November Haze

It's rare to get haze here in November, but on this day in 2005, that's what we had. I looked out over the ocean and noticed the effect it had on the seascape, enhanced by the unique lighting of the late afternoon sun. To boot, the bay was kicked up by high winds, frothing up the ocean very nicely. The overall scene was irresistible to a camera. If I didn't remember taking the picture, I would have sworn the camera did it all by herself. Yes, I name my cameras. This one was called Roxanne. My first digital camera (and you never forget your first), she died about a year ago. I miss her.

Phoenician Sunrise

Of all the hotels I've ever stayed at, The Phoenician, in Scottsdale, Arizona is my favorite. The first time I was in Phoenix, back in the mid 1990's, I had a drink on the deck of the hotel overlooking the pool. I fell in love with the place right there. But it wasn't until 2004 that I got to be a guest.

I was doing a workshop on co-dependency in Arizona and decided to end my trip with three nights at The Phoenician. My "problem" was that I couldn't decide if I wanted a mountain view room, a city view room, or a pool view room. A good problem to have, I admit. The first and only time I had been there, I had this image of what the lobby of the hotel looked out over, and that was the view I wanted from my room. For some reason, I had a hard time communicating that to the reservation specialists, probably because they didn't physically work at the hotel. The week or so before I arrived, I must have called back three or four times to change my room, because I had limited information and wasn't sure I was getting what I wanted.

The Friday I arrived at the hotel, it was late afternoon, my favorite time of day. I pulled into the hotel and headed to the front desk. After giving the front desk dude my name, I said, as I looked out through the gigantic wall of floor to ceiling windows in the lobby, "I've changed my room several times, but I know exactly what I want now. I want THIS view!", pointing out over the deck. He said, "Yes sir, that's a pool view". He then worked diligently to get me the room I wanted, on a high floor. I thanked him profusely.

From the moment I walked into The Phoenician, it's been a love affair. I hope to get back there and fool around with her again soon.

In Case We Forgot

The Northeast, where many of my friends and I live, has seen the second rainiest June in the last one-hundred-and-fifteen years. In the history of the planet, that's a completely insignificant statistic. For us transient humans, however, that fact can seem quite relevant. 

So just in case any of us in this part of the country have forgotten, this is what a sunset looks like.

Alive in Death Valley

"We stand upon the brink of a precipice. We peer into the abyss - we grow sick and dizzy. Our first impulse is to shrink from the danger. Unaccountably we remain. By slow degrees our sickness, and dizziness, and horror, become merged in a cloud of unnameable feeling. By gradations, still more imperceptible, this cloud assumes shape. . . . It is merely the idea of what would be our sensations during the sweeping precipitancy of a fall from such a height. . . . And because our reason violently deters us from the brink, therefore, do we the more impetuously approach it. . . . Examine these and similar actions as we will, we shall find them resulting solely from the spirit of the Perverse."

Edgar Allan Poe, from The Imp of the Perverse

Brian

What's wonderful about photography is that, while I'm always trying to catch lightning in a bottle with every shot, I'm often surprised as to which pictures actually achieve that. Sometimes I'll look at something through the lens, and as I'm taking it, I'll say "That's it. I've got something great here." But the picture doesn't turn out that well. The magic of the moment, for whatever reason, wasn't captured, or got lost in the translation. And there are other times when I'll take a picture, not think I've got anything, but when I look at it, I'm amazed at the result.

I took this shot of my friend drumming at one of his shows. The only adjustments I made were cranking up the saturation and shifting the hue slightly. I did that just to add some surrealism to it. The original image can stand on it's own without that, but I like the final effect as well.

When I took this photo, I had no idea what I had until I saw it on my computer screen. I could analyze this photo and explain what I love about it, but I'm not going to. I'll just write my own simple review that I think says it all: "Really Cool."