Just a simple pinhole image take on a mostly cloud day at the beach near Fort Stevens. I find it amazing that one can return to the same beaches again and again and always find a different image to photograph. Partly, I suppose, it's the scenery that changes. Mostly, however, I believe that we change - you can never step in the same river twice, they say.

The beach near Fort Stevens is certainly one of my favorites, but I admittedly have many 'favorites' - Hug Point, Cannon Beach, Manhattan Beach, Cobble Beach, Bandon Beach, and moreso than ever, Cape Kiwanda. And so many others.

This particular exposure was somewhere between three and four minutes in length, and of course, taken with my Zero Image pinhole, who is starting to show the wear and tear of being carted everywhere I go - a scratch here, a scratch there. It's like pinhole adolescence... but he faithfully rolls with the punches.

Tags:   fort stevens astoria pacific northwest peter iredale shipwreck sunset beach pacific ocean silhouette oregon zero image zero2000 pinhole pinholebb?

© All Rights Reserved

Because this is a bridge worthy of some poetry:

Leaving Here

Fly these bones up into the night;
Lay them along those beams, stark white
Of flickered, filtered, bright starlight.
Fill these lungs with the shining dust
Of what has been, of what will be,
In the realm of distant galaxies.
I'll kneel behind the shadowed moon
And catch your dreams as they climb skyward,
Coat your wounds with the balm of two small words:
Missing you.

For soon I'll shoot beyond this place,
From the cold twilight of youth's embrace,
Into the fires of a new world's race,
Into that booming, sparking, guideless space.
There are no strings to hold me here,
Just faded memories of our years,
And those, in the manner of love's way stations,
Dim as we follow our own constellations.

I'll dance those hungry sun-dog fires,
Romance the flames, dwell in desire.
All things, they say - even love? - expire.
But in some of that light, no matter how far,
Will arc the streak of a sole shooting star,
And I'll know, forever, just where you are.


(Poem written before my move from Iowa to the East Coast a few years back. Image curteousy of a borrowed Zero Image pinhole camera. Taken from the vantage point of a picnic table at Cathedral Park in St. Johns.)

Tags:   zeroimage zero69 st johns bridge st johns bridge portland pdx oregon pacific northwest zero image pinhole

© All Rights Reserved

I admit that I went a little overboard in the number of times I visited Waterfront Park to see the cherry trees this past week or so... actually, I take that back. I don't think you can go overboard with such a thing. And being such a sensitive 'smell' kind of person, each trip was a little slice of heaven for me. Each trip offered different opportunities as well. I loved this particular sunny day, but even more so I liked these trees in the light rain, with fat water droplets plunking from the blossoms onto my face. Today I visited briefly to see if the petals were falling yet... they are, but not enough to cover the ground by any means. So I may just have to make one more trip out there... we'll see. ;)

Taken with my Zero Image 2000, the camera that can and does.

Tags:   cherry trees waterfront park pdx portland oregon spring blossoms zeroimage zero2000 film palabra pink pacific northwest heaven

© All Rights Reserved

...and lives! Okay, so you'll have to forgive me; I'm in a bit of a goofy mood. This shot was taken at the PDX airport as I traveled down the moving walkway with my newly hatched pinhole. This, actually, was one of pinhole's first shots (like a first word, only for cameras). I don't even remember the exposure... somewhere between eight seconds, as it was rather bright even inside the building. I rather like the feeling of extreme movement (like hitting the 'lightspeed' button on the moving walkway.) Might have been a little cooler if there had been a person standing in this walkway, moving at the same speed of the camera, but regardless I still like the shot.

Oh, and for all you Portland Flickrites out there - hope to see you at the meetup tonight! For details visit the PDX page here.

Tags:   pdx portland airport pinhole zero2000 zero image oregon black and white bw motion moving walkway

© All Rights Reserved

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

T.S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

This is, so far, my favorite image from my trip to San Diego. This was taken at Sunset Cliffs Park on the final evening of my stay. Due to the wildfires, the air had been a bit smoky for the past two days and the sun this night set into a red bank of haze. Before that, however, it lit up the cliffs and sparkled off the rocks and made the sea take on an ethereal quality, which I think pinhole captured well here.

This exposure was only a few seconds long, though I spent much longer lingering at the edge of the cliffs and watching the light play off the waves.

Tags:   pacific ocean california sunset zeroimage zero2000 pinhole sunset cliffs waves sea ocean palabra omw

© All Rights Reserved