I took this photo: If Trump was a bird
It’s all about me!
Mine! Mine! Mine!
I took this photo. Everything else… well, you know.
I took this photo: Archeological footnote
Footnote: Awe and humility, interspecies relationship – big brain v. big body.
It is impossible for me to feel confident in the world these days. The natural disasters alone will set most any thinking person on edge. Add the political instability, of which the US president is a primary source, the ongoing racial, religious, and economic development conflicts, renewed nuclear threats, the mass destruction of the remaining wild places, unprecedented extinctions, the demise of clean water, climate change, and the pillaging of natural resources in places that were thought inviolable and there is enough to stop your heart from beating.
We have big brains. How can we be so utterly ignorant and stupid?
I have a sense of how insignificant I am in the grand scheme of things. I am but one person. If I don’t answer “urgent” phone calls, emails, or texts, emergencies will be resolved, decisions will be made, and the world will go on. No matter how famous, infamous, rich, or important I may become, all trace of me (except my plastic legacy) will disappear in the blink of a geologic eye. In totality, and geologically, human beings are not of much greater significance.
We evolved big brains that allowed us to domesticate plants and animals for food, turn metal into tools, create art and music, and to send men to the moon. If we are not going to use our brains for the collective good of the human population – not to mention the Earth as our only sustaining home – then I can only hope that the whole of humanity is found to be evolutionarily insignificant and passes the way of the dodo. Which, not incidentally, was wiped out by humans.
I took this photo to record the awe and humility I felt simply stepping into an elephant’s footprint in its native African home. If we cannot appreciate the magnificence of the world around us and rally our collective intellect to better sustain us and the resources we depend upon, we deserve to be nothing more than an archeological footnote to a more evolved species of the future. Perhaps something with a big body rather than a big brain. I hope it’s the elephants.
I took this photo: Good idea, poor implementation
An outhouse door blown open by the winter winds leaves a girl out in the cold.
The absolute opposite of being on the hot seat.
Worksite management specifically rented outhouses as a “courtesy” to the girls on site.
I took this photo as an example of a good idea poorly implemented. Those who don’t have to sit down, don’t always understand the importance of latching the door.
I took this photo: The Knight in Wellies
While children play, the Knight in Wellies stands watch.
There’s one in every class. You know the kid, the one who is always just on the fringe. Not quite fully accepted- and sometimes not fully interested in being accepted.
They keep to themselves. They have their own drummer. While other kids stick out their tongues and jostle each other, they stand guard in their knight’s helmet and Wellies.
I took this photo in Scotland’s Balvenie Castle adjacent to the Balvenie distillery. This is something one may imagine they have seen after a dram or two of good single malt whisky, but I was stone cold sober. And I did not attempt to fit in by donning a lampshade.
I took this photo: Morning clarity
Morning clarity in the rearview mirror.
The rain moved ahead of me. It passed through town and across the plateau before following the river west. The same route I was taking.
Summer rain in the sagebrush desert is something worth celebrating. It washes the dust out of the air. As the air warms again almost immediately, it smells of earth and water and life.
It is unmistakable. It breaks through the dust in my brain to remind me that time and space are ever fluid. That whatever may settle here now will wash away with the next downpour.
I took this photo as I entered the storm, the Columbia River bluffs and calm water behind me, foretelling the clarity that comes with the passing rain.
I took this photo: Halfway
Cascade color
Today is the autumn equinox. Halfway between the light and the dark, three-quarters of this year’s spin around the sun.
The sun seems as reluctant to rise in the morning as I am. And sets again too soon. In exchange for less light, there is more color and the forest is once again vibrant with the autumn rain.
I took this photo when the trees were half red, the sky half blue. Together they made the day wholly perfect.