Eastmoreland is a short hop away from me. Here are two things I like about it: the flowering trees and the Gigantic Brewing Company. The latter is a nice place to relax and share company with colleagues and a glass of fermented grains, better known as microbrewed beer.
I like the elements of fun that one finds with public art and in public spaces in downtown Portland. Come on. Who does not like life size beaver statues in a wading pool. (Click on each photograph to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)
Seeing happy ducks in the muddy wetlands not far from my home on a rainy night this week made me think of other happy ducks. Here is some footage I shot in the rice paddies outside Ubud, Bali, way back in 2009. (Ouch, that is so long ago already.) Now tell me, do these ducks have moxie or do these ducks have moxie. You can see a larger version of these critters on YouTube too.
While strolling through downtown Portland this Sunday, March 22, I pulled out my GoPro and snapped a few photos of some of the lovely old stone churches. There are quite a few, and they give downtown a stately charm. Seen here are the exterior and front of the First Baptist Church, which dates from 1894, and the First Unitarian Church of Portland, which celebrates its 150th year this June.
The First Baptist Church rents its sanctuary space to rock ‘n’ roll Christians in the afternoon under the banner of Bridgetown, “A Jesus Church,” which has an electric rock band that was warming up when I dropped by. I stepped inside to see the First Baptist sanctuary, and I liked its circular layout and stained glass, similar to the Baptist church in Seattle, also of the same era. These are Northwest Baptists, so I assume a bit more laid back than their Southern brethren. I have always loved stained glass. It is a great art form, as is stone masonry.
(For the record, I did not have beer for breakfast, smell fried chicken, or have a religious experience like Kris Kristopherson and Johnny Cash.)
Click on each photo to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.
It has been more than a year since I launched this blog in March 2014, with a post on how the Inuit of Barrow and Greenland share a common cultural identity. Wow, time went fast. It was an experiment, to see if I could impose more discipline in taking pictures. It also was a place I could showcase work I have taken over the years that never found a home on my main web page (www.rudyowens.com).
As of today, I have published 266 posts. My WordPress stats page indicates that I have received 10,487 page views and 5,909 visitors. I will claim some of those numbers checking the page from different locations, but everyone else is from the web the world over, who have landed on my page due to the magic of search engine optimization and, hopefully, worthwhile content. Thanks again to everyone, and I hope you will return.
Laurelhurst Park in east Portland is about as English of a Portland park as they come. It is a perfect example of urban planning dating to the City Beautiful movement. Everything is so, well, proper and in its place. It felt like someone have used a vacuum cleaner before I came, even on a wet and muddy day. I loved the gnarly old arboreal denizens. They just begged for attention. So I returned after an accidental visit and grabbed a few photos.
The tempest this past weekend brought an end to our fairytale week or two of amazing flowering trees. I pulled over Sunday to get this image of the fleeting last days of the cherry blossoms, snowing on an old Chevy. Probably a hammy folk song in here, but I won’t write it.
Every single city in the world, and country for that matter, would prefer to present a postcard image of itself to the world. Portland’s emerging brand is one of “smart development,” urban villages, greater density, and urban beauty. These are descriptors I grabbed from the cultural ecosystem. Other observers may have alternative brand labels.
I took these photos over the past few days. South Waterfront is a development on former brownfields industrial land that once was used to build ships. The tram that connects to OHSU and a streetcar are some of the high-cost infrastructure projects that support this high-end neighborhood. It also has been the subject of attacks for being a tax giveaway to developers and for nearly going belly-up during the Great Recession. Condos had to be converted to apartments as a result of the tanking real-estate market that defined the bubble that burst.
I snapped the downtown Portland photo from the Eastbank Esplanade of the lovely cherry trees in full bloom and the city in the background. It is the type of image we see in Portlandia, on postcards, and in stock images that sell the city to the world. We are not showing the four or five tent camps I passed on my bike route that took me to the vantage points where I took these pictures. You can read more about that on some of my other blog posts.
The St. John’s Bridge, in North Portland, is bike friendly and outstanding for views of Portland and the Willamette River. There are a lot of fabulous rides that can include a trip over the bridge. The views are always worth it.
In May 2000, I took a road trip through Louisiana and Mississippi. I photographed a number of slave cabins and old plantations. My notes are buried somewhere, and one day I might dig them up. I do not recall getting the name of this old plantation home in southern Mississippi. I photographed it from the distance, from the road. If you look close, there are two cabins to the left. Those are the slave cabins. On many plantations, the “small house” stood very close to the “big house.” All of the plantation’s wealth was derived from using slave labor to grow cotton and other agricultural commodities sold to local, national, even international markets. It was a system built and sustained by the lash, as President Abraham Lincoln so eloquently referenced in his Second Inaugural Address.
What Beautiful Light 