Alone

Photo Friday

Lone tree growing on slopes near Mt. St. Helens. This slope was not cleared by loggers. Instead, the forest that used to exist on this hillside was blasted away during the major eruption of Mt. St. Helens in 1981.

Aurora Borealis

A couple of years ago, while on a flight to Europe, I enjoyed a spectacular display of the Aurora Borealis over Hudson Bay. I grabbed my old digital camera, shut off the flash, set it for about 1 second exposure, and attempted to take a picture of the Aurora. When I uploaded the photo at home, it looked like a dark photo with a very pale -- almost not visible foggy patch angling across the image. Didn't look anything like the Aurora I had seen. I'm not sure why I even saved the photo, but I did.

This weekend, for some reason, I ran across this photo again and decided to try to enhance the lighting with Photoshop Elements. I used the Auto Levels command, and voila -- the beautiful green curtain-like Aurora appeared! Not bad for a night-time hand-held shot looking out the window of a commercial jet!

Sky

Photo Friday

Strange But Striking

A couple of weeks ago, we spent the weekend in Scottsdale and happened to run across Maya II at the Scottsdale Center for Performing Arts. Maya II is an installation by Jarvis Rockwell, consisting of a 14 foot tall pyramid covered with about 11,000 action figures and other miniatures! Below are several close-up details.

No Littering - And They Mean It!

Peaceful

Photo Friday

Best of 2006

Photo Friday's end of year theme is "Best of 2006". I'm not sure if this is my "best" shot this year, but I do like how this one came out. Click on the photo for a larger view.

Weather

Photo Friday

A typical Seattle winter day. Dark, gray and overcast. Probably going to rain soon. Although Seattle's a great place to live, the truth is, I'd much rather be here than in Seattle during the winter!

Stillness

A bit late for this past week's Photo Friday, but finally found some time to post this pic I shot while kayaking in the mangrove swamps.

Evil

This week's Photo Friday theme was "Evil". This photo was taken in a place where unspeakable evil happened. During our trip to Central Europe last year, we visited Auschwitz, not because it was a place that I wanted to see, but it was a place that I needed to visit. At first, I was hesitant to take any photographs there because it almost felt sacrilegious. But in the end, I did take a few, just so that I would remember what I saw there.