Less is More, Sometimes: A Slide Show

Our world can be overwhelmingly complicated. Despite the seeming simplicity of binary systems, this digital age is, except for the initiated, of mind-boggling obtuseness and sometimes depressing frustration. Then there is deep science. No matter how moving it is to hear great physicists talk about the “elegance” or the “simplicity” of this or that set [...]

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Twelve Views of Humbug Mountain Beach

A monothematic photographic essay in subdued tones of an Oregon winter beach before the storm. Humbug Mountain, whose rampart is just visible in some of these photos, has a kind of Fujiama presence when viewed at a distance. In fact it is of volcanic origin. The beach was on this day mild for winter with [...]

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The Photographer’s I: Driftwood

A northwest beach is a driftwood beach, and by that I don’t mean a stray twig or coconut shell washed ashore. Northwest driftwood is a defining essence  of the beachscape, as indigenous as the windblown capes. Driftwood here means immense weathered logs, washed up like toothpicks in Pacific storms, roots, trunks, limbs all sanded, and [...]

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The Photographer’s I: Sunset Country

In extreme northwest Victoria, Australia, where the outback begins, lies a dry eucalyptus land called Sunset Country. I have never seen this place, but the name itself is its own reward.  Imagine—the evocation of the mere word sunset. What comes to mind?  Of course dazzling reds and oranges, reflected in the water or across desert [...]

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The Photographer’s I : Mists and Miasma

Spray and mist. Not exactly promising subjects for a picture. Photography books advise you to take early morning or late afternoon shots. Strong shadows and light; definite, sharp outlines; bold perspective; strong composition with curves, verticals, diagonals and horizontals. And yet for a contrarian with a camera, these are exactly the “rules” that are fun [...]

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The Photographer’s I: A Yellowstone Portfolio

In the Ken Burns-Dayton Duncan special “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea,” Yosemite and Yellowstone get the lion’s share of attention, both for their centrality to conservation history, and because of their iconic nature, double meaning of nature intended. Of the two,Yosemite is the most photogenic, with sculptured granite walls and domes, graceful but thunderous [...]

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The Photographer’s I: Rocks

Rocks to me are akin to bones, bones of the earth, it’s skeletal frame that has been pressed and extruded and deposited. Rocks in one sense hold the meaning of life, because life has evolved in a medium of rocks dissolved, eroded, polished, blown, washed away, wore bare by human feet or by their chips [...]

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The Photographer’s I: Hugging Trees

Of all the snarky epithets given to Greens, “tree hugger” is the most clever. To laugh at someone who actually believes trees have something to say seems humorously innocent. But of course it isn’t. I mean something to say about meaning in the grand scheme of nature. That meaning can be both ecological and mystical. [...]

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The Photographer’s I: Minimalism in January

Snow not only brings a soothing hush to the racket and tumult of everyday urban life—it also gives rest and tranquility to our abused eyes. Unfortunately, I can’t give an unambiguous answer as to what this means in its fullest. Maybe: “You know it when you see it.” Here’s another try: A slowing of the [...]

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Photo Essay: Cactus

Photographer’s Note:  Their range stretches from the Canadian plains to Argentina. But they are indigenous only to the New World. The great saguaro is the icon  of the southwest deserts, but it occurs in numbers only in Arizona. The real cactus workhorses of the southwest are the cholla and the far-ranging prickly pear. Most of [...]

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