On The Road

Steve from Mendocino

This set is all in the spirit of Brett Weston. Brett was one of four sons of Edward Weston. He and his brother Cole were both excellent photographers, but Brett stood out, and I’ve admired his work since the late 60’s. I bought a portfolio of 10 8X10 contact prints through Brett’s next door neighbor for $120 the set in a fancy portfolio. They currently hang on my office wall as inspiration.

I won’t title or comment on any of these since the content is easily identifiable with the exception of the third photo from the last, which is a stack of rusted steel plates.

Link to the first in this set, which was published in October.

On The Road – Steve from Mendocino – Shape Studies in Black and White 2 of 2Post + Comments (16)

🐾BillinGlendaleCA

Nikki the Cocker Spaniel was off at the doggie day spa so I took the opportunity to visit Brand Park and hike up the Brand Family Cemetery. I started off at the library, getting some shots of the front as well as looking out from a passageway on the right side of the library.

On my way over to the Japanese Garden/Gazebo/Doctor’s House, I passed the Lady of the Green Cross monument that dates back 100 years to a movement to preserve forest lands. The Japanese Garden was not open, so I shot photos of it, the gazebo and the Doctor’s House though the fence.

From there, the hike to the cemetery involves climbing a hill next to a debris dam. Debris dams are the first part of Southern California’s flood control. They trap, as the name implies, debris like boulders, trees and sediment that would otherwise clog up the flood control system downstream. These basins don’t contain much water at anytime during the year and the debris that they trap are cleaned out during the dry season.

On the way up to the crest of the dam, I spotted a California Quail walking along the side of the road. At the upstream end of the debris basin the road forks, to the right it continues up the Brand Motorway to the top of the Verdugo Mountains, to the left a wide trail heads to the Brand Family Cemetery narrowing to a one track trail heading up the canyon.

On The Road – 🐾BillinGlendaleCA – The Brand Family Cemetery (IRChrome)Post + Comments (13)

way2blue

After Bovec, we drove east from the Julian Alps across the top of Slovenia to the Logar Valley (Logarska dolina), a glacial valley in the Kamnik-Savinja Alps along the border with Austria.  The Logar Valley is the middle of three glacial valleys which open to the southwest, and has been protected as a ‘landscape park’ since 1987.  The farm where we stayed is ‘grandfathered ‘ into the park.  In fact, the farm’s owner shifted careers from forester to conservationist.

On The Road – way2blue – Logar valley (Logarska Dolina), SloveniaPost + Comments (14)

On the Road: Week of March 22  (5 am)
Albatrossity – Brazil 2010
way2blue – Logar valley (Logarska Dolina), Slovenia
🐾BillinGlendaleCA – The Brand Family Cemetery (IRChrome)
Steve from Mendocino – Shape Studies in Black and White 2/2
Mike in Oly – Waterfalls of Western Washington

🌺  And now, a treat from Albatrossity!  

Holy cow!  One of the perks of doing On the Road is that I get to pick the favorite photo that will show up on social media.  For this one, I thought “that’s the featured image!” no fewer than 4 times.  Wow.  ~WG

Albatrossity

Brazil is a country that is much in the news today, and usually for all the wrong reasons. Pandemic mismanagement, virus mutations, rainforest destruction, and a president whose behavior is making all of that worse. But it is a lovely country, and so I thought I should share some pics from the time I have spent there. I hope to go back someday; we had plans for summer 2021, but somehow that didn’t seem prudent when the time arrived). So for now, these pictures will have to suffice.

I was fortunate to accompany a university Study Abroad class to Brazil in 2010, 2011 and 2013. We visited several different parts of that large and diverse country, but every trip included some time in the Amazon rainforest, centered around the city of Manaus, the capitol of the state of Amazonas. The 2010 trip, in fact, was entirely in that region. Here are a few images from that year’s trip.

On The Road – Albatrossity – Brazil 2010Post + Comments (23)

way2blue

A friend mentioned he was planning a hiking trip in the Julian Alps of Slovenia. Hiking! So we decided to give the alps a look. At the start of our trip, we booked lodging in the town of Bovec on the Soča River, not even realizing the town was a bustling recreation center. Lots of kayakers, hikers, trekkers, bicyclists passing through… After checking in, we walked down to river and found a small bistro at a campground on the other side. Stopped in for a beer and the owner was thrilled to have American visitors (remember those days?). Though my husband kept asking locals their thoughts on Melania… On the walk back to town, we noticed a small cave with a photographic display. Commemorating the deaths of Italian WWI soldiers who had taken shelter there and died from poison gas.

On The Road – way2blue – Bovec, SloveniaPost + Comments (23)

🐾BillinGlendaleCA

I headed down to Venice for a group shoot to capture the sunset and some night shots of the ocean walk and the old buildings of Venice. Venice was built in the early 20th century with architecture and canals modeled after Venice Italy. By the 1930’s most of the original canals were filled in with only a small section remaining. The weather didn’t look promising for a good sunset, but we lucked out.

While we couldn’t see the Sun set into the Pacific, its fading light left a orange and red glow in the clouds to the west with the Venice Pier as a foreground. I walked up the ocean walk, capturing some of the colorful shops along the way to Windward Ave. where the old canals met the ocean. That’s now Venice’s main street with the famous “Venice” sign at Windward and Pacific, except it didn’t say just “Venice” this evening, it was “O’Venice”. Happy St. Patrick’s Day.

On The Road – 🐾BillinGlendaleCA – O’VenicePost + Comments (19)