I'm so ready for Winter to be done with. Seriously, I've had quite enough of the sun setting so doggone early in the afternoon. I'm through with waking up in darkness at 0730 in the morning.
I'm through with Winter. It was a pleasant surprise this week when we actually had some Spring-like days. And they were wonderful. Great light and mild temps with clear sky, mostly, and gentle breezes. Win-Win-Win-Win and Win.
All this is my way of leading into, well, I don't know. It's just my way of starting, I guess. One thing I can say about Spring-like weather is that you get some really great sunsets. I mean some spectacular sunsets. And we had one just a few days ago. On February 7th, to be exact.
And it's so doggone easy to go out and get some spectacular shots, too. I mean, if I put some effort into it these would be kick-ass pictures.
I play around, in a casual way, with metering and composing the shots but other than that, it's really just point-and-shoot. Hahaha, I've said it before, the cameras do almost all the work. I just hold the doggone thing and then push a button.
I guess the most important thing I do in this whole process now is decide when to push the shutter release. When to 'snap' the picture.
I am in charge of finding the "decisive moment."
Fun Facts: Henri Cartier-Bresson, was a French photographer considered the master of candid photography and an early user of 35mm film. He helped develop the art of street photography and approvingly cited a notion of the inevitability of a decisive moment, a term adopted as the title for his first major book.
His work has influenced many photographers. Including yours truly.
After an early start as a painter he got his first camera from a friend in 1929. He became inspired by a 1930 photograph by Hungarian photojournalist Martin Munkacsi showing three young african boys, caught in near-silhouette, running into the surf of Lake Tanganyika. This photograph he felt captured the freedom, grace and spontaneity of the boy's movement and their joy at being alive. That photograph inspired him to stop painting and to take up photography seriously. He explained, "I suddenly understood that a photograph could fix eternity in an instant."
In early 1947, Cartier-Bresson, with Robert Capa (another hero of mine), David Seymour, William Vandivert and George Rodger founded Magnum Photos. Papa's brainchild, Magnum was a cooperative picture agency owned by its members.
In 1952, Cartier-Bresson published his book Images a la sauvette, whose English-language edition was titled The Decisive Moment. It included a portfolio of 126 of his photos from the East and the West. The book's cover was drawn by Henri Matisse. For his 4,500-word philosophical preface, Cartier-Bresson took his keynote text from the 17th century Cardinal de Retz, "Il n'y a risen dans ce monde qui n'ait un moment decisif" ("There is nothing in this world that does not have a decisive moment.")
Cartier-Bresson applied this to his photographic style. He said, "To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as of a precise organization of forms which give that event its proper expression."
"Photography is not like painting," Cartier-Bresson told the Washington Post in 1957. "There is a creative fraction of a second when you are taking a picture. Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera. That is the moment the photographer is creative," he said. "Oop! The Moment! Once you miss it, it is gone forever."
And, there it is, The Decisive Moment!! And it made sense. I understood, on an intellectual and emotional plane exactly what Cartier-Bresson was talking about.
And thus began the chase.
And I'm still hunting for that Decisive Moment. Hahaha, as I write this, I am beginning to understand my fascination with taking candid shots, something I've never done well.
Wow!! Writing a blog really does allow for some introspection.
Hahaha!! I am deeper than a rain puddle after all!!
Well, at least now you know who you can blame for all the many bad candids I've taken over the years.
It's all your fault, Henri!!
But the chase has been fun.
Me getting artsy-fartsy again. This picture was so heavily silhouetted because of the sun setting behind it that it was almost a B&W picture anyway. I just sorta pushed it over the side into a total B&W/
Back to sunsets now. I've been privy to some brilliantly beautiful and eminently photographable sunsets here in LCO. There were some great sunsets in El Paso but they were always marked, tainted as it were, by the fact they were in...El Paso.
One of the funnest things I've done on the Internet was to post one of my sunset pictures and then challenge my kids to post their own sunset pictures from: Maryland, Washington, Utah, California, Texas and New York City.
And they did!!
It was fun and I was impressed with the shots they took. Although I must admit, if I'm being candid (hahahaha, that was intended), that mine was, clearly, the best of the lot, their's weren't all that bad and certainly gave the Old Man a run for his money.
It was fun.
OK, last one and the we put sunsets to bed for a while.
And there it is.
I don't enjoy the walks. But I sure do enjoy the walks...with my camera and radio.
I admit, I'm not keen on walking. I could find better things to do but I am smart enough to know that it's a good thing for me to do...and I should do it.
But that doesn't mean I have to like it!!
And I don't.
But I make it palpable by bringing along a camera allowing me to "look and see" while I'm plodding along. And, depending on the time of day, I either have some groovy tunes from yesteryear or some interesting and insightful conservative talk to listen to.
And I look.
Like this. I've walked past this house over forty times now and finally stopped to get this picture of brick on brick.
Shapes and patterns.
We were walking up to the Safeway and that route takes us past the Chinook Winds Motel. I've seen this often but this time I thought I'd show you one of my favorite sights. Just looking at the beach from between the rental house on the left and the motel on the right.
One of those tantalizingly beautiful faux-Spring days we had.
It's been a while since I brought my camera into a store and took pictures. You can see where my interests are, can't you.
No, I didn't eat any of these, sadly. If I had bought any donuts, they'd be chocolate and coated with nuts and some glaze.
The things you see...
You can tell how good life is in these modern days when they have bouquets made with candy bars. We simply do not remember how difficult life was not that long ago. In my Father and Mother's time, it was not uncommon for a family to lose one or two children in infancy. In my Dad's family, they lost two boys to childhood diseases before my father was born.
And, today? We get upset if the Internet loads too slowly.
Ah, tomatos. Speaking of my Dad, he'd take one, put a little salt on it and then eat it like an apple. In his later years, he started growing his own tomatoes for casual eating.
Plus, they're colorful.
Ah, sad days. I finally got rid of my old and faithful friend, The Couch.
I've had that ol' boy since I moved to Washington back in '08. It gave me many hours of comfort in my leisure time and, when I was laid up with my back, it became my de facto bed. A role it served admirably.
But it was showing it's age and definitely showing its wear and it was time to let it go.
Reluctantly.
C'Mon, Spring!!
Bring it on!! And there are hints and teases and promises of Spring all around me. Like this camellia flower. They are so common you can forget to look close enough to see their beauty.
It's there; you just gotta look.
And the daffodils are back!!
Hoozah!!
And they're back with a passion.
I never really saw daffodils until I got to Washington. I don't know if it is because I never had the time nor the opportunity to see them or if it was because where I lived they didn't grow.
But up here in the Great American Pacific Northwest, they are omnipresent. I've been seeing them just about everywhere. Especially on my walks.
I've shot pictures of this small garden before but haven't been by it for a long time. The weather round these parts does not treat inanimate metal objects well. The bench is beginning to show the marks of living near the ocean.
A nice shot, sort of like a still-life portrait. Just need to fuzz it just a wee bit and it'd fit the bill. You'll see it again when the Spring comes back.
In addition to the rain, the winds and the chilly (but not freezing) weather, we get a lot of fog. Especially the past few weeks. I like it, myself.
Cuz, it's photogenic.
Yeah, I am shallow like that. But I do like me some moody shots in the fog.
There's the indoor swimming pool at SurfTides. The George Jetson building.
Ah, my mean streets....draped in fog.
And another flower...over at SurfTides. The only one left blooming (?) out of the vast array of flowers they had a few months ago.
The wee buggies seem to like it.
So we drove down to Newport the other day to drop off a letter at the local radio station, the headquarters of KBCH. KBCH is part of the Yaquina Bay Communications family. In LCO they have KBCH-AM, 1400 and KCRF-FM 96.7.
In Newport they have KNPT-AM 1310, KYTE-FM 102.7, and U02-FM 92.7. Finally, they have KWDP-AM 820 out of Waldport. That's a lot of communication there!!
Small townish but with big hearts. They're solid supporters of the community and have a number of local shows highlighting the Oregon Central Coast. Anyway, I dropped off a letter requesting three interviews with our Audubon folks. First one would be with the Chapter President, Jack Doyle. He'd talk about Audubon and what the mission is, what we do. Then, I want them to do an interview with our Field Trip Guide, Mark Elliott. He'd talk birds, walks and fun. Finally, I suggested they do an interview with the educators, Laura and Caren. They do presentations in the elementary schools here and also have a class, which we took, in Birding Basics at the local college.
OK, so we dropped the letter off, did some shopping and were heading back when we trucked on into Depoe Bay and, WOW!!, the tide was in and the waves were smacking the sea wall and shooting up into the sky.
We had to stop.
I've never seen the waves rise above the sea wall before.
And we weren't the only ones that stopped by to oooh and aaah at the waves, either.
You kinda had to be there. It was way cool.
I'd parked on the east side of The 101, away from the water, and so I got this shot as we prepared to run across to the commercial side of the highway.
It's a mishmash of styles and themes. Like this 'tasteful' (Yeah, I did that one on purpose too. Get it? Taste...Wine Tasting!! I crack myself up!!) business. Sedate, understated and elegant.
Plus, Punch Buggy!!
And to add to the eclectic styles in the business district are these exemplars of 'Kitsch', the Kitty-Kat Klocks.
Fun Facts: The Kit-Cat Klock is an an art deco novelty style wall clock. It's in the shape of a grinning black cat with cartoon eyes that swivel in time with a pendulum tail that wags beneath. The clock is traditionally colored black, but models in other colors and styles are available. It first appeared during the 1930s. The clock is an iconic symbol of kitchens in pop culture.
The first clock was made in 1932 by the Allied Clock Company in Portland, Oregon. Allied subsequently moved to Seattle, Washington and then to Southern California in '62 where it was renamed California Clock Company.
The clock design has changed ver little in the intervening years, with the first generation, manufactured in the '30s, '40s and '50s, having two paws, while newer models have four paws and a bow tie. The words "Kit-Cat" were added to the clock face in the '80s.
The original clocks were powered from the AC mains, but most models sold since the late '80s use batteries. The manufacturers estimates that the clock has been sold at an average rate of one every three minutes for the last 50 years.
Wow!! Whoda thunk!?!
I thought they were a '50s product. I didn't realize they've been around since '32.
Here's one of the original, two-paw versions.
Fun since 1932.
OK, quick shift now from the Ultimate in Kitsch to some basic fun with Scouts.
First off, we went to the Annual Blue & Gold Banquet in Newport. We're revitalizing the Scout Troop and that means we have to rebuild the Cub Pack.
It's not going well right now and so...
Here's Don, the Charter Rep from Kiwanis. He's 88 and has been in Scouting since he was a wee squeaker himself.
And Carol Anne, proud mother of One Eagle Scout and an old hand at being there for the Scouts.
Troop 47 was deeply involved in the Blue & Gold. Here's the SPL and PL, Thayer and Joe, conducting the Flag Ceremony.
Introductions are over and so let's get to the real business...PotLuck!!
Once we had the crew fed, it was time for the awards, recognition and crossing over.
When a Webelos Scout is old enough, he 'crosses over' into the Boy Scouts.
Here are the Webelos making the move.
On the other side, they were greeted by the Scouts of Troop 47 and were presented with BSA Handbooks to record their achievements on their Trail to Eagle and they were given BSA Scarves.
Some happy boys, eh!?!
Yeah, well, wait until everyone is not looking at them and they'll relax a bit.
That was on Monday night. Then, on Wednesday, it was a regular Troop meeting. And, after the work of the meeting was done, time for games and fun.
The blindfolded Scout has to find the others and then, using only his hands, identify them. The others weren't allowed to move their feet. Everything else, just not the feet.
And then there was the Court of Honor Troop 47 held on Friday night.
It was a combination CoH and Farewell for the outgoing Scoutmaster and Committee Chair.
Before we got too far into it, I got the Scouts together for a group picture.
Smile!!
They recognized our Charter Rep, Don. You can see the food for the Potluck just to his right.
Jon earned his Boy Scout and Tenderfoot ranks.
Wolfgang earned his Second Class Scout rank.
Caenen became a Tenderfoot.
And, finally, Thayer became a Star Scout.
We had 8 rank advancements since December 16th. Impressive.
Don't ask me how, I'm still trying to figure it out, but I was wrangled into presenting the awards. Not my idea of fun but, hey, Scouting is about service, right? Ya takes the good with the bad.
Then the Scoutmaster received his thanks for a difficult job well done.
And the outgoing Committee Chair.
Finally!! Let's eat!!
You may have to ask Scouts to do something several times but you never, ever have to ask a Scout to chow down a second time. Never.
Everyone had a good time and ate well. Pretty much an average Scouting event.
Now let's move on over to Taft and the second ASLC Bird Walk of 2016.
Woo-Woo!!
It's colder than I thought it would be. We have another storm moving in and this was the first sign of its arrival, the chilly wind.
We had a great turn-out for this walk with 26 people showing up.
But before we left the parking lot, I wandered on over towards Eleanor's Undertow.
You can't miss this place coming in.
And then we were off to our first stop, the pier at Taft. Course, no one expected the pier to be closed. Well, we adapt and drive on.
Right away the bird spotting began and the easy conversation that I like about these outings started up as well.
I'm just not that into spotting birds far away and I wandered around gathering a picture here and there. Now this guy is interacting with birds the way I like to.
You never fail to connect with the gulls if you have some food.
And there were plenty of gulls out there in Siletz Bay. The reason the background is dark is because the sun is rising behind the hills.
Our hardy band at the pier. They saw plenty of birds even though the pier was closed. It still amazes me how these guys can spot those tiny little birds waaaaaaay out there!! And then find them with their binoculars.
Next stop, after the pier, was the Nature Trail at Salishan. We had parked and everyone had walked on out onto the trail when Jack turned back and spotted this Blue Heron hiding under the walkway.
He was the best bird I saw today and he posed quite nicely for us.
After a while he began to walk out and then, when he saw two dogs coming down the trail decided he'd had enough and took off for some place a little less crowed.
Way out in the bay, we spotted two bald eagles on a log. One of them was eating lunch having caught a fish in the water.
They were waaaaaaaay out there.
And these egrets. We've seen so many egrets lately. We saw a bunch at Baskett Slough and now, today, we saw 6 or more of them in the Bay.
A shot of the birding crew along the trail. Unfortunately, Carol had problems with her back and the standing was beginning to get to her. So we bagged the rest of the adventure and headed on back.
It's been a busy week. Lots of stuff to keep busy with but lots of fun, too.
And now the Bird Walks are started again in earnest and that's going to be fun, too. I'm not much for spotting birds but I like the excuse to get outside, meet people, see new places and take a couple of pictures. It works.
It's good. Life is good.
Hooah!!
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