365 Photo Project - Day 187

Taken: July 6, 2010, approx. 5 p.m.
Location: Healdsburg, Ca.

365 Photo Project - Day 159

Taken: June 8, 2010, sunset
Location: Healdsburg, Ca.

Two sunset photos in a row but that's what time I've had my camera out the last couple of days. This one was taken off a friend's deck up on Fitch Mountain in Healdsburg. That's the Russian River  -- travel down it around that bend to the right and you'll run into my favorite Healdsburg Memorial 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 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 80

Taken: March 21, 2010, approx. 3:30 p.m.
Location: Healdsburg, Ca

Pretty much everyone who knows me, knows I'm not a morning person. I usually rise between 10 and 11 a.m. and by the time I get my shit together and get out the door, it's at least noon. I usually don't get down to the nitty gritty of writing until after one, but I've always done my best writing late in the day. If I could stay up, writing all night long would be okay by me.

I usually knock off around seven; By the time I'm driving up my road it's nearly dark. The place we rent is at the end of a dead end road, which narrows and winds a short way up to end at a local vineyard. We're the last driveway on the left, just before the vineyard's wrought iron gate, and the last few hundred yards is a moderately bumpy up-hill paved single-lane, shaded by oak trees and lined by a wooden fence on one side and rich foliage on the other.

Just before I get to where the road narrows -- at a line of rural mailboxes at the bottom of the hill --  I usually pop my clutch into first for the ride up. For the last several weeks, just as I've started to downshift, a rabbit has appeared at the side of the road. It shows itself in the beam of my headlights, almost always on the right side, waits to make sure I'm not going to run it down and then hops across the road in front of my car, taking one last look in my direction before disappearing into my neighbor's vineyards.

I'm getting used to seeing my rabbit. I always slow down and wait for him and so far, he hasn't failed to show. I don't know if he's on his own schedule or if he's waiting for me, or if he's got a watch in his pocket and a date with a hole in the ground and a girl named Alice. I don't know if it's a good sign or even a sign at all, but there's something about seeing him that comforts me.

My Mom had her own rabbit once. We have a modest summer place in New England and my folks spend summers there now. Like here, there's a short walk to the mailbox and one day one recent summer,  a rabbit appeared and followed her to the mailbox. The next day, he was there again. And the next day after that, until my Mom felt her daily walk for the mail wasn't complete without her rabbit.

I'm starting to feel the same way, that my drive home each evening isn't complete until my rabbit appears in my high-beams. I like having my rabbit. My buddy, shadow, my omen, my vestige.

Or maybe I'm his?

Spring is here and the Russian River is ready for the river rats with their canoes and kayaks.  There's a canoe rental place at the foot of my favorite local bridge (the one y'all now know so well) and they're getting everything ready. I didn't get out on the river last summer but I'm planning on going this year for sure. On my way home tonight, I stopped to shoot this stack of canoes. I used my K100D and edited it in Photoshop.

365 Photo Project - Day 22

Taken: January 22, 2010, approx. 2 p.m.
Location: Russian River, Healdsburg, Ca

I told y'all I was going to get a shot of the Russian River's rain-aided rapids. Well here they are. I've been looking around for a spot to get a better vantage point and while this gave me some good angles, I saw a better location across the river that I might try in the coming days.

Both shots taken this with my K100D, 18-55mm lens, edited just a bit in Photoshop.