A Few 2013 Favorites

I've assembled a few of my 2013 favorites into a medium sized  pile for general perusal... (click photo)...

A Few Recent (More or Less) Landscapes

This one's a little on the typical side, but it worked and it's always nice to get one that works...

A little dim and moody and busy, but that's the woods for you...

Devil's Club bramble, not a great passage. I once suffered blood poisoning after thwacking a knuckle on the stuff...

Our ever present water...

Seeing Red

Some of our limited fall color from the wet, wet North...

Juneau to Fairbanks (And Back)

My daughter and I took an August road trip through Canada and Alaska on up to Fairbanks, camping out a few times, staying in some crappy hotels and better B&B's other times. One reason for the trip was that my daughter wanted to practice highway driving. She pretty much got her fill after a whole day of dips, curves, construction, and gravel zones, and then decided that controlling the music and putting her feet up was more fun.

Click through for the whole album...

Weird, Wet Summer

Nice days here and there but in general we had the kind of summer that makes you look at your moldy siding and sigh. Our normal slightly nicer May and June turned out to be nasty, cold and wet, record setting. Now the school year has started and there's some relief in that for at least we don't feel so bad about being inside all day.

My photography has slacked a little, but I've enjoyed taking Alder photos on slow walks, seeking form in the general mess of things.

Kingfisher Surprise

I was busy taking photos of a busy squirrel, gave up, and was looking at a dead tree when I said to a friend shooting next to me, "I wish one of those yellow warblers would land in this tree." Yellow warblers were nearby, rustling amongst the leaves.... About ten seconds after I said that a Kingfisher flew across the pond in front of us and landed right on the dead tree. Stayed there for about 30 seconds.

A Former Tidal Slough

This is just a semi-educated guess, but I think you are looking at an old tidal canal. As the glaciers have melted over the years the land has risen and the tidal areas have receded. Now it is more like a freshwater pond, albeit a long, skinny one. If you follow the road out towards Eagle Beach, you can find this to your left, not far from the side. Wear rubber boots and don't get too close or you'll be swimming.

About The Free Photographs

Greetings,

You’ll notice that most of the photographs on my blandly named site “Juneau Photographs” are not priced to make any profit and that you can download them at full resolution. I still retain full rights to them, but if you would like to use them personally or for school that’s fine, just send me a note about how you are using them. If you are printing a huge print for your wall in your nice house, please send me a few bucks via paypal ( john@krummowen.org ). If you are a non-profit I will likely give you a copy, but let me know first please.

If you would like a nice print or two of the work I think is the best, you can find that here. I use Bay Photo for prints and other items, or I can make a high quality print myself and sign it if you want.

So go back to the site and browse around--there is a lot to see.  I hope that this website can grow over the years to become a bit of a local resource for folks, and a helpful guide for people interested in Juneau and Southeast Alaska.

Thanks for reading,

John Krumm

Red Breasted Sapsucker

Found at Fish lake on Douglas Island yesterday...

If You Are Sick of Snark...

Then you should read this article in The Washington Post written way back in the crazy days of 2008 by Linton Weeks. I was thinking about what we mean by the word "snark," and wondering if this blog was veering too much into the "snarkastic."

 

Things We Did On Easter

It was a spectacularly nice day, so we were lucky to not burn dinner. Spent a lot of time outdoors playing, walking dogs, flying kites, sitting on the porch, soaking in the sun while it lasted. Click on the photo for a gallery of what are, admittedly, just a bunch of normal family shots...

Just Throw the Stick Please

The End of a Long, Fun Day

I'll admit to taking a few loose newspaper pages off the couch for a cleaner view of these guys...

More tomorrow... time for some wine and a movie.

Morning Lily

 

Notes on Method: I found a white, wrinkly shower curtain, one of those nylon "hotel style" liners with the steel eyes. I tacked it to a shaded wall on the back deck. The Mountains were still blocking the rising sun, so it was in shade, but it wasn't too dark. The camera made the image unrealistically warm, so I cooled it a little in Lightroom (but not to the point of "sunny"). I shot at 50mm f2, iso 200, and had plenty of shutter speed. I brought the highlights up to a little below blowing out, and then used the contrast adjustment as my main whitening tool (increasing it signifigantly), along with white balance. I used the brush to selectively sharpen the blossom, and selectively blur some of the background (this helped hide the wrinkles--too lazy to iron). Compared to full frame depth of field, this would be around 100mm at f4. If I did it again I would remove the white dog hair. At least it was white. The background appears blown with bright monitors, but it is very light grey, and prints well. 

Hifalutin Word of The Day

Serendipitie

Once the Shakespearean spelling but now a bad name for an unsuccessful  necktie gag product, not really a real word. The "Serendipitie" product line includes Guacamole, Red Salsa, Green Salsa, Black Bean, and Onion, all with hand-painted tips meant to suggest that the tie has recently been "dipped" at a party. Think rubbery fake vomit and you are close.

The real word, with contemporary spelling,  "Serendipity" is one of those concepts popular in the 1960's used to describe the moment when you find something (usually good) that you did not expect to find while looking for something else (you bend over at a party for the perfect chip, for instance, and like a divining rod your tie finds the perfect dip). "Lucky" or "Luck"  are often good substitutes.

Serendipity is sometimes confused with the German word "Schadenfreude,"  but the first describes a momentary condition of one's good fortune that you can choose to take advantage of (aided by curiosity and dumb luck and perhaps good judgement) and the second describes the pleasure some feel at hearing about or observing the misfortune of others.

Loose Talk -- The Problem of "Of" and "The Peculiar Age"

I was trying to think of a good term for our current times, something along the lines of "The Age of Reason." We live in unusual times, somewhat exceptional and peculiar. So I tried it all, The Age of Unusual, The Age of Exceptionalism, The Age of Peculiarity. Then it hit me: why do we need the word "of" so much? Why don't we just call ourselves "The Peculiar Age?" I think it works. It meets the standards.... we are peculiar and have been so for some time, and we are likely to be so for a while ("age" qualification).
     The word "of" works as both a crutch (sort-of, kind-of, you can hear the limp) and as a clarifying glue. It is, misused,  bad cholesterol in word form, clogging our information highways with excess bits. Take it out, and be free of "of," I dare you. Many words are suggested by their absence, and "of" could be one of those words if we let it. It already happened long ago, being shortened to O'. Go all the way. Age innocence, Joan Ark, Mice and Men, Kind, Sort, Course. If you say the words often enough, you will come to realize the of has become a ghost, ever present, but only visible in the mind's crazy eye.

In truth, like bad cholesteral, it serves a vital function, and the trick is to use of in limited amounts, not try to kill it. Take it from a word addict. Course you can.

Now, back to the age thing, using "of" as we wish... more ideas
The Age of Increasing Age
The Age of Guilt
The Age or Really Good Times
The Age of Socks (think about it, this one is good. At one time we didn't have socks and I'm sorry to inform you, but at one time socks will be gone).
The Age of Inventive Seasonings
The Age of Perfection
The Age of Pretty Good (Minnesota Joke)
The Age of War
The Age of Warm
The Age of Escapism
The Age of Complicity
The Age of Winning
The Age of The Future
The Age of Cool (wishful thinking)
The Age of Enormity
The Age of More
The Age of Most
The Age of Lots of Crap
The Age of Mold
The Age of Mould (trying to be inclusive here)
The Age of Mike (sooner or later some guy named Mike will be in charge, so why not?)
The Age of Young (ooh, house of mirrors)

So...reply if you are inspired with your own "age," but act your age.

Hifalutin Word of The Day

Refunctionalize

Which I think, looking at it, means "to fix," but could also mean to "re-purpose," or to both fix and change the function of what one has fixed. A little ambiguity here. Correct me if I'm wrong. Perhaps it could be shortened to just "functionalize." Or we could use just function, as in "That shop functioned my car." And did you notice that the word "hifalutin" looks like a drug brand?

News To Make You Feel Bad (a little poetry too, New York Rhymes part 1)

We all need to feel bad before we are motivated to change the world, right? Or perhaps we just spiral into descending badness and the news is helping us paddle downstream... Whatever the case, for your reading pleasure...in rhyme.

The coming of the mold...

The balking of the old.

The stupid all buy gold.

The numbing of the fold.

At The Beach Today for Low Tide

So don't expect another post for another day... I know all you expecters are expecting something out there somewhere. You can always read some of the new links I put up on the right in my effort to educate the masses. Or you can buckle down and write that comment you always intended to write but never felt compelled enough to do. Or you can go to the beach like me and not worry about it.

A worm at the beach

The Candid Frame -- My Favorite Photography Podcast

My favorite photography podcaster Ibarionex Perello has a new show out, interviewing the two guys behind the website/company Lightenupandshoot.com , Andy and Mikey, known for funny videos (to some photographers) and what sound like quite helpful workshops...

Below is a sample video ...

Gratuitous Glacier -- The Spring Melt

The light had that soft yet still distinct look to it this afternoon, so I headed out to the glacier for a quick walk before dinner...click on photos for larger versions...

You always feel compelled to get that "in context" shot...

 

My wife reminds me that I've got way too many "rock in front" photos...

 

I figure I should have a least a few shots of melting ice on a site called Mendenhall Meltdown...

 

The pussy willow was out in force. This is a sort of 

"where's Waldo" photo, but it should be "Where's Elmer?"

 

Trying to copy Michael Pen from the newspaper here...not enough of a focal plane...

 

It's always good to take one shot in the other direction, and it even has some pussy willow...