365 Photo Project - Day 167

Taken: June 16, 2010
Location: Healdsburg, Ca.

My bridge again. It's actually the railroad bridge that runs parallel to the Healdsburg Memorial Bridge.  It's been awhile since I've gone down to shoot it. It's an easy target for me because I see it almost every day but that's why I've been avoiding it lately. Wanted to stretch out some, find other things to shoot. But its call is strong and when I crossed the bridge tonight just around sunset, I had to stop and see what I could get in the fading light.

Today, the bridge was also a little symbolic for me.

Last week, I started a class at the local junior college. It's a beginners' course in photo editing in preparation for my planned immersion into photo and film editing. I've been meaning to to this for a few years now and I'm really glad I finally got started. The whole going back to college thing is more than a little bit strange but it's also kind of good, too. I mean who doesn't like to try something you did once but with all the wisdom and maturity you didn't have the first time around?

I'm embarking on a series of classes that will lead me toward learning how to shoot and edit digital film, which like still photography, I have just enough knowledge about to be dangerous. But I want to be lethal.

I want to direct my own scripts. I want to shoot small films about big ideas, the fire, hope, dread, love, death, craziness that rages inside all of us and how we deal with it and with each other. I realize that covers a lot of ground but these stories have been in my head forever.  A lot of it goes into the pages of my novels but my sense is the other stuff needs a different medium. I've always been in love with film, especially the films that tell intimate tales about the line people step across, that changes them from who they are to who they will be, the choices they make, the things they justify, the revelations they have, the loves, the loss, the tragedies, the journey. You know, the bridges they cross.

365 Photo Project - Day 131

Taken: May, 11, 2010, 6:30 p.m.
Location: Healdsburg, Ca

I've been without my car for a couple of days which has forced me to walk more. A lot more. Living in a small town makes not having a car a lot easier too. Of course, I had to walk over the Healdsburg Memorial Bridge, camera in hand, knowing I'd get a chance to shoot the railroad bridge from a new angle. As you can see, it was a spectacular late afternoon and the light glancing off the Russian River and the metal bridge girders, the stanchions  and the surrounding hills was very cool.

I love walking and I hate that I've forgotten how much I enjoy it. You see the world in such a different way when you're seeing it from eye level, when it's not speeding by through the glass of your car window. The thing I notice most is the smells -- I mean it helps that we're solid into spring around here but so many different scents wafted around me as I strolled into town or on my long (hot, up hill) walk home last night. Rose bushes, orange blossoms, new garden dirt, cookout smoke ... it was refreshing to close my eyes and breathe in and try to identify them all.  I've been meaning for freaking years to get to walking every day and being stuck without a car for several days has got me really thinking about it again. Now I have to commit to it.

I'll let you know how that goes.

Been having trouble with my camera so I traded up for a newer version. This will be the last installment of the project taken with my trusty K100D. Looking forward to seeing what I can do with the new one (if I can figure out all the controls).

Having said that, you might notice I'm talking a lot less about the camera I use, how I edit the images, etc. I've come to feel that it's better to let the image speak for itself. Let it be there in all its magic and not worry about how I got there. I do know some of you like to know the image information and you can find it by clicking on links to my Flickr.com page. I've made the information available there. And of course, you can always write me if you want more detail.

365 Photo Project - Day 126

Taken: May 6, 2010, 1 p.m.
Location: Healdsburg, Ca

Here's the bridge I used to have to cross every time I went into central Healdsburg, It spans the much more modest Dry Creek River north of town and is only narrow enough to let one car pass. I used a shot I took from this bridge earlier in this project but this is the first time I'm using one of it.

When my husband and I sold our house in Santa Monica and decided to move up to Healdsburg, it was me who was sent on the task of checking out the house we wanted to rent, meeting the landlord and such. When I drove out to the place and had to cross this bridge, I knew immediately this was the place for me. I grew up in a relatively small town but have lived 90 percent of my adult life in or near big cities so it came as a bit of surprise how quickly I fell in love with this place.

A lot of it started when I crossed Dry Creek here on a beautiful October afternoon, the expanse of the just-picked vineyards spreading out in every direction. I remember friends would ask me how long it took to get used to living in the country and there really was no adjustment, passed getting used to real darkness at night and a place where the sounds that dominate aren't car wheels on pavement and the buzz of phone lines.

To this day, as readers of this blog know well, I haven't grown tired of the view. It feels as much like home as it did the day I drove over this little bridge.

365 Photo Project - Day 110

Taken: April 20, 2010, 3:30 p.m.
Location: Healdsburg, CA

New shot of my favorite bridge. I've always wanted to take this shot -- I mean I think about it every time I cross the bridge and see the girders through my windshield. That's exactly how I shot this, using the trusty K100D. I edited it a little bit in Photoshop.

I'm still exhausted as hell from my writing binge so I'm going to keep this short. I feel like I'm in the dog days of this project. But I'm trying to push on through.

365 Photo Project - Day 102

Taken: April 12, 2010, 3 p.m.
Healdsburg, Ca

I can't keep apologizing every day for these short posts so please bear with me for the next week -- I imagine a day or two where I just have time to put up my photo and a brief description. I imagine that will happen tomorrow.

Today, I just want to say another word about my friend, David Mills, who was laid to rest this morning in College Park, Maryland. I so wanted to be there but circumstances conspired against me and I couldn't make the trip. It's going to be a long ass time before I'm going to be able to think of David and not be unbearably sad. I don't think he would want that - I think he'd want me to remember the good stuff. I'm going to try. Soon.

For now, I guess I just want to wish him a safe journey wherever he's going. I wish his family and friends the comfort of remembering his undeniable spirit, his talent, his boundless enthusiasm for the work and his infectious curiosity about the world.

Rest in peace, David. You will be terribly missed.

I'd like to think it's no coincidence the sun came out today, casting a burst of light on the world. The clouds stayed around like little fluffs of cotton floating in a sea of blue. I walked over to my favorite bridge and stood in the center of the road and snapped away. It was cool and crisp and when you breathed in, the air was filled with the floral promise of spring.

I'm looking forward for sure, but it's with a big dose of melancholy. Tomorrow will come and I will be here and life will go on. But it will never be the same.

365 Photo Project - Day 101

Taken: April 11, 2010, 1 p.m.
Location: Healdsburg, Ca.

Still writing. In fact, I'm doing an all-day/all-nighter and I'm stopping here just to update my blog. 'Cause you know, that's how I roll. This is another shot of the railroad bridge that's parallel to the Healdsburg Memorial Bridge I also like to shoot. It was pouring rain today. Again. The best kind of weather for staying inside and working. This image appealed to me -- a light at the end of the tunnel. My finish line. Maybe it's wishful thinking but you guys know by now that I'm a bit of a day dreamer. So, I'm going with it.

So here's to long nights and lights at the end of them. Until tomorrow, then.

365 Photo Project - Day 70

Taken: March 11, 2010, approx. 3 p.m.
Location: Healdsburg, Ca.

I'm putting up two posts back-to-back due to my missing yesterday. I'm still a bit worn out by this cold so I'm sure there's going to be days where I just don't have the energy to do anything more than slap up a photo. I fear this is going to be one of those days.

In an effort to regain some strength, I did take a short walk around my office today. The sky was bright with only a hint of clouds. This is the railroad bridge I've shot several times already in this project. Since it's across the street from my office, it's turned out to be a fallback for me. I did have some other choices today but this one was my favorite. At least it's a different angle of the bridge.

I've been wanting to take a shot from the bridge. People walk over it every day but not me. I happen to be deathly afraid of heights (a fear I apparently inherited from my Dad). I keep trying to walk out there but my phobia has defeated me every time. My friend says I should make it a goal to walk across it before the end of the year. I'm not so sure I have it in me, but I'm sure as hell going to try.

I shot this with my K100D and the 200mm lens. Edited in Photoshop.

365 Photo Project - Day 50

Taken: February 19, 2010, approx. 3:30 p.m.
Location: Alexander Valley Road, Healdsburg, CA

It's day 50 and I'm still crossing bridges. How do you like that?

This here bridge is a new entry to the 365 Photo Project, spanning the Russian River on Alexander Valley Road just northeast of Healdsburg proper. I learned through the magic of the internets that it's a Warren Pony truss design originally built in 1949 and it apparently has historic significance. However, while it's been renovated, it's unsettling to read that it's structurally wanting. Oops.

As you can see from the background, there's storms brewing. Today was cold and dreary enough to make that bright warm stretch we had last week feel like a fool's joke. Two days ago, I left my jacket in the car but I had it on at the computer all afternoon. It strikes me that nothing plays Russian roulette with your constitution as heartlessly as the gods of weather.

I've said here that I hoped this project teaches me more about myself, but I realize too that the brave readers who hang on throughout the year -- even those who already know me well --  might get a little insight into me, too. I would hope the images and the words that accompanying say something about me anyway.

I've discovered, for example, that I'm a different kind of artist with a camera than I am with pen (and please where photography is concerned, I use "artist" lightly). As a writer, I know my best work is like little pieces of me spread out on a page, my experiences, my point of view, the pictures I paint are mostly places I've created in my mind's eye, people I know or I've met -- all filtered through my individual experiences. I tend to write what I know. Not know first-hand, mind you (I'm not that old) but basically, it's my world view, for better or worse. I sometimes liken writing to slitting my wrists and bleeding all over the page. I know it's a gruesome image, but I do not believe the words have true authenticity if I can't mine everything I have in my head, my heart, my soul. Once more with feeling, ya know?

Taking photographs is an entirely different experience for me. For one, I lack any real confidence so I take a lot of different shots and a lot of versions of the same ones.  Thank goodness for the digital age as it has saved me a ton of money in developing costs. I see it and I shoot it and I hope for the best, fingers crossed and all that. The results, I think, rarely show me the individual. I mean I know they show my preference for image processing -- more contrast, brighter colors that sort of thing. But rarely do they say that much about how I see the world, at least not nearly as much as my writing does.

This shot? All me. Open road stretching out into the distance, a foreboding sky, destination to-be-determined. This speaks to me of endless two-lanes and the promise of winding turns, bucolic landscapes and yeah, the music cycling through my iPod on loud. My idea of relaxing is taking car trips down roads like this one, hopefully with a tasty meal or morsel or an icy glass of handcrafted brew waiting for me on the other end.

I can't think of a better image for the first big milestone of the project -- Day 50. That's how long it took me to get out from behind the camera, figuratively I mean.

Wow. 50 days. Imagine: only 315 to go. Whew.

Taken with my K100D, 18-55mm lens with a polarizing filter and edited in Photoshop.

365 Photo Project - Day 45

Taken: February 14, 2010, approx. 5:30 p.m.
Location: Healdsburg, CA

I know,  I know. That damned bridge again. But come on. Look at that reflection. I had to shoot it. And hell, I did find a whole new spot to catch it from, so it's not as if I'm going back to the same old places. And anyway, it just seemed the right sort of image for a day devoted to matters of the heart.

I don't like to admit it, but I'm a total sap. One of those people that gets all teary-eyed at the end of great love stories. Not all love stories, mind you. Large-scale epic stories of love and lost and found again often bore me to tears. I know it's sacrilege but I'll take "Americanization of Emily" or "Love Actually" over "Love Story" and "Gone With the Wind" any day. It's not that matters of the heart are a joke, far from it. But I do think we tend to take love way too seriously.

I like the idea that there's only one person for everybody but I don't believe it. I mean come on.  Say you're born in the Bronx and your perfect match is some bushman in the Australian outback. Not likely you're going to be finding each other on Spring Break in Tampa.

The shrinks of this world put their kids through college trying to answer the great questions of love, why we make the choices we make and all the pride and heartache and emotional baggage that goes along with it. I think most people get it right on some level. The older you get, the more at peace you are with the choices you make and the life you end up living. No shame in that. Not at all.

But many others take it too damn personally. Love is heartless really. And you're not going to be spared. Not unless you hole up in a cabin like the Unabomber and rail against the world and everyone in it. Nobody knows why we fall at all or how we can fall in and out of love with the same person, some more than once. There's no real science to the vagaries of the heart, no instruction manual, no universal truths except that it's as unpredictable and crazy as it is wonderful and fulfilling. Nobody knows nothing and anybody who thinks they understand it is a snake oil salesman looking to make a buck off your heart.

I think we spend way too much time finding faults in our partners than looking inward. Love begins in your own heart and your own you. I mean it's impossible to commit to another person if you don't love yourself.  The more comfortable you are with yourself, the easier it is to forgive someone else's faults, to walk in their shoes, to be compassionate and forgiving. After all, we are all imperfect, all capable of making big-ass mistakes, of being stupid and hurtful. It's learning from our imperfections that make us better people and I think, easier to live with.

I don't mean to imply I have the answers. God knows my relationship isn't smooth sailing. But here's what I do know: you can't apply logic to love. It's never going to make sense, even when it works, especially when it works. And if you ever think you've figured it all out, take a deep breath and remind yourself you don't have a freaking clue.

Shot this with my K100D and edited in Photoshop.

365 Photo Project - Day 43

Taken: February 12, 20101, appox. 3 p.m.
Location: Healdsburg, Ca. Russian River

The Russian River and the bridge that crosses it near Memorial Park in Healdsburg, Ca., is rapidly becoming my favorite subject around here.  I'm sure it's partly because I cross it nearly every day on my way to my office. No matter how many times I photograph it or from which angle, there always seems to be something that catches my fascination.

Who doesn't love these old iron bridges anyway? Today after a brief break in a steady, light rain I went outside to run a couple of errands. On the way back, I stopped to shoot some photos, just as the rain started to fall again. The Russian is still rolling fierce, though the muddy color is mostly gone. That and the warming weather made me think about spring. And sunshine and bright, blue skies and lovely little breezes that bring hope on their wings. That's me, daydreaming again.

Taken with my K100D and edited in Photoshop where I added some filters, contrast and other dabblings, trying to go slightly retro. Like a Hudson River school painting. Sort of. Incidentally, I grew up on the Hudson. No wonder I like rivers.

365 Photo Project - Day 18

Taken: January 18, 2010

Location: Healdsburg, CA

Taken: January 18, 2010, approx. 5:15 p.m.

Location: Russian River, Healdsburg, CA

Today was about rain. And wind. And thunder and lightning too. We woke up to a grey-white sky, the entire bedroom dulled by the darkness of the morning. The kind of weather that’s made for the snooze button. The rain came in drips and drops around midday but then just before three, the skies opened up and it started to rain horizontal. It slammed against the windows, brought down branches from the blue oaks in the back, so many that I had to move my car.

Within an hour, water was streaming off the roof in big ropes, splashing off the porch railing in thunks, like baseballs off wooden bats.

And then just like that, it was over. The sun didn’t quite make it to the show but there was a gorgeous shimmering light that could be seen through the clouds, oddly splitting the horizon; to the south the sky was bright. But to the north, it was dark with ominous clouds as far as you could see.

The two images today represent the yin and yang of the day.

The first shot was taken in my backyard in the bright of the after-rain, the moment where you instinctively scan the horizon for a rainbow. I was standing on the small back porch off of the guest room, which looks east toward a stream that is gorging itself on the recent rains. I’m told these trees are rare blue oaks and when it really pours, the lichen on their barks shimmers like green glitter. I almost didn’t post this today because it’s so close in style and tone to yesterday’s shot. But when I looked over today’s stash of pictures, it stood out. So, here it be.

The second was a shot I got when I drove into my office in the late afternoon – toward the threatening clouds. I crossed the Russian River and couldn’t believe how much the weekend rains had changed it. It was moving fast, dyed brown from loose mud and debris. Near the dam, it was rolling like serious rapids. I tried to capture the moment but I was racing against the light and losing. The shots I did end up liking were almost an afterthought. A few final snaps of the shutter before getting back in my car. They were of the bridge itself, taken in the very last moments of the day, big fat raindrops falling on my head like a leaky faucet.

We’re do for another several days of this weather and the locals tell me it will make the river even more dramatic. Since I pass it nearly every day, I’ll be paying close attention. Maybe I’ll get a shot worth sharing.

Both of these were shot with my K100D. Edited in Photoshop.