365 Photo Project - Day 252

Taken: September 9, 2010

Location: Rutherford, CA

Whenever I say I live in Northern California wine country, most people assume I mean Napa Valley. Sonoma County is still behind Napa in terms of tourists if not its equal in winemaking. I would say most of us are very much okay with that as Napa has become very tourist-oriented and traffic can be awful there. That aside, every few weeks or so, I find myself driving through Napa -- in this case I was staying in St. Helena for a week to watch a friend's wonderful 13-year-old while they were away.

I had a chance to take a drive around the valley and it was one of those days that make you glad to be alive. Temperate and sunny with some post-rain clouds drifting harmlessly across a bright, blue sky. Just beautiful. I didn't have my camera with me so I snapped this shot with my iPhone 4 hrough my windshield on a two-lane cut-through road between the well-travelled Rte 29 and the Silverado Trail.

I pulled over about a mile down the road, got out my notebook and wrote under the shade of a row of olive trees. The thing about moving -- and committing to staying on in wine country is that you get reminders every day why the choice is such a natch. I guess the day I get sick of the view will be the day I move somewhere else. Not expecting that to happen anytime soon.

365 Photo Project - Day 196

Taken: July 15, 2010

Location: Healdsburg, Ca

365 Photo Project - Day 139

Taken: May 19, 2010, 7 p.m.
Location: Healdsburg, Ca

Late in the day, I went for a long drive. It had been raining on and off all day and as I drove along the winding, narrow two-lane Westside Road looking for something to shoot, the light was fading and sky, dreary and cloudy, hung over everything like a white shroud.

A few miles down the road, I turned around to park across from a local dairy farm, where I could shoot some cows that were grazing on the side of a hill. A squirrel darted in to the road but it juked at the same time and angle that I did and that was all she wrote.

It’s not unusual to see and sometimes hit animals around here. My husband, driving up our long dirt road shortly after we moved here, accidentally ran over a neighbor’s dog who had gotten loose at night. When he got out to see what he’d run over, the dying dog had the same flat-nosed face as our pug. Broke my husband’s heart. A few months after that, I hit a small bird that just like the squirrel, swerved with me as I try to avoid it.

It sucks of course, even if it’s part of living in a rural area. Confrontations between creatures and car wheels, gardens, lawns, swimming pools – are common. I hope the karma police give me a pass for the poor squirrel I hit last night, though.

Later, as I headed back to town, I stopped on a small bridge to take photos of the sky as it was rapidly changing from cloudy to light even as the sun was setting. As I was shooting, it started to rain again. The droplets were big almost like tiny snowflakes and you could see them against the backdrop of the bridge and the trees and the sky as if the view was an old grainy movie. It was strangely affecting, beautiful and I stood there transfixed. I stopped taking photos so I could breathe in the moment and then suddenly like a tap on the shoulder, I felt it.

I turned around and stared at the rainbow I knew was in the sky even before I saw it. Not the prettiest rainbow I’ve ever seen nor the biggest and I was caught in a pretty terrible position to take a good shot of it (which is why it isn’t my shot of the day. You can see it here on my Flickr page). But with the light falling rain and the rapidly evolving sky, the weirdly warming temps and the sharp rays of sunlight peeking out through the darkening clouds, it was breathtaking. Almost a religious experience.

Another reminder why I love being in a place where nature is always visible, always changing and  unpredictable.

I had a similar experience the first time I drove through the Colorado Rockies. I had only been in Los Angeles twice before I moved out there in the summer of ‘92. My travels had been limited to a few places along the eastern seaboard, some spots in the Midwest for some sportswriting assignments and one trip abroad to England, France and Switzerland.

My first view of the West by car came at the end of my cross-country drive Washington DC to LA over a seven days at the end of that July. I stopped to visit a friend in Denver and then drove south over the Rockies, to see the Grand Canyon before heading for the City of Angels. As I drove up into the mountains the weather kept changing, alternating between light and dark, blue skies and white and following me through the pass, a heavy threatening cloud.

When it rained, it rained hard and more than once, I had to pull off the road because I couldn’t see two feet in front of me. But the storms were short-lived, just like every other weather change. I’ve since learned that mountainous areas can be that way, the constantly changing and evolving weather patterns bringing sun and rain, sometimes in the same fifteen minutes.

I was awed by the views, most of them seen through the ethereal mist of low-lying clouds. The high mountains in the background, rose above the scene with a kind of hyper detail, some of them snow-capped even though it was well into summer. I pulled over at a touristy truck stop to call my parents from a payphone so I could describe the scene to them. I knew then that, despite my Dad’s prediction I’d be back east within a year or two, I had found a place to call home.

It’s natural to wish you could bottle moments like this. But I think maybe that might ruin the rare times when you find yourself in the same place again. Believe me, they are worth waiting for. Like falling in love with the same person all over again.

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 42

Taken: February 11, 2010, appox 7:15 p.m.
Location: Healdsburg, CA

This road sign is on my street. I pass it every day and at night, it's impossible to miss -- always sparkling reflective yellow in my beams of my headlights. That railroad bridge I shot on Day Two of this project is a mile or so north of here but the trains don't run here anymore. There's long been efforts to build a commuter rail from the Bay Area out here that would include this right-of-way. But while the movement has gained some momentum in these greener days, it's not that popular on the other end down in Marin.

I shot it tonight in a brief, heavy rainstorm with my high-beams on it trying to capture the look and feel of what it's like in the rain. Shot it with my K100D and edited gently in Photoshop.

365 Photo Project - Day 23

Taken: January 23, 2010, approx. 5:30 p.m.
Location: Healdsburg, CA

We had a break in the rain and the sky was bright with big puffy clouds dancing across a bluing sky. We're not done with the rain yet but it was a nice preview of the coming spring. Don't know about y'all, but I can't wait. Still, I'm in a black and white kind of a mood -- it's still winter after all -- and after messing about in Photoshop, this image seemed to evoke the moment the best.

This is the bridge I drive over every day.  Taken with my K100D. Edited to black and white with Photoshop.