By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
I invite you to enjoy a bit of the real world, nature.
Tag: photography
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
Just a few quick photos to spirit us away from the politics of this past week…I took two days off and headed for the coastline. Having returned later to e-Mail and the online news, it was decidedly apparent nature was a far better pursuit.
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
On yet another road trip we happened along this strange form of filling station–a tribute of sorts to the Teapot Dome Scandal. It has been one hundred years since the ensuing investigation, which greatly embarrassed the Harding Administration and later sent Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall to prison on corruption charges. In a twist, in 1985 the Department of the Interior added the station to the National Register of Historic Places.
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
Resulting from a bit of self-directed happenstance, I found that the digital camera and botanical garden are soon united… nothing like being given the proper latitude to find tropical flora and fauna.
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
The time was 18:14 and we took a little trip. A dahlia farm was in bloom and the camera was restless.
Click on each to enlarge
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
In my travels over the past week I took to an occasional diversion I sometimes make by visiting small and noteworthy cemeteries that come by once in a while. The two I visited recently presented two different perspectives on how we as a culture lay our loved ones to rest. Each of these have their own virtues and like most things in life one is not necessarily better or worse, but is so often according to the views of the beholder.
Here we find two of the same; different but not opposed.
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
While traveling on business I thought I would take a short trek up a random forest service road and snap a few photos before sunset.
The air was completely still and serenely quiet. When the temperature is as hot as it was that day, you can truly experience the scent of wood and of the woods, something I find enduringly relaxing.
Continue reading “Weekend Photos: Random Forest Service Road”
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
Semi-arid lands do not often come to mind when one envisions beautiful countryside. One attribute it affords the beholder is its accentuation of geology and a sense of timelessness. Left undisturbed, change is often not of importance to nature as it seems decades later to not have evolved. Only what humanity leaves behind tends to show aging in what we consider time, mirroring more of us than the environment.
The landscape does justice to tranquility.
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
Because I could I decided to go for a short drive and spend a couple of days away; as good an excuse as any for a few photographs.
Click upon each to enlarge
Continue reading “Weekend Photos: Concordant or Discordant Coastline? You Decide.”
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
Having decided to go on a long road trip, I came across the remnants of a wildfire and the subsequent rebirth of rolling fields of grass. The fire burned through this rural neighborhood yet to my amazement I could find no lost homes or outbuildings in or around the path of destruction. I initially attributed this to a supremely adept firefighting operation. Yet in the end, according to a resident there who I spoke with, it was more nature that took care of its own.
Continue reading “Weekend Photos: The Fire And The Resurrection”
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
Having seen the weather outside to be both glorious and inviting, I suddenly realized it was necessary for me to engage once again in “essential travel necessary to maintain critical infrastructure within the state’s economy”. So I hitched up the boat and took it to a scenic lake.
Once on the pond, I realized I should have brought my fishing pole as in some areas near shore the fish were occasionally jumping out of the water–just begging to be caught and eaten for dinner. Sadly I couldn’t accommodate their aspirations. Nevertheless the water was surprisingly warm and the air was filled with a pleasant waft of the forest and something that was blooming. A couple bald eagles circled in the distance, keeping their watch. I do not speak “Eagle” so I could not introduce him to the fish I saw earlier.
Still, it was as it always is, enjoyable to be away from it all, and snap a few shots.
Click each to enlarge
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
Once again I needed to “make essential travel to facilitate commerce related to critical infrastructure.” *** So I loaded up some tools and headed down the highway. For me I find the semi-arid coulees to be relaxing and soul-resting. Unless someone or natural events disturbs the area, it otherwise will remain nearly identical to what it was ten or twenty years earlier. Wildland fire seems to be the main cause of change and even in that example only a few years are needed for restoration. Time moves at a lichen’s pace.
Click on each photo to enlarge.
Continue reading “Weekend Photos: Today’s Column, The Basalt Of The Earth”
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
Though the state ordered us to Stay at Home and cower, it was of great necessary for me to drive to the Washington State Coast on “essential business travel related to maintaining critical infrastructure”. Yet, I did manage somehow to find a few moments during this noble duty to brave hazardous viral shoals, and pandemically mutated Coho-vid Salmon to bring you a few photographs of the infested outdoors. Please, do not worry for me–I had my cloth facemask somewhere in the glovebox and Geiger counter on a shelf in the garage, so I was protected.
Click on each to enlarge.
Continue reading “Weekend Photos: The Tide is Low But I’m Holdin’ On”
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
A Painted Lady describes a coloring schema of Victorian and Eduardian style houses common of the era between the middle 19th century to the 1910s yet repainted starting in the 1960s to accentuate the architecture through the use of many differing colors, often to a great level of precision (Some attaining not quite a Jan Van Eyck granularity but certainly above that of McMansions blighting many neighborhoods.
Here are a few for your enjoyment. Click each to enlarge.
Continue reading “Painted Ladies: A Few Photographs of Victorian Style Homes”
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
There is nothing quite like getting out, or in this case thumbnailing through a few archives on the old hard drive.
Continue reading “A Few Pictures of Boats”