Most people know about the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, but here is a look at the changing of the guard ceremony at the Royal Palace in Stockholm. The ceremony takes place each morning at 11:00am. The only thing that rivals the beautiful blue of these soldiers uniforms is the color of the water in the Stockholm Archipeligo on a warm sunny day.
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These painted ladies are located on Northwest Glisan Street in Portland. The bright spring color palate is a perfect match for the sunny warm weather we experienced here this past weekend.
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The cherry trees in bloom along Naito Parkway in Portland are a sure sign that our long, wet, cold winter is over. The forecast is for more sunny weather like this for the rest of the week.
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Well, actually two pictures for this week made 39 years apart. The hand-colored image on top was made in June of 1976 and the one on the bottom was made in August of 2015. I just love the visual contrast provided by the passage of time, but the weather doesn't seem to have changed very much.
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I went deep into the archives for this weeks picture. I made this image of "red" tulips outside the Terteling Library in the spring of 1971 while attending the College of Idaho. This was one of the first shots I ever made using a specialized film that Kodak developed during the Second World War for the purpose of aerial reconnaissance. It could detect the difference between real and decoy armies. I really liked the color it rendered in the leaves and blossoms of these flowers. Can you tell me what this film was called?
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One of my favorite spots on the Oregon coast is the sleepy little town of Oceanside. The wildlife sanctuary of Three Arch rocks sits just offshore. This image was shot on infrared film utilizing a neutral density filter that required a 30 second exposure.
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The light and atmospheric conditions in Iceland are unusually beautiful but constantly changing. This picture was made at 10:00am this morning just outside Stykkishòlmur. The clouds hovering over these mountain created depth and a sense of motion in this image. The sun is still very low in the sky this time of year and when its out, makes wonderful lighting for landscape photography. But sometimes it doesn't stay out for long. What looked like a great day at 10:00am today, had turned into a howling gale by noon, with winds so strong I thought it would blow my car off the road. As I write this it is gray, dull and still windy. There is a saying here..."if you don't like the weather just wait 5 minutes." There is a lot of truth in that!
Ice Caves and Aurora
The bus headed out of Reykjavik with 12 Chinese tourists and 3 Americans with the goal of trekking through a glacial ice cave. I normally try to avoid groups of tourists like the plague, because its hard to get a feel for the personality of a place when its over-run with adventure seekers and travelers. But strangely, on this trek I came to appreciate the good humor and friendliness of the Chinese people in the group, not to mention their creative genius with the selfie. And I enjoyed getting to know a great young couple from Florida who were also photographers.
We pulled into our guest house just before dinner and while waiting for our food, the guide came down and said there is an aurora happening tonight. Immediately 15 people got up and scurried outside and sure enough, soft green waves of light were starting to swirl above the mountain peak. I had seen the Northern Lights for the first time. It lasted maybe a half hour and then dissipated...different waves of greenish color dancing in the sky. Here are a couple of the nicer images from that night. I have no idea how I got them!
The same place five months later
Here is a composite image that illustrates the change 5 months make in Iceland...quite dramatic.
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One of the most surreal beautiful places I've ever seen. These icebergs have calved off the Breiðamerkurjökull Glacier and are floating out to sea through the lagoon that has been formed by the melt water. The lagoon is now the deepest lake in Iceland and has quadrupled in size just since the 1970s due to the effects of climate change. It has been used as a film set for the movies "A View to a Kill," and "Batman Begins," among others. This was an image made in late summer. I'll soon be re-visiting the area to see how it looks in wintertime.
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The Painted Hills were created over millions of years. The volcanic ash was subjected to weathering under various climate regimes resulting in vividly colored red, pink, bronze, tan and black layers of rock.
Although it looks like an infrared shot, this image was made with normal transparency film, and yes the colors were this vivid. There were no saturation or color enhancements made to the scan. Just off the highway in Mitchell, there is a nice Bed & Breakfast house called the Historic Oregon Hotel. Its just a short drive from there to the Painted Hills.
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February 6th is Sámi national day. The Sámi are the indigenous inhabitants of northern Scandinavia and their ancestral lands include parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Kola peninsula of Russia. A notable aspect of their culture is Reindeer husbandry, and so in commemoration of Sámi national day, here is a summertime picture of reindeer in the little village of Jukkasjärvi, Sweden.
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Black Pool is a hot spring at the West Thumb Geyser Basin at Yellowstone National Park. It is named Black Pool because it was once black. But in 1991, the water got super-heated killing the cyanobacteria responsible for its blackish color and it became this beautiful clear blue color. Black Pool is still extremely hot and one of the prettiest and intensely blue pools in the park.
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A picture from the SkateAmerica competition held in Portland, Oregon in 2010. These are Russian ice dancers Ekaterina Riazanova and Ilia Tkachenko. I love the stare Ekaterina flashed into the camera as they performed one of their difficult elements. Riazanova and Tkachenko finished fifth in the competition. Can you guess who the winning dance pair was that year? [hint] They went on to win the Olympic Gold medal in Ice Dance 4 years later.
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This is the Eisbach, an artificial stream that runs through the English Garden in Munich. The flow produces a constant, stable, surfable wave where locals can ride the wild surf, and they do it at any time of year. This picture was made on a late December day.
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Goat Lake is nestled in a granite cauldron at about 8,500 feet (2590 meters) in elevation. What month of the year do you suppose this picture was made?
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Icicles on a Portland building
In recognition of the ice and snow Portland had today, here is a look at the dreadlocks of ice given to this guy atop a downtown building.
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Fox Tower, Portland, Oregon
I shared a studio space across the street from this location for many years with Rodoclix. At that time (in the early 1990s) this building was not here.
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It seemed a good idea to post a Holiday image for this week. This is an interior view of the Christmas decorations in the Galeries Lafayette, a luxury department store in Paris. During the Christmas season the "City of Light" certainly lives up to its name! Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas!
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This view of the interior domes of the Blue Mosque shows the exquisite detail and decoration of one of the worlds great places of worship.