oh, pioneers

It's the cemetery again. My friend, Pat and I loaded gear into her car and bombed through the vacant, rain-swept streets of North Portland to arrive at the old pioneer cemetery again very early this morning. Slow, heavy drip-drip-drip so familiar and even comforting to natives here, a little rain won't prevent your intrepid photo-geeks from catching the early light and tonal mood for a Halloween-ish shoot. The gates were open and we were entirely alone, as is usual in this quiet and humble place. 

Can you see the faces? This tree had sustained pretty dramatic damage to the trunk with a large portion split away, leaving this symmetrical gash exposed.

There are many graves of children and infants, and this one particularly touched me this morning, just seven years old when he died. His mother, Alice, was placed here with him sometime later. I know Halloween invites the opportunity to create some creepy images, but this small grave is just so sweet and sad.

I am now feeling sufficiently in touch with my mortality, so maybe will try for a lighter subject next post!

october means cemetery

I love this rather neglected old cemetery and have shot here fairly frequently over the past several years. Last weekend I found two willing accomplices models to participate in a small project that I've been contemplating for awhile. Here are a few sample shots. Would love some feedback if you are so inclined!  

the taste of apples

My first visit ever to the annual Apple Tasting at Portland Nursery last week sealed the season for me. FINALLY, evidence that summer is really over and we're moving again toward the seasons we're known for here. And I'm such a typically romantic northwesterner. Even the discomfort of standing on a wet, windy street corner, chilled to the bone while waiting interminably for a bus that never seems to arrive, can't dispel the excited anticipation that charges my soul this time every year. Also? I confess that I enjoy being amused by, and feeling slightly superior (okay, maybe not so slightly) to the recent transplants from sunnier climates consistently complaining about the long, dark drench that starts about now and doesn't really end until about the middle of July.  Heh, heh. Lightweights.

And then there are the apples and pears piled over my kitchen counter this morning. Thinking that a tart would be a lovely project today. Yup.

a little gratitude

A Saturday morning after nine hours of solid sleep means I wake up with a sense of possibility again. A little ambitious. A little looser of joint. A little softer in my approach. A little prettier, somehow (isn’t the mind a miraculous thing?). A little peaceful. A very little bit happier.

What happens to us asleep? How does the unconscious bring us through the nightly fire of our terrors and failings to a quiet morning’s optimism? I am so grateful. The sun is out. And there is coffee. Thank you.

Doc and I walked through the gorgeously anachronistic Irvington neighborhood where I live on the less gorgeous edge. I brought the camera and found small indications that it is October at last.