during a bit of a cold snap and noticed some little straws of grass poking up through the snow here and there. I took a few photos of the different arrangements and continued on my way. It wasn’t until a few months later that I thought, “Hey, those photos I took would make a neat minimalist-type composition.”
So here it is, Snow + Grass presented as a triptych:
