shipboard sunset

This was the sunset on the last day at sea, returning from our recent visit to Hawaii.

Happy New Year!

one more orchid

This slightly posterized orchid from the Nani Mau Gardens will be my last Hawaiian flower post (for a little while).

more nani mau orchids

Orchids from Hawaii's Big Island.  Scanned color slide.

another ginger?

It has that look.  And it's red and green, and would make a nice holiday flower.

torch ginger

More floral drama from the Hawaiian islands.  Scanned color slide.

dwarf poinciana

Another scanned color slide from Hawaii.

interior abstract #1

We interrupt the tropical flower posts to bring you a bloggy Christmas card.

I am starting to use long exposures combined with camera movement and/or zoom to create abstract images from interior scenes.  This is the first post of a series of interior abstracts.  I will continue posting the series after the new year.

Happy Holidays!

another exotic flower

Here is another burst of floral color from Hawaii.  Scanned color slide.

akaka falls

This striking waterfall is on the Big Island of Hawaii.  Scanned color slide.

after the apocalypse

When we were on the Big Island in 1994, we saw this odd construction just off the Kohala coast as we drove north from Kailua Kona.  It turned out to be the set for the Kevin Costner film, "Waterworld."  In the movie, they were searching for dry land.  All they had to do was look behind them- Hawaii was right there!

jumble

Mayan Apocalypse? No, it's just the normal chaos on the caldera floor in the Kilauea volcano on Hawaii.

By the way, weather and plants will quickly turn this lava into rich soil.  You can see it starting at the bottom center of this scanned color slide.

a'a and pahoehoe

Two types of lava flows dominate the slopes of Kilauea on Hawaii: a'a, a loose, sharp, broken jumble, and pahoehoe, a smooth, undulating, ropy flow.  You can see both types in this scanned color slide.

kilauea volcano

One of the sights not to be missed on the big island of Hawaii is the active volcano, Kilauea, in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.

coral hibiscus

Here's another exotic flower from one of Hawaii's countless beautiful gardens.  Scanned color slide.

house without a key

The House Without a Key on Waikiki Beach was the setting for the 1925 Charlie Chan novel of the same name, the first in a series of detective stories by Earl Derr Biggers.  When the Halekulani hotel acquired the property in 1926, the house was incorporated into the resort.  Subsequently torn down and rebuilt in the spirit of the original house, the casual indoor/outdoor restaurant is a perfect spot to enjoy a tropical drink and Hawaiian entertainment, under a century-old kiawe tree.

hawaii orchids 3

Here is another orchid from Hawaii.  Scanned color slide.

more hawaii exotics

Another example of floral splendor from Hawaii.  I have no idea what kind of flowers these are.  This image is a scanned color slide.

festive canoes

Brightly lit canoes, blurred by their own motion in this scanned color slide, decorate the evening view from Waikiki beach.

mauna kea from the air

The Hilo runway is almost directly lined up with Hawaii's "White Mountain," Mauna Kea, so flights taking off to the west will generally turn left or right to miss the mountain.  Not this time.

On an inter-island flight from Hilo, our pilot received a clearance to climb directly over Mauna Kea from takeoff, en route to Honolulu.  The DC-9's climb matched the mountain's slope, so we stayed close to the ground all the way up, and then shot out over the observatory domes at the top.  Here is my right-side window view (scanned color slides).

hamakua dawn

Sunrise on the Big Island's Hamakua coast, north of Hilo, as seen from a hydrographic survey vessel.  This is a color slide from the '80s, recently scanned.

It was a pretty nice day, as I recall.  This coast is exposed when the trade winds blow, which is most of the time.

more hawaii orchids

These orchids are also from the Nani Mau Gardens, just outside Hilo, on the Big Island.

hawaii orchids

These (slightly posterized) orchids are from Hilo's beautiful Nani Mau Gardens.

tropical interlude

I'll soon enough sink into a diet of dimly lit, rain-soaked or snowbound imagery.  But for now, here's a brief tropical interlude, starting with this digitally modified (posterized, not color modified) mid-Pacific sunrise.

highway bend

Fall colors line a bend in Highway 2 west of Leavenworth.

This blog will be "off the air" for the next couple weeks.  I've posted ahead for the last few days, so any recent comments won't get published until it's back online in December.  See you then.

mountain view

This morning view of peaks in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness area is from Icicle Creek near where it joins the Wenatchee River, just south of Leavenworth.

wenatchee river valley

The Peshastin Pinnacles afford a bird's-eye view of the Wenatchee River valley west of Cashmere, Washington.

This Thanksgiving Day is also the first anniversary of this blog.  Happy Thanksgiving!

wide open spaces

Eastern Washington has lots of wide open spaces.  It can feel wide open even down in a canyon, if it's wide enough.  This example is along the Columbia River near Crescent Bar.

crab creek color

Fall colors congregate near Crab Creek, south of Potholes Reservoir in eastern Washington.

palouse river canyon

From Palouse Falls, the Palouse River flows through this steep canyon to join the Snake River at Lyons Ferry.

palouse falls

The bottom of Palouse Falls is deep in shadow, even at noon, on a late-september day.

lower slopes

This late afternoon view of the Palouse in eastern Washington is from the lower slopes of Steptoe Butte.

the palouse

This view of the Palouse in autumn is from a vantage point near the summit of Steptoe Butte in eastern Washington.  The tilled fields make interesting shapes.

beaujolais concorde

Today is the official release date for French Beaujolais nouveau.  On this day in 1984 the British Concorde delivered 219 cases of the wine to Boeing Field in Seattle, in a restaurateur's publicity stunt and fund-raiser for the Museum of Flight (which incidentally now has one of these now-retired speed birds on display).

It was the first time a Concorde had landed in Seattle, so  I went down to see it.  Here are some scanned color slides from my visit.

eastern washington church 2

Here is another roadside church from eastern Washington.

eastern washington church

There are some photogenic old churches in eastern Washington.  This one is in Hunter.

kettle river evening

Here is another view of the Kettle River from the same area as in Saturday's post.

M did a nice plein air painting of this scene, but it was tricky:  The lighting looked the same, looked the same, looked the same... then suddenly shadows swept across the foreground and it was dark.

sea stacks

I photographed these sea stacks along California's Mendocino coast in the summertime but it looks like it could have been around this time of year.

kettle river, wa

This is an evening view of the same river as in yesterday's post, but a little farther south, on the Washington side of the border.

kettle river

This view of the Kettle River in southern B.C., Canada, was photographed on a fine September morning during a camping/painting trip there a few years back.

molson tractor

We found this old tractor in Molson, a ghost town and former mining town just south of the Canadian border in eastern Washington.

hurricane ridge fall

Fall color comes to a classic scenic viewpoint high up in nearby Olympic National Park.

fuzzy outcome?

The prediction in today's title, suggested by M, seems a distinct possibility.

How is it that we have these stuffed animals?  Well, they followed us home from D.C. when we were there.

pond at dusk

This is the same pond that was featured in yesterday's post, photographed after the sun had left the valley.  I thought the colors in this scene were unusual.  I did not modify the colors- they are straight out of the camera.

late afternoon pond

This pond-side tree catches the last of the late afternoon sun in the Sinlahekin Valley in eastern Washington.  Steep valley walls cause an earlier-than-normal sunset, kind of like what we experienced at home today.