Ancient and Twisted

My wife and I were out for a casual hike last Saturday, near home on a little nature loop trail I've never explored. Just up a bit beside the trail, I spotted this amazing and obviously really old manzanita skeleton.  I've never come across one with this huge of a trunk; more like the size of a tree.  With or without bark and leaves, I always love the shapes and texture of these bushes, especially the large ones.  I definitely want to go back and reshoot this properly, when the light is less harsh, either late in the day or when there are some thin clouds in the sky to take the edge off. Monochrome tends to be more forgiving of less-than-ideal light than color, but even so, it never feels quite right unless the light is interesting to begin with.

Wave Watchin'

Been "off the grid", at least blog-wise, for a few weeks...
Last Sunday was one of those once or twice a year "big wave" days down at the coast, so we decided to make a trip down there to see what was going on. The waves were pretty spectacular, but also very rough and broken up due to the strong winds, so we couldn't really see those big, glassy smooth breakers that are really photogenic.  Not too good for surfing either, apparently... we didn't see anyone even attempting that.
All in all though, a beautiful day for a walk on the beach and enjoying the salt spray. (Had to clean the residue off my lens and my sunglasses when I got home.) I admit I didn't notice the pelican casually cruising above the action when I was shooting this one.

Nothing But Blue Skies

Still working through a few stragglers from my Olympic Peninsula trip last Fall...  I just haven't had the time since then to get away for much new shooting and the winter around here locally has been a total dud (photographically speaking.. but we are saving a lot on firewood and propane:)
Normally I look for more going on in the sky than there is happening here, but when you're traveling, the weather just has a mind of it's own and after all, I think the clean blue sky kind of adds to an overall simple, graphic effect on this one.
This is Second Beach, just south of La Push, WA.
Visit the SkyWatch home page each weekend for more great skies from all over the world.

Fun With Moving Pictures

Down at the coast again last weekend.  The day was not really that good for photography... pretty windy and gray, but I decided to shoot some video footage just for the fun of it and try to capture this location that I have photographed many times in a different way. 
This was all done hand-held with a DSLR, so forgive me if there are a few shakes here and there or the horizon is not so straight:) I had to clip a bit off the end of the opening scene.. that last wave came in a whole lot further that I expected and I ended up getting my feet wet... the original segment turns to a crazy panic as I rushed to back up and keep from getting totally soaked...
This was kind of fun to put together.. hope you enjoy a change of pace.