Photography

It is spring, and I am cathartically happy I did not ‘endure’ winter

 

A statue of Captain James Cook, who explored the waters known as Cook Inlet, stands on a bluff overlooking the waters where he set anchor (2010).
It was about 10 degrees below 0 (fahrenheit) when I snapped this picture at Kincaid Park’s beach, in January 2010.
In Anchorage I was amazed the ladies could still sport the heels with ice and snow, not to mention the skirts, when the mercury went south of zero. Northerners are hardy folk (2010).

I found these pictures among the many hundreds I took while living in Anchorage. These were all taken during a bitter cold spell in 2009-10, when temperatures plummeted  to about minus 10 fahrenheit and colder. It was great for taking images. I remember getting some skin damage on my extremities on one outing. Now that it is spring in Seattle, I shutter to think I lived through this year after year, even with the beauty. That is my feeling today. It is one of joyous happiness.

God’s home, at the edge of the world
North of Reykjavik sits a house of God, alone in the loneliness of the north Atlantic.

I visited Iceland in 1998 and did a drive around the island with an outrageously overpriced rental car. I enjoyed it, but was not overwhelmed by it. This location, about an hour north of the capital, Reykjavik, was among the most memorable spots. Here, at the edge of the world, sat an empty house of worship, battered by the wind and rain. I guess I have a fondness for remote sanctuaries. (Click on the photo for a larger image on a separate page.)

Port of Tacoma, the old and new economy
The Port of Tacoma hums with activity on a sunny winter’s morning (2014).

Every work day I drive past the bustling port of Tacoma, hub of global commerce and home to heavy industry. It is blue-collar to the core, and unashamedly so. (I always wonder what kinds of organized crime take place here–my bet is quite a lot.) I also find the port to be one of the most fascinating manmade landscapes in the Northwest. I have started a series of photographs that I am calling Manufactured Landscapes. Here is one in black and white that I published on my web site in color. I like it in both color and black and white. This was taken from downtown Tacoma, looking east upon the port, where you can get a visual sampling of some of the major industry players that call it home.

My favorite park in Seattle, Discovery
In a hidden corner of Discovery, you’ll find the Guardian of the Spirit statue and meeting place, by the Daybreak Start Native Cultural Center.
There are stairs all over the park that are hidden, seldom used, and relics from the time it was a major military base in Seattle.

I frequently go for walks in Seattle’s Discovery Park, one of the country’s best metropolitan parks. It is a true gem. Even knowing every corner of this place, I still discover new ways to see what is very familiar, and also beautiful.

Abdoulaye Sylla and company showcase Guinean drumming and dance
Guinean traditions take the main stage at the Seattle Center on April 5, at the World Rhythm Festival (2014).

I set up my GoPro at the floor level to videotape a performance by Guinean master dancer and drummer Abdoulaye Sylla and his troupe of fellow Guinean percussionists. I then caught a frame of the videotape and turned it into a still. I think the GoPro lends a style all its own music and dance recording. And, as usual, I enjoyed the show of the many fine West African artists who call the Seattle area home. This is just for fun.

Seattle to Tacoma commute grind, part two
A GoPro illuminates the commuting life on Highway 599 (2014).
A GoPro illuminates life inside the four-wheel box (2014).
A GoPro illuminates life inside the four-wheel box (2014).
A GoPro illuminates life inside the four-wheel box (2014).
A GoPro illuminates life inside the four-wheel box (2014).
A GoPro illuminates life inside the four-wheel box (2014).

The is my second in a series using a GoPro camera to document the commuting life between Seattle and Tacoma. Time inside a carbon-emitting box occupies a massive portion of the daily lives of hundreds thousands, if not more, residents in the region. The effects of stress, speed, and more primal emotions that surge during the hours on the road take a measurable toll, and few of us can stop to contemplate what the cumulative impacts are.

A GoPro view of the Seattle commute grind
A GoPro captures the evening grind on Highway 99 past downtown Seattle (2014).
A GoPro captures the evening grind on Highway 99 past downtown Seattle (2014).
A GoPro captures the evening grind on Highway 99 past downtown Seattle (2014).
A GoPro captures the evening grind on Highway 99 past downtown Seattle (2014).

I am just beginning to explore the powers and possibilities of the GoPro as a still camera. This is the back seat view, as I drive over the earthquake-weakened Alaska Way Viaduct, which will be torn down in about two years (if the tunnel boring machine gets unstuck and fixed). There is a zombie like quality to all of us, in our metal and plastic boxes, heading from who knows where, to our homes or to work. I pass this scene every day, five days a week.

Visiting a Coptic monastery near Luxor, Egypt
I met these Coptic young men at Meir Gergis, near Luxor, in December 2004. Copts are some of the world’s oldest Christians, and they number about one in ever five Egyptians, and yet have faced persecution and discrimination for decades, and at times violent attacks at their places of worship.
Outside of Luxor, Egypt, I visited the St. George Monastery, or Meir Gergis, and stumbled on a baptism. The visit was one of my highlights from my travels in the country.

During my two-and-a-half-week journey to Egypt ten years ago, I visited six Coptic monasteries. These are amazing places, beautifully preserved and vitally important to the Coptic minority in Egypt. During my visit, most were under armed guard by the state army, which I have read has melted away since the fall of Mubarak, and Egyptian forces have even participated in attacks on at least one of the most historic monasteries in Egypt near Cairo. You can read a little more about my visit to Egypt and the situation facing the Copts in an article I wrote in April 2013.

Slave quarters and slave ledger, Laura Plantation
These are some of the few slave quarters still on display in the South, showing visitors how the enslaved black residents of Louisiana lived as property of white slave holders (and in some cases, Creole owners).
This is a journal on display at Laura Plantation near New Orleans. It’s behind a glass case, but it’s basically a list the human property. And, it’s written in French, as this was a “Creole” style plantation.

I visited Louisiana and Mississippi in 2001, partly inspired by the Coen brothers’ great film Oh Brother, Where Art Though. I was also intrigued by the weird tourist subculture built around the glamorization and glorification of the South’s very brutal plantation system, which exploited blacks as slaves and left nearly everyone else out the political system, except very rich, very powerful, and as we later saw in the Civil War, very violent aristocracy. There is a very good book on the economic system that flourished around cotton, North-South trade on the Mississippi River, and slave labor called River of Dark Dreams, by Harvard Professor Walter Johnson. It was in his book where I first learned about a little-known book called 12 Years a Slave, about six months before it burst on the global scene as a movie that won best picture at the 2014 Academy Awards. I figured it was more important to show these pictures of Laura Plantation than fret about their quality (these are now 13-year-old pictures, not well scanned I admit).