Basketball Camp

Pickup Dog

Abundant Life Church

Wrastling!

Man, the last few weeks have left me thoroughly impressed with wrestlers. From the sidelines it seems like a sport that really demands everything of you both physically and mentally. The moves are highly technical; the slightest shift in position and momentum makes all the difference; a thousand tiny decisions made every moment to organize your weight over your opponent.
I imagine these mental gymnastics become rather difficult to pull off with all the intense physical exertion also involved; to remain both perceptive and aggressive.
I'm of course perfectly happy to entertain my awe from the sidelines and focus on trying to get this stuff across visually. The thought of getting in their myself is genuinely scary.

Nutcracker Rehearsal

Its Christmas time, so my assignments are getting steadily more Christmasy as we advance upon the J-man's B-day. Here's a gallery just posted on the Herald website from the Nutcracker rehearsal I attended this evening. Tomorrow I go Christmas shopping with police officers at Wal-Mart. Hmmm...I never thought I would do such a thing.

Cargo

At Home but not at Home

Back to Basketball

Harping

Weaving

Ski Season

Mount Baker ski area opened a couple days ago. Watching the light change and the low lying fog lift from the cascade foothills as I approached the ski area at dawn, I felt very fortunate to have this as my job/internship. Struggling to put one foot in front of the other in three feet of powder, wishing that I had a set of skis or a snowboard as I navigated the mountain in my tennis shoes, I still felt pretty fortunate, but not without muttering obscenities at the mountain. However, I couldn't help but feel a touch of envy, when I met all the ski bums who live and work at the mountain. 200 or so free-spirited I young folks living at the foot of some of the prettiest alpine scenery imaginable, skiing/boarding everyday of their carefree winter. 'Utopia' is a word that comes to mind.

Prayer Tree

I've been a long-time fan of both trees and prayer flags, so I was quite pleased the other day when I came across a happy marriage of the two while I was out shooting a cold weather feature. Of course, it didn't get the coldness thing across, so I took what I like to think of as a photojournalistic smoke-break and shot completely un-news-related, peopleless scenes.
I've never been to the Himalayas, and I'm not a practicing Buddhist, but a get this particular feeling of comfort and hominess whenever I come across prayer flags. Thats all, just a pleasant visual surprise.

Christmas Harvest

I had my pick out of about 20 different tree farms to visit today to document as they prepare for the holiday season. On each of my many trips up and down scenic and remote Mt. Baker Highway I've always looked out my window intrigued with these clean repetitive rows of nearly identical trees against the undomesticated rough-and-tumble of forested hills. So, up Mt. Baker Highway is where I chose to go. This picture doesn't do much to suggest that contrast I described, but I like seeing the tree up up in the air like that, horizontal against the horizon, distinctly uprooted. I do think I'll go back though on my day off and try to work that contrast a bit more, when I'm not concentrated on pictures for the paper.

Northwest Hoops

Upon arriving in the northwest, I was struck immediately by the canopied outdoor basketball courts. Of course they're covered, it rains here all the damn time. Little known fact: rain is actually Washington's state bird. Its also the state marine mammal and amphibian. Steelhead trout is the state fish.
Another thing about Washington, although its cloudy and subdued a great deal of the time, there are these really sublime glimpses of light, when the clouds thin and diffuse the sun. Its subtle in this picture, not sublime, but you can see how soft the light is and how open the shadows are.

Tying Grandma's Shoes

Neighborhood Hoops

From my walk around the neighborhood this evening.

Rocky Horror Makeup

Halfpipe

Fallen Leaves

My day off today had me in quite a mood. I've been thinking a lot about humankind as fallen from nature (bleak I know)--that our everyday betrayals of the natural environment really take a toll on one's own spiritual well being; in addition to, but not separate from, the broader ecological well being of the planet. (I told you I was in a mood). On my short walk today, with just a few blinks of twilight left, and a 50mm, I took some portraits of fallen leaves that perfectly described my feeling.
After having some quality interactions with friends and experiencing some warmth and humanity, the feeling dissipated (go figure). Although I think this desolate feeling has at least something to do with living in this "ultra-super-duper modern age" (you heard it here first), I'm for certain that its also a symptom of the psychological disorder known as doing-too-many-errands-on-your-dayoff.

Comic Convention

Hells Bells

This had to have been one of the most rockingest concert's I've ever been too. I hardly knew whether to head bang or photograph, so I did both. You can see more of these here.

Serving

I love photography's "wow cool" effect of freezing and decontextualizing visual elements that might not otherwise pull a second glance. Steam for instance or smoke, reflections, liquid, air-borne objects--all can move from mundane to magical rendered still, 2D and boxed in. Of course this magic all too quickly becomes (already is) cliche. But my point is, the "wow cool" effect is damned cool anyway, and its a compliment to the camera (albeit maybe not the totality of grubby shutter bugging operators*) that its such a cliche making machine.

* Myself included of course. And although its sometimes disturbing to see hoards of people shielded from an actual view by cell phones and digicams, I still love a culture transfixed by a crude mimesis.

2 Quick Fixes

Bellingham Nightlife

These are from an ongoing assignment to photograph Bellingham nightlife for a new website called gobham.com. You can see my take from last week if you click on the "out late gallery" at the bottom of the page. Not exactly hard journalism, or even soft journalism for that matter, just scenes of a scene. This week's should be online in a couple days. I think this week's were more fun. The students are back, and dancing to 80's music.

Fiesta!

Three from the Ptarmigan Ridge Trail

Ferry Boat Captain

Fetch

Night Shift #3

Tug of War

Dave and Eduardo

Night Shift #2

Penny works from 10:30pm to 8am at Walgreens. "A woman works 24/7 all her life," she says.

Night Shift #1

Ferry Boat Passenger

Dear Friends

These are from a trip down to Portland to visit some of my favorite people.

One Look at Parkour

The Carter Family

The Carters are now three generations deep in puppeteering. Some 30 years ago, Stephen (left) and Chris began putting on shows. Their son, and now their son's son have grown up puppeteering, "its just family business" as Stephen pointed out. This picture has them warming up before the show for their Italian gypsy folk accompaniments. The accordion, of course, was a serendipitous find at a thrift shop. And just like good gypsies, the Carters are self-taught musicians, and good ones at that.

Manning the The Wacky Water Race

This is Robbie, who worked at the Wacky Water Race game booth at the county fair. I was amazed at his ability to remain in genuine pleasant (and marketable) spirits that helped him sell games, but also came with a certain nonchalant self-awareness which allowed him to perform and yet transcend his limited role as game-master (BTW, this is a graduated liberal arts mind at work). Self-conscious irony, sarcasm and double-talk, rather then reaching beyond the contingency of one's identity, leave one drooping pitifully, and often nihilistically into the dregs of this contingency (riff on DWF). But this light hearted (yet hearted, indeed) performance managed to do the trick of transcendence for the man at the wacky water race. But maybe its just me. I was mainly observing from behind a viewfinder, and most focal lengths do tend to have at least a little distortion.