Lonely

A quiet morning,

A pretty woman,

A steep flight of stairs

Hallway at Mid-Afternoon

There are an infinite variety of delights in a city like San Diego. Among them is Balboa Park, and within Balboa Park are the architectural treasures left from the 1936 Worlds Fair.

Mid afternoon isn’t usually a great time for images. The light is simply too direct.  But this indirect lighting made for a wonderful capture.

Awaiting Inhabitants

I find myself fascinated with new construction, especially unrented spaces.

This San Diego space is completed but unrented.  I suppose that in the fourth quarter of 2008 that may not be all that unusual — there’s likely to be a lot of unrented space in new high-rises in months to come. Yet, the lines and regularity of structure still fascinate me.  And in their empty state it’s easier to see the bare bones of the construction without desks and lamps and people walking around inside.

Mile 377

I’ve been home a couple days and I thought I’d post the intermittent view from this last trip.

Mile 377, nearing Sedona on route 89A from Flagstaff Arizona.  The colors of the desert always amaze me but in this image the rippling sky is equally intriguing.

I happen to be one of those who likes traveling the two lane roads that crisscross this continent.

Obsessive

A person would think that by the time they reached fifty-something that they’d have enough self-knowledge to know that on a working trip they wouldn’t have time to actually keep up a blog…… sigh….

Well, I’m back home again.  Nursing a little sinus infection and gradually getting back into the swing.

I had a chance to shoot ponymadchen just before leaving on this last trip.

This is a pose I revisit with a lot of different models, and different lighting, and different sizes.  I love the way different sized bodies make the pose very, very different.  And in the end, its all about the curves…

Fishing License?

Someone should tell these pelicans that they are in violation; not having a fishing license.

Pelicans @ Salton Sea

Joshua Trees

Last time out west I had hoped to visit Joshua Tree National Park. During that trip the opportunity didn’t arise, so I made a point of doing so this time around.  It’s an incredible landscape of which you’ll see more as time goes on.

A Joshua Tree

Joshua Tree National Park

I admit it.  I’m a natural hermit.  I love working with people, but I love my time alone, and I love time with nature.  I love contact with the ageless — whether children, old geezers, or a pile of rocks.

Joshua Tree National Park, near Indio CA is an amazing place — in part even moreso when you realize that this area wasn’t always desert.  In the days of cowboys and the gold rush the area I was in was used to pasture cattle.  Today the dam built to collect water for livestock sits parched and empty.  We are near the Salton Sea — another evidence of how human activity has screwed up our ecosystem.

I was shocked when I read yesterday that water usage in neighboring Palm Springs is higher than expected.  The typical home around the country uses some 150 to 300 cu ft of water per person per day — the average usage in Palm Springs is 1400 cu ft. And that in the desert.

Some months ago there were stories once again about plans that some westerners have to attempt to tap the water in the Great Lakes — a monumental project in theory — but one which regional governors are aware of an working to prevent – the Great Lakes Compact being one tactic to guard the precious resource that, while wonderful, is not something that can be treated with disrespect and squandered — it is a one time blessing — there are no more resident glaciers to replenish it.

Oh well,  we’ll see…..

Rock Formations

A new president

It was a nice days drive, much of it through mountains — ok, ok, so I enjoy mountain driving. It was hard to find something on the radio that was NOT related to the election, but then again, we live in the United States and voting is an amazing privilege.

So, the deed is done and the country has set forth on a clearly new path.  It was amazing to hear international reactions to the election.  It would seem as if the world was willing to forget the last 8 years of history and to give the “new guy on the block” the benefit of the doubt — and with him America.

I truly wish Obama well.  Over recent weeks I have wondered why ANY one would want that job — the challenges ahead of him will truly make it hard for any new President to end up with a positive legacy.  Certainly events surrounding the current president prevented HIM achieving many of the goals he expected to be pursuing during his presidency.  But life is always about Plan B — or sometimes Plan C or Plan D or Plan Z…. We dont get to fight the battles we want to fight we get to fight the battles that others choose to wage against us.

So, God Bless America, and God Bless the President Elect, and God Bless those men and women who are in Harm’s Way on our behalf.

This singular image was shot along the way to Sedona.

Patriotism

As I head out across Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona I suffer from mixed feelings about american patriotism.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I love Ameria — I live her by choice and I ‘ve been in enough countries to know that while this country has it’s problems that it’s a better place to be than anywhere else.

That said,  as I hear the pre-election hype from both sides and the way we speak of Iran and Iraq and Afghanistan and all the other places we have stuck our nose in, it amazes me that we have such short collective memory.

9/11 was a horrible event and a shock to our national psyche.  But we americans have slain many multiples of innocent civilians in the years since — all in the name of pursuing terrorism. In pursuit of the american dream we have done this before.  Today’s drive through Indian country reminded me of the way we displaced the native persons here in our own country.  We were in Namibia or Rwanda, or any number of other countries around the world, a bigger boy on the block would have wanted to hold the U.S. accountable for our crimes against humanity in the same way we are trying to do to others.

But the question comes to mind, whether with warfare the way it is, whether our ability to punish far outstrips what even we have done in the two centuries prior.

I wish there was a way for the U.S. to find a way to live in the world without being a bully.

But, tomorrow is election day — perhaps whatever the results may be we will see some substantive change.

I hope so.  Right now the  risks are pretty significant.