summer encore - in the foothills of the headlands

tina, later in the day

tina, earlier in the day

tina, a day before

dodatne ljetne domaće epizode

prije no što nastavim sa sjeverno-američkim zbivanjima protekle naravi moram se prisjetiti tininog posjeta rvackim ruševnim ljepotama - meni. žena drži tri ćoška kuće, pardon, dvorca , a ja četvrti.

ćukča posla

controlling the ass-et... ...of a she-dog kind.

tina throws the frisbee...

... and bodhi is on her way to fetch it. i must, but i am holding the camera.

onto niagara falls!

since it was raining on the day of our upstate new york camping trip we decided to go on a little drive. obviously, we didn't get enough of sitting in the car by driving from philly to up here. so we left our lake ontario camp site just to make several stops along the shores of the same. my camera af is so fast* that even bodhi cannot keep up with it! but, tina says, the niagara falls is only 15h** away from here, let's drive to the falls! and 30h*** later we examine some views around the falls. lots of foaming water and souvenir shops. i think it'd be nice to get a little eiffel tower. but i restrain myself. such strong will i have. i hug and congratulate myself. tina asks me if something is wrong. the fall of niagara --- * af was set on manual. i know what i'm doing. except when a chance helps me. ** writer - who is a man - perceives thusly any info uttered by women. *** see ** and double it each time you read it.

snoqualmie pass hike

before it turns a year and half since the snoqualmie hike i must press on with yet another follow-up post. yes, the hike was that long. i can't recall much of the trail impressions any more but looking back at the photos sure reminds me of at least two things: 1. i was very happy you came to see me 2. washinton is beautiful and suits you well if you turn your back on me one more picture i will have to buy another camera, one much faster to catch up with you. that red backpack you got for me and i packed full with iridium-enriched lead obviously didn't do the trick.

a snoqualmie-pass trail, second introduction

this has been the case for a while now; i am blog backlogged. i can immediately think of 10 other, worse things i could have been. i am not counting the photos i'd taken before i started photo-blogging. how important is this? it isn't. what's important is that this gorgeous hike was amped up by tina's visit while i was in e-burg. the hike is one of my first hikes on a sun-less day. these hike types, i came to know, are as exciting as the ones tina and i did in the peak of summer traversing snow patches to reach the end of trail. it's been a year since we hiked this little gem. i am planning a follow up post since there are some snow-melting shots i'd like to share. what really needs to be planned is a follow up hike. superflous photo descriptions never bothered me here so i mince one again; there isn't an end to what washington keeps on disclosing to the curious eye and the connected soul even when you aren't there. i get to share that with that red smudge in the middle of it :D. it's hard to visit you only.

almost posing tina

but she isn't. these are taken in-between her getting ready to strike a pose.

obx

clearly, we inhaled deeply with our cheeks plump from fake-holding our breaths as we were about to plunge under the waters of the chesapeake bay in the comfort of our car. tina and i went to the outer banks one weekend. obx is a very long pile of sand off the coast of north carolina. the barrier islands' piled-up sand is so arranged that i begin to understand why people turn to deep love and respect for nature. man decided not not to throw in the towel yet built the chesapeake bay bridge-tunnel that dips underwater at two places where drivers and passengers pass underneath a 30 m high column of the atlantic water. so you travel along highway 13 from virginia to north carolina. unless you are going the other way. faster. packed with admiration and respect i looked about the car for a snack. i stretched freely in the passenger seat. bodhi changed position tucked away in her motor-home on the back seat. (map bridge!) (map obx!) i wonder if man has enough troubles to occupy his mind to walk the entire beach. waves grind the sand.

regal bodhi and tina

tina was not ready to be in the first photo. she did't mind me taking it though. i remember we'd just eaten and were taking it easy that day. i had my $1.49 camera on me and i liked what i saw as much as i like it now. bodhi's attention to the photographer is just so intense. i think she was confused by my lcd-less photo equipment. you are taking a photo with what? tina is mildly amused and quite relaxed. girl with a dog (alternate title: she and hers) the following photo is missing a nice, golden, old-school, and reasonably intricate frame. i thought of adding one but decided to rather write about it. she looks very royal; oil on canvas. she was pressured politely to be in the photo after a day of tackling oyster festivities. inside an ice-cream parlor, arcata, ca

where northern california abides

i had a very good time in northern california. it was so good that i almost didn't take any photos. i started to suspect that the saying about unmet desires as a prerequisite for good art must apply to my photography as well. luckily, i don't make good art so it doesn't, right off the bat. but i did end up creating a photo folder. i do have some. and i have to thank tina for dragging me out to take the some. thank you tina. i open the northern cali photo series with a photo quite inappropriate for what i have seen and what this gorgeous land&sea offers. such is the enjoyment of a playful photo-blogger. do you see how happy you can be if you only photo-blogged? i also thank hrvoje, currently from Oz, for getting people together during agu. hvala hrc. trees looking at an onlooking group on the other side of the fence, a late afternoon on top of the ridge in paradise, butte county the photo was taken as an afterthought. i'd had my photo of the day just several steps in the frame, towards the fence and the trees. walking back to the car i looked over my shoulder and framed the shot, not quite sure why. it's just silly and perhaps off-beat for what i usually chip off for my landscape photography. i wish i had more thoughts. there aren't* any photos from sanFran this time around. as it's usually the case, as in my case, photo amateurs leave their better cameras in the hotel room due to their weight and bulk and so the cellphone camera brings home the bacon, as in the rule that the best camera/bacon is the one you have on you. the photo i had wanted to take in sanFran is embodied in a photo tina took with her cellphone on our return from fisherman's wharf. i'll look into posting it later with author's permission. the best way to pretty up a photo of a building during a tourist stroll is to have a pretty person in front of it. what better person than tina. and here's my only* photo of sanFran. * the randomness of the post narrative continues with a photo of the honey run covered bridge of butte county, chico, ca. green winter grass on a boulder bathing in the late afternoon northern cali sun if you were a mosquito this is what a neighboring house would look to you from the omg-blood-is-so-sweet side of the window screen: a detail of a chico house from inside of another chico house back in sanFran, tina is making her final preparations the night before her agu talk. she's thankful i am there to record this historic moment. a late afternoon chico light allows me to see the beauty in a posteriori black and white. obliquely lit valley of the butte creek canyon once you go up ca-32 the black and white tones of rivers and rocks turn tree-green and snow-white in just half hour. such is northern cali. washington, you've got nothing to be ashamed of! snow-capped tree tops tina is unfazed by the generous size of the 77mm UV filter on my wide angle northern california showed me this frame and i think she wanted to ask me if i had ever wondered how it would look like if it snowed slightly in the summer but let's make it a winter season so that it looks as if it were summer. you think i am silly and convoluted in my style? take another look at the photo, please! don't cha wish your lens was sharp as mine. almost a 100% crop. a visiting native jumps off a chico boulder when i was leaving e-burg for sanFran it had snowed buckets the day before. they must have much bigger buckets over here at lassen volcanic national park. that big ball of fire that clipped my highlights and ruined unapologetically and unavoidably my always-perfect exposure is not capable of melting a fistful of snow at midday. such is the volcano country. my dear reader, i have not yet exhausted my supply of northern california snaps with this post. i still have unpublished photo stuff from my earlier visit, and an earlier one, and so it goes...

eagle peak

tina features the eagle peak trail. even though the photos speak for themselves i will still finish off the post with the unnecessary narrative. on our second day in mt. rainier national park we hiked the eagle peak trail while our friends were on their way to summit the volcano. and they did. this post has been pending posting for quite a while. so many beautiful hikes that we've been on, the nature is awesome and pictures galore. seeing snow in the peak of the summer fills me with such joy i can best describe as, i suspect, the feeling of an adult experiencing a child-like enthusiasm of discovery. guess i could have said it simpler and better: it kicks ass! ->

at the peak of eagle peak

i will try to impress you with biggest photo sizes posted here thus far just to attempt to tell you how much impressed i was, and still am, with the beauty of the trail and scenery in the mt. rainier national park. the remark may sound silly; it is "just" a national park after all that so many did, do, and will agree on its grand nature, the rainier nature. nature. nature. i sure hope you've got a larger monitor. nature. just before the peak. (note an unidentified volcano, UV, on the horizon to the right, UV-B) at the peak the most impressive photo of the series! (mt. rainier is third wheel to the right) note my glacial-burned eye bags and nostrils i discussed in the first post on the climb. also, i am not an elephant-man; i used a wide-angle lens at close proximity. tina's nose suffered too.

three quickly picked

tina and i went to the coast of the atlantic, the passive margin of the continent. it is surely passive and senior citizens love it. tracks intermingled girldog not tina

rainier slopes, part deux

not much left to add to the previous post but a few more photos. climbers relaxing before going to bed in late afternoon to rest before attempting to reach the summit. climbers and their tents all set up for an early check in. most of them will wake up between midnight and 2 am next day and start climbing the trail marked by the lone person and try to reach the summit of just a few meters short of 4.4 km (14,411 feet). katie and justin's home for the night. they reached the summit at dawn greeted by over-50-km/h (50 mph) wind gusts. photo by tina. tina posing in front of ranger station. descending, tina turns around to reenact the creek crossing on our descent to the parking lot. still descending, tina balances out the composition against mt. st. helens. ...