Autumn Forest

Related post:  Shadow Forest

The Secret Language Of Clouds (Pt. 3)

Bark

Another 'Magnetic Pole' Shot

Can't get enough of these goofy shots.

Hawk Crow Gulls

Cast-Off Furniture

Someone had put this cabinet out in the hallway leading toward the trash chute, with a sign on it reading "Free".  I brought it home and figured out in short order just what to do with all those pigeonholes.

Pocket Moon

August Evening, And Repeat

Another picture taken during the 'magic hour' interval of the evening.

EDIT:  How surprising and amusing is this -- two days after uploading this photo I realized I had posted a nearly identical photo two years previously, in 2011 -- also dated September 13!  Reminds me of the time I experienced an unusually prolonged and fully conscious hypnagogic hallucination, then while writing it down in my dream journal realized that it happened on the one-year anniversary of my first fully conscious lucid dream.

Related post:  Magic Hour

Dwellers In The Depths

I was a young child when someone in the family brought in a book that was lavishly illustrated with images of deep-sea creatures.  I found them fascinating but also frightening and repulsive at the same time.  And while editing these images of iridescent clouds I was reminded of them.  The Lovecraftian title of the post is expressive of the strong impression they left on me.

Crow, Again

Lost & Found

I wear gloves for driving.  And I keep losing the right glove. Which is why, in the top drawer of my dresser, there are several left gloves.  A month or so ago I lost the latest right glove.  Then yesterday I found this 2-year old photo of a right glove somebody lost.  There was a trail leading right up to it.

Pokey

Hokey pokey

Sunflower IV

I think it's an orchid.

For Getting Somewhere Else, Forgetting Somewhere Else

My free-associative brain, where metempsychosis and a random flight of stairs intersect.

FINALLY, A COOL TITLE

Another Untitled Photo

Because the image is already sentimental evocative enough, all by itself.

A Giant In Agony

Ugliness Abounds

Like that's new.

Another Well-Timed Shot

When something triggers the strange workings of synchronicity -- or the Tao, or psychic intuition, or acausal connecting principle, or whatever other name it goes by -- to flow through your brain toward a seemingly random bit of understanding, it's not what you use as the jumping-off place that matters;  it can be tea leaves, little sticks, clouds, playing cards -- or something that looks like a playing card.  The important part is where you land once you jump off.

A few days ago I happened to be walking with my camera out and ready when I spotted this crow flying low across my field of vision, on a rising trajectory toward two trees.  I raised the camera, aimed at the open space between the trees and pressed the shutter button at what I judged to be the correct instant (you have to click a split second before the target moment, to allow for the mechanical parts to actuate), hoping for the best.  The result was pretty much exactly that.  I was very proud of myself.

Then, as I was preparing to upload the photo earlier this evening, I was struck by the resemblance the image bore to this card

from the pack known as Hwatu (화투), the Korean version of the playing cards known in Japan, where they originally came from, as Hanafuda (花札).  The whole set looks like this:

Anyway, I was told that when you tell fortune with these cards the flying bird image means you will soon be receiving a welcome piece of news.  So I was going to hear from someone?  But then I wondered, since the bird in the photo is flying in the opposite direction, did this mean instead that someone else would be hearing about me?  And then I realized that it had already happened -- in both directions.  A day after I took the photo I received an e-mail from a stranger -- a film producer from Sweden Norway who saw one of my cloud photos on this very blog and wanted to know what I would charge to let her use it in a film project she was working on.  How about that.

*Hwatu images taken from the internet

Related post:  A Well-Timed Shot

Red Flyer

*Of course, after the two previous airplane photos, there was an obvious choice for a title -- but I felt turning this into a naming game would be a disservice to all three.

Another OCD-Sufferer-With-A-Camera Moment

*OCD = Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Yesterday morning I took a walk along my usual path behind the courthouse next to my office building.  As I approached a light pole I happened to look up at the back of the traffic sign affixed to it.  I noticed a pair of tiny circular holes, placed symmetrically, through which I could see the sky.  They were rivet holes that would normally be used for attaching the sign, except they were not needed in this case due to the different method of attachment.

I could also see patches of the sky through the innumerable irregular holes between the leaves of the jacaranda tree some dozens of feet beyond the pole, and as I walked closer I noticed a tiny, somewhat regular hole in the foliage, visually right next to the right rivet hole in the sign.  Of course, due to the swaying movement of the branches in the breeze the hole continuously changed its size, shape and position.  Now it would widen, now it would disappear altogether.  And the tiny views of the sky I could see through the holes in the traffic sign also kept changing, as the tree's leaves were partly visible through them as well.

An inspiration struck me then, and I stopped, turned on my camera -- I always have it with me -- aimed, and waited for the breeze to cooperate.

After 63 frames I thought I had the perfect shot.  In the miniature view in the LCD screen of the camera it did look good;  however, when I went back into the office and zoomed in, it was anything but.  So I went back out in the afternoon and took 13 more shots -- but by then the light had changed and I did not like the shadow-filled image...

This morning I went back out and took a dozen more shots, and this time I was fairly certain I had obtained the result I was looking for -- and I was right.  And so it was that after 88 shots of the exact same subject, I was able to obtain the below image -- about as close to the ideal goal as I could realistically expect.

Night Flight

This photo was originally posted on July 17, 2011.  I accidentally deleted it a little while ago, so I am uploading it again here.  Just as well -- now it's right next to its 'companion piece', Plane Flying Below The Sun.

Plane Flying Below The Sun

DAY FLIGHT

Beluga Cloud

A ghostly white apparition with big empty eyes in the inky darkness overhead... what's to be afraid of?

Fuzzy Brain

Like many people I did some things back in college and graduate school and during the few years that followed that I am -- well, glad that I did them so that I will not forever be curious;  however, I think some of those experiences may have permanently changed me in some ways, because sometimes it feels as if my brain keeps tipping over and spilling my mind ('unbalanced'! -- har har).  Whether that's for the better or for the worse, I cannot say.

FUZZY-HEADED

Well Framed