Twin Oaks

Costco is a wonderful place. Two dollar giant pizza slices, huge bags of peanut m&m's, sparkling hidef tv's greeting your entrance. But the real gem there is the $2.99 12x18 prints from the photo lab. Large enough make the photos be seen but not so big as to show all the flaws in your focus, exposure, and old lenses. It's really the perfect size in every way but one, nobody makes 12x18 frames. For as long as the 24x36 mm leica format has been dominate you would think frames with a 2x3 aspect ratio would be common. But frame manufacturers are still infatuated with the relic formats; 5x7, 8x10, 11x14, and 16x20. All useless to me. Kohl's sometimes carries an american made 14x20 frame (several of which grace our living room walls) that gives a nice 1 inch border to 12x18 photos. But at over $20 each on sale the frame ends up being 7 times the price of the photo.

Enter Wayne's do-it-yourself world. I took a piece of scrap pallet wood, ran it across the table saw and router a few times and voila, a free 12x18 frame. A quick trip down to the spca thrift store found a nice poster of a shirtless Brady Anderson. $3 and a glass cutter later I had 3 $1 panes of 12x18 glass.


As you can see in the photo trying to cut perfect 45º angles on a table saw isn't an easy task. So it was off to craigslist for a good miter saw. Craigslist is a great way to reuse/recycle and to avoid directly giving any money to companies that have outsourced jobs to china. So for about the price of three new frames I got a great deal on a saw in vacaville that will hopefully help me make countless more.

As I was leaving with my purchase the clouds were putting on wonderful show over the vaca hills. I detoured thru the backside of town, along the base of the hills, looking for a nice foreground to match with the sky until I stumbled upon a stalled housing development. Barren streets and empty lots lead to small hillside graced by a pair of oaks.

Here was a positive result of the housing slump. This view, or possibly the trees themselves, would be gone forever had the building craze continued. Although, I'm sure they've only been granted a temporary reprieve and the sun will eventually set on this view.


The twin oaks were nice but I convinced myself there was more to see in the hills. I meandered thru back-country, one-lane roads before popping up down the road from lake solano. The sun was getting low and a set of power lines were ruining the shot there so I headed up to berryessa for what I hoped would be a colorful show.


Well, I probably should've stayed at the oaks. But now I have a couple more photos that will need some frames. I think I'm also going to need some more wall space soon.

North Coast Road Trip

Another year another couple weeks of vacation I had to use or lose. Best way to solve that problem, road trip. Miranda especially needed some time to relax after finals. Since we both had friends/family up the way to the canadian border that seemed like the smart path to take. First planned stop was my nephew Erik's in Eureka. But every time we've gone up there I've wanted to poke around the Avenue of the Giants old growth redwood park. With 9 days to burn on the road I finally had the time to stop. Here are a couple shots of the trees with Miranda for scale.



Two nights at my nephew Erik and Kala's place in Eureka and we began our trek up the coast hoping to make it to portland by midweek. We didn't get far before being distracted by a roadside aquarium in Crescent City where Mir unknowingly volunteered to french kiss a sea anemone. On the road again and over the oregon border we were lured to the sea again at a sign for whaleshead beach (that's pronounced 'whales head' not 'whale shead' as we both initially thought) The beach was pretty but it was a small natural spring flowing from a cliff face that caught my eye. The bright green algae around the crack and the mix of black, brown, and gold sand made for a great color combo. I spent a while trying to get it right but don't think it looks as cool as it did in person.

On the way back to the car a small plant washed ashore. Good time to try some shallow depth of field.


We found a few more nice vista points before pulling into Bandon Beach just around sunset. I'd heard Bandon mentioned on photography sites before but was amazed to look down on the beach and see a dozen or so manned tripods all over the beach. Even in yosemite I'd never seen so many photogs in one place. Turns out it was just a photo workshop, which I should've guessed by the quality of gear most of them were using. I wasted most of the sunset trying to figure out how to use my 4x5 again but got one decent thin red line and reflection of the rocky beach.

We managed to just sneak into the beachside hotel before they closed and shacked up for the night. I awoke before sunrise to find the beach clogged with photographers again. The beach was long and flat enough at low tide that there was plenty of room for all of us. Well except for that one guy with the really heavy walk who left deep footprints everywhere. The beach is so flat and smooth around the big rocks that there were nice reflections everywhere.

and my favorite from bandon beach

I went back to the room and woke Mir so she could play with all the sea life clinging to rocks. Not only was there an abundance of photogs but there were also more starfish and sea anemones than I'd ever seen before. It was hard to leave but we knew there was still plenty of coast left to see.

The drive up 101 is as excruciatingly slow as it is pretty. And by the time we hit Newport we were ready to cut inland and get moving again. We probably missed some really pretty beaches in northern oregon but we were also tired of being stuck in traffic and were really excited to get to Portland. Now maybe our expectations were unrealistically high but Portland was not worth the rush. Tons of homeless and junkies everywhere. Nowhere near as many bicycles as we'd been lead to believe. And we could not find a single recycling bin anywhere. Portland's suckiness turned out to be a blessing in disguise as it lead us to quickly move on to the Columbia River Gorge (and the cheaper hotels outside the city) The waterfalls there are amazing and you can get so close that it's impossible to keep the camera lens dry. We were there at midday so the light was in a bad spot to get the famous shot of Multanomah Falls with the walking bridge. Mir suggested a 1 mile hike to the top of the falls. It was breathtaking, literally and figuratively. Besides being good exercise it also chewed up enough time to move the sun into a better position. However you will get no cliche multanomah falls from me as Mir and I both agreed the neighboring Wahkeena Falls was more likeable and less touristy.
Wahkeena Falls in color

and artistically sepia toned Wahkeena Falls


We left the Gorge and began the push to Seattle, again arriving just around sunset. It also happened to be just before the moonset as well. Here's the crescent moon and space needle from our hotel parking lot.

We wandered around a bit after dark. Never have I been in any major city after dark and felt as safe as we did in Seattle. No hooligans or ruffians anywhere. The only frightful part was a bombardment of seagull poop as a giant flock passed over looking to roost for the night. But before sleep deprivation and bird poop called us back to the hotel one final shot of the space needle reflected in the experience music museum.

We headed up to Bellingham to visit Caitlin and Luna and so Mir could have tea. Bellingham is a pretty area but I didn't really do any shooting there. Here's sunset from the waterfront near her apt with the point-n-shoot.

We closed out the trip by getting lunch in Everett with my nephew Sean who I hadn't seen in 6 years and then staying with Mir's old roommates Jenny and Josh who had just moved to Grants Pass. While I didn't do as much in depth photographing as I had planned getting to see so many good friends, wonderful places, and doing it all with Mir made this vacation one of my best ever.