Back in the Saddle Again

Having a broken arm hasn't kept me off my bike.

(Videographer: Nora Wyman)

Hawaii in Photographs

1945-1946

My mother, Theresa Wyman, worked for the U.S. government in Hawaii for about a year. When my mom passed away – more than five years ago – I kept her photo album full of photographs of that time in her life. She would have been about 33 or so when she made the trip.

I'm sure she worked hard. And I'm just as sure she had a lot of fun. Young, caucasian women from the mainland were in short supply; I don't think she dated anyone except officers. And I'm just as sure she had a lot of fun. I don't think she dated anyone except officers, and she had some great stories, including one about taking off in a small plane with one of her suitors and landing on a beach in the midst of a storm.

At the time, she was engaged to my Dad (I think he was having just as much fun as she was, by the way, in England, where he spent a few years of the war as an officer, teaching soldiers who to stay safe during a chemical weapons attack).

A long time ago, maybe when I was in my 20s or 30s, my my told me that an old Beau had come by the house. I'm not sure who he was. And I'd love to know what my dad thought. 

From a few hints, including a couple of place setting name tags in that photo album, I think the mysterious stranger might have been a certain Colonel Jacobsen.

 Colonel Jacobsen Getting his Wings

Damage from December 7, 1941

Mot of the photos seem to have been made by my mom. Some of them were of her, made by friends. She has a couple of pages of photos of the destruction visited on Hawaii on December 7th. I don't know who made the photos; as I recall, one person gave them to her.

When my mom returned to the mainland, she sailed on the famed Matsonia cruise ship, of the Maston Line.

My mom had mentioned to me a few times that passengers had been warned about a tsunami. There was, in fact, a serious earthquake in the Aleutian Islands, off the coast of Alaska, when she crossed the Pacific. The ship was fine. The tsunami, though, did reach Hawaii, and passengers raised money to help the Red Cross relief efforts.

A few days later, the ship sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge, my mom returned to Ohio. When my dad returned from England, they were married the next year, and she began a new chapter in her life, in Los Angeles. Her album went into a drawer in an old bureau. pulled out on rare occasion to share with my brother, Dan and I.

And now you've seen a bit of it, too.

Guest Blog

Bob Kidd and I met to photograph Yosemite, and we've kept in touch in the half-year since. We share some common interests that we both write about, and Bob recently asked me to contribute a post for his blog, Sunday Street. It seems eminently fair that he has a post for my blog in return: 


Bob Kidd is a self described cyclist, photographer and dreamer. He would have become a photo journalist, but his mother threatened to pull his college funding if he changed his major. Instead, he majored in English. He created the blog Sunday Street last year when he finally decided to do something with that English degree he got 40 years ago...

This his story...

Freezing Time

Blue Train - Pretoria to Cape Town, South Africa

Photographs freeze moments in time and provide a window into the past for future generations. Before the dawning of the digital age, we connected with these moments by holding the pictures in our hands. Although sharing the images with others was somewhat limited, it is still special to open a family album and take a trip back in time.  As time passes, such photographs become more and more valuable. Photographs taken today will be treasures years from now.

In the image taken of my father riding the Blue Train in South Africa in the late 1930s, it will always be the time before WWII.  (Initially, I didn't realize he was in this picture until I recognized his smile under that stylish cap). And I never would have imagined my Dear Mother perched on top of some bloke's shoulders at the beach. These images provide many clues about our parents, before they were our parents...

Images of our own past, often from before we can remember, reveal many rich stories and, in my case, explain quite a bit...

There are times, places, and events that are suddenly brought back to mind, even when we haven't thought about them for ages...

6th grade

Summiting Mount Katahdin, 1971 (Ektachrome image (c) Robert Kidd photography, 2012)

These photographs contain more than memories. They provide us with a rich pictorial history of our families. I think about this whenever I view digital images. Where will those images be in 20 years or more and how will they be viewed? Wouldn't it be great if we could preserve these digital images somehow? Wait...you can! Gamma Tech has found the perfect process and it will amaze you! Your digital images can be converted to film, archived in labeled binders, and stored on a shelf. Each binder will neatly contain a rich volume of your family history. In the likely event of a computer hardware failure, they will always be available for recovery.

Or, you could just shoot film.

Recently, I shot and scanned several rolls of Kodak Ektachrome film that had just expired. I enjoyed watching the results appear on my computer screen. The colors where rich and vibrant, and the images had a soulful feeling. I posted one of them to the Sunday Street page on facebook as the cover image. A short time later, I read on the Kodak web site that Ektachrome film had been discontinued.

I was stunned and, initially, could not believe that what I read could be true. Ektachrome was used for decades to bring us the amazing images found in National Geographic. It is the film my father-in-law shot in the 1960s in Austria,  in which he document the life and times of his family. It is also the first slide film I ever shot. Now it was discontinued. The loss was palpable. I was simply not prepared for the sun to set on this film.

I checked my refrigerated film stash and verified that I had 9 rolls of 35mm Ektachrome 100VS left, but none in medium format. What I had on hand was insufficient to fulfill one of my vision

quests: capturing iconic images from the US National Park system. I placed an order for more and held my breath that it was not too late to increase my supply, locate a 1958 Chevrolet Nomad station wagon, and talk Dave Wyman into joining me as we freeze time once more.

I now have 80 rolls of Ektachrome in my freezer (at this line, my editor got up from her desk, apparently to check something in the kitchen) and am starting to plan the Ektachrome National Park Road Trip. Who wants to go with me?

Thanks for stopping by.

Bob

You can follow Bob's film image quest on twitter (@BobKidd), facebook (robert.b.kidd) or Sunday Street, his blog.

To Slay the Beast 

As I headed out on Olympic Boulevard from my home early Sunday morning, with clouds darkening the sky over Los Angeles presaging a hard rainstorm, I thought back to the year before. That was when my ex-cardiologist said to me, "It's too bad your heart attack happened in your left artery instead of your right artery."


And he said, "You'll never crank up Fargo Street again like you did before your heart attack."


Fargo Street. It's only 1/10th of a mile in length. It's also the steepest street in Los Angeles, with a 33% average grade that reaches 36% near the top. If snow ever blanketed the street, it would make for an expert ski run.


I've participated on the Fargo Street Hill Climb, an event sponsored by the Los Angeles Wheelmen bike club, almost every year since 1978. The only person who's participated in the event more than me is my brother, Dan, who first witnessed the event in 1977. He brought me with him the next year, and we keep coming back. We were young men when we made that first ride. Now we're old men.


Of the hundred or so people who tried to pedal up the hill that day so long ago, less than half of them succeeded. Most humans don't have the strength or the stamina that's required to summit the hill.  I was so nervous just before my turn at the hill that my body tingled. Dan and I, though, completed the climb.

I'm not sure why I've come back to the hill, year after year, although, as I've probably mused on this blog before, it may be to prove to myself that I'm still alive. The hill has always served, in a way, as the great Other, a thing greater and more dangerous than myself, a leviathan, the great white whale, a Frankenstein's monster that I need to face and slay each spring, renewing and proving myself in the process.


(To the right: My brother Dan, who rode straight up the hill this year, makes it look easy.)


Yet at other times, the hill at times has also seemed like an old friend, welcoming me back, letting me connect with it in an intimate way, transmitting the feel of its rough concrete, with its bumps and little indentations and cracks, up through my tires, to my legs and my arms.


Most years, just once up the hill is enough is enough to slay the beast, to renew our acquaintanceship. For a while, though, I was king of the hill, with more runs up to the top of Fargo Street in one day than anyone else.


Last year, twelve days after my ride up Fargo Street,  a clot formed in one of the little stents, which are tiny tubes holding my coronary arteries open where surgeons had cleared out a dangerous build-up of plaque.


I thought I might die, as I lay writhing on the ground, 30 minutes or so after I'd enjoyed a ride on my bike. Luckily, I made it to the hospital fairly quickly, and the blocked stent was cleared of the clot, and my heart attack was halted. Not before the lack of blood did some serious damage, according to my ex-cardiologist.


"You'll never crank up Fargo Street again like you did before your heart attack." Not only did I not want to hear those words, I knew I would challenge them in a year's time.


The earth has circled the sun once after that visit with my ex-cardiologist. And so it was time for another ride up Fargo Street, on another Sunday in March, time for another annual rite of passage, the rite that affirms my belief in myself.

I know I can't live forever. And I feel I done most if not all of what I've been put on earth to do. Yet I was a little worried my ex-cardiologist might have been right, that I wouldn't be able to push myself up Fargo Street as I had in years past. And I was a little worried that the effort might just kill me. My mood wasn't helped by the storm clouds that were building to the west, either. 

My choice of bike could have been my mountain bike, with its very low gearing. That would have made riding up the hill, if not easy, a certainty. It wasn't certainty I was after, though. It was the challenge, with the possibility that I might not be up to it. So, exactly as I did the year before, I chose to pedal my road bike, with it's gears much higher than those on my mountain bike.  Just in case I failed in my first attempt, though, I asked my brother to let me borrow his mountain bike for a second try. 

There's not much to say about the ride itself. My body wasn't tingling. I had to dig deep within myself to keep pedaling. And when I reached the top, I knew I'd been on a serious bike ride. Until I reached the top, Fargo Street this year was more foe than friend. 

One time up the hill was enough for me. And once again, and for the next year, I am king of the hill, at least in my own mind. 

I never like to be told what I can or can't do. That's as good a reason as any that I'll continue to try to ride up Fargo Street. I'll come out to Fargo Street until I can't get on my bike any longer. That day, whenever it arrives, the beast will have its victory, a friendship will end. In the meantime, I've got an appointment with my new cardiologist scheduled for later this year, and a lot of miles and a lot of hills to ride to stay in shape for my my next trip up the steepest street in the City of Angeles. 

And now you know why my cardiologist is my ex-cardiologist. 

Note: click on any image to see a larger version.

Below: Marco Pantani on the climb to Courchevel, during the 2002 Tour de France, with a song about Pantani – Rimini – by Les Wampas.

Self-Portrait

Got My Fix – If Not My Kicks – On Route 66

This past Super Bowl weekend, I traveled to the edge of the frontier in the company of a talented and enthusiastic group of photographers. The challenge, among others, was to photograph the perceived "nothing" the lies along a portion of historic Route 66, the 20th Century "Mother Road" of American dreams.

The Industrial Age lives at Tom's Welding in Barstow

Route 66, from Chicago to Los Angeles, was officially proclaimed in 1929, during the Industrial Age. When the road's official status as a U.S. highway ended, the U.S. had was firmly entrenched in Age of Technology.  Model T's had given way to T-Birds. From east to west, Route 66 was supplanted by the four lanes of Interstate 40. 

Route 66 didn't entirely disappear. The route that led people out of the Great Depression, though buried or bypassed, still flows here and there on narrow rivers of concrete and asphalt. Chunks of the route can still be followed in reverse, from the Santa Monica Pier, through Los Angeles and Pasadena, to climbs up between the San Gabriel and San Bernardino Mountains, into the Mojave Desert. 

Bike chain ring and chain, Newberry Springs   

Taking off from the high desert city of Victorville, Route 66 points north and then east, to reach the quintessential railroad/gas stop town of Barstow. That's where our group met on a sunny Friday afternoon. We came from California, from Maryland and New York, from Washington, from as far away as Malaysia. After introductions were exchanged, and we enjoyed an entertaining and informative talk from Ken Rockwell, we headed out to visit Tom's Welding and Machine shop, where the Industrial Age still lives.

Truck cables, Barstow 

Barstow is a nexus for the rail lines that head east to Las Vegas and Chicago and New York, emanating from the great ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. The  trains carry the t.v. sets and cars and bicycles and toys and furniture and everything else that comes from China and Taiwan and Vietnam and Thailand. Here is where the Interstate highways meet and cross, the I-15 and I-40, and here Highway 58 departs for the west. Eighty years ago, the Depression-era Okies took Highway 58 from Barstow to look for work in the Great Central Valley.

Irrigation device, Barstow

Barstow has a few nice restaurants and some pleasant hotels, new car lots, the Route 66 Museum, the beautifully restored train depot, and lots of friendly people. Barstow, though, and communities like Newberry Springs, Yermo and Amboy are frontier towns. Just beyond their borders  the natural world holds sway, the natural world of mountains and sand dunes and cinder cones, of frigid winter nights and hot summer days. 

Mary

Out along Route 66, out beyond Barstow, there are people who came to the desert a long time ago. Maybe they were teachers, or short order cooks, or they worked for the railroad, or out on the salt flats. They fell in love with the desert, or felt an affinity, consciously or not, for the land beyond the frontier. 

Gilbert

A legal alien 

Underwater salt piller south of Amboy

Sunset at Roy's Motel and Cafe

The teacher, the cook, the railroad worker are still out there, on or beyond the frontier, in another world than the one from which they came. Our group plugged into their world for a few days, recording it on our cameras not just as it was, but as we thought it was or wanted it or imagined it to be. We photographed a world of lost and forgotten and overlooked dreams. And in so doing, we plugged more deeply into who we are. Then it was time to return to our own world, tucked safely behind the frontier, to the land of our own dreams.

 

Last Light at Roys

Note: Click on a photo to view larger-sized images.

Why is Winter Cycling Can be Such a Drag in Los Angeles

My late afternoon ride on a typical winter's day –January 27th – along the bike path south of Venice Beach, was a disappointment. 

There I was, initially pedaling in bliss along the coast. The mountains above Malibu to the north, and the mountain that is the Palos Verdes Peninsula to the south, formed the wide open jaws of Santa Monica Bay. The island of Santa Catalina, 27 miles across the sea, floated like a serene, purple leviathan. 

Then I noticed pale puffs and stringy tangles of fog just beginning to muster in the bay, as they planned for a silent shore invasion in the evening. The fog slightly marred my otherwise clear views out over the Pacific. With a shock, I noted that the temperature had dipped to about 65 degrees, and I had to pedal hard just to stay warm. Why, oh, why, did I leave my arm and leg warmers at home?

True, this late in the afternoon most people were somewhere else, so the bike path was like my private, closed-circuit training course, as I headed south to the Redondo Beach Pier, and back north again. Even so, I soon realized the occasional cyclist, jogger, surfer, volleyballer – whomever – were intent, like the fog, on blocking my views! That really frosted me on what should have been a perfect winter's ride.

 The rude dude, above, blocked my view without even realizing it.

 Even the birds got in the way.

 A cyclist barged into my careful composition.

 Two surfers politely hurried through the scene.

More surfers blocked my potential view of gray and blue whales off the coast of Los Angeles.

 

 Stuff cluttered the beach.

All-in-all, it was a miserable day at the beach.


Note: click on images for a larger sized view.

Sock it To Me

Whether or not there are greater rewards for giving than receiving, I was happy to spend some time and money shopping with my wife for gifts for family and friends, and giving to people less fortunate than I am. Our big shopping expedition took us to REI, the outdoor store. Among other items, we bought some socks for our daughter. There was a special on socks, so I bought myself a pair of bike socks, too. I can never have enough bike socks. 

It's always difficult to decide what to give my brother. This year, I decided to give him a subscription to a new bike magazine. On the way back from REI, though, my wife and I decided Dan might need something a little more tactile to enjoy on Christmas, since his first copy of the magazine wouldn't arrive for a while. At first I thought I'd give him my pair of bike socks. 


Then Kathy and I decided Dan needed at least two pairs of socks. So later in the week, I headed over to a little bike shop I like. The guys there have been good to me (as have all the people at all the little bike shops I visit on occasion). I bought two pairs of socks, and when I got home, even though I liked and wanted the socks I'd purchased for myself, I decided to give them to Dan, too.

On Christmas Eve, I headed over to one of our favorite restaurants, Bloom, to pick up a take-out order for my visiting daughter and son-in-law. On the way home, I stopped in at the 7-11, to pick up a six pack of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, and six pack of Fat Tire beer. After dropping off lunch and the pale ale, I visited the bike shop where I'd purchased the socks for my brother, and dropped off the Fat Tire beer. I was happy to bring the guys a gift I knew they would like. 

When I spied boxes of two seasonal varieties of Clif Bars, gingerbread and pumpkin, in the shop, I decided to spend a little more money. However, and despite my protestations, I walked out of the shop with the gift of several Clif Bars. 

In late afternoon, I headed over to a small take-out on tony Beverly Blvd, with its fancy restaurants and shops. An exception is China Kitchen, just east of the massive Beverly Center and Beverly Connection shopping malls; it isn't fancy. There's enough room for the counter, two small tables and four chairs. The order phone seems to constantly ring off the hook, and the invisible kitchen is always noisy with confabulations in Cantonese. 

Long ago, my parents had sponsored the emigration of the owners of the China Kitchen, whom they met on a trip to Hong Kong. Their friends eventually settled in Los Angeles. I have no idea how the two couples met. I do know that my parents were never forgotten by the owners of China Kitchen. For years, they supplied my parents with food for our family's Christmas Eve dinner. 

Since my parents came from different religious backgrounds, we'd celebrate both Christmas and Chanukah, with a Christmas tree in a corner of the living room, a menorah atop on the baby grand piano. That wonderful Chinese dinner each year was a perfect compliment to our diverse festivities.

My parents departed the scene some time ago. The tradition of Christmas Eve lives on, though, as my wife and I have always decorated our own home with a tree and a menorah. We enjoy Chinese food for dinner, too. As it happens, China Kitchen isn't far from my own home, and so it's easy to visit my parents' old friends on Christmas Eve. My parents' old friends are always are glad to see me, as I am to see them. We are the links to each others' pasts. 

There were hellos and hugs. We caught up on what was happening with our families. Ordering took a while, though, because the phone kept ringing off the proverbial hook.  

This year, I fibbed a little, telling my parent's friends that I needed a couple of dishes, and some brown rice, for my wife and myself. I didn't mention that my younger daughter was busy at my home, preparing a six-person feast, for Kathy and me, for my daughter Rebecca and my son-in-law Lee, and Nora's boyfriend, Kevin. Of course, as the proxy for my parents, I wasn't allowed to pay for what I ordered.

The plan hatched at home was to give the food I picked up to any homeless person or persons I spotted on the short drive back from China Kitchen. Failing that, Kathy and I and Rebecca and Lee would share the shrimp and lo mein dishes for lunch on Christmas Day. 

On the way home, a man I often see sprawled on the sidewalk on Beverly Blvd., who I knew was a likely candidate, was missing. I didn't spot anyone else who looked like they needed food. I brought the three cartons home. 

The food was still hot, so I left the cartons on a kitchen counter. While the kids worked and talked in the kitchen, Kathy and I sat in the living room. When I walked into the kitchen a little later, the shrimp had gone missing, along with most of the beef and chicken from the lo mein carton. I was completely irritated. There went my next day's lunch! 

Then I thought about those homeless people I hadn't found. I thought about the wonderful Christmas Eve dinner we'd be sharing in another hour or so. I thought about my parents, who wouldn't be with us, of how generous they had been in their lives, giving much of what they had (despite my mom's hoarding proclivities) to others. Soon I wasn't annoyed.

We did have a wonderful dinner that night. My family and I had a terrific Christmas morning, too, exchanging gifts. After we'd cleaned up the house, making it ready for the arrival of my brother and his family for another holiday dinner, I had time to hop on my bike for an afternoon ride. The day was warm in the sun, and cool in the shade as I headed up into the little canyons of the Santa Monica Mountains north of our home. Pedaling along Beverly Blvd., I saw the homeless man asleep on the sidewalk. 

Before returning home, I cycled up a thousand feet, looking out over the city on a day when the temperature reached the mid-70s, and I could look out to downtown one way, and out to the Pacific Ocean the other, it's waters glinting in the afternoon light.

That evening, my parents weren't with us, of course. Yet I did feel linked to them again, through another wonderful Christmas dinner – prime rib, brussels sprouts, mashed potatoes – that  Kathy and Rebecca and Nora prepared. Susan, my sister-in-la, made kugal, a kind of noodle pudding, to which I think I'm addicted. Not many people out of all the people in the world ate as well as we did.

When it came time to exchange gifts, my brother opened his. From me came the card telling him about his magazine subscription, and then his three pairs of socks. 


Then I opened the two packages Dan had for me. One was a book about Los Angeles then and now. It was filled with photographs of places as they appeared in the late 1800s and the early years of the 20th century, and as they appear in the 21st century. 


The other package I opened contained three pairs of bike socks. Proving, I suppose, either great minds think alike or that we don't have a lot of creativity to share between us. 


Of course, Dan and I hadn't sacrificed anything, yet we were reminded a little of the classic O'Henry Christmas story, The Gift of the Magi, with our sock story the reverse of the original. 


I know it's difficult to act as saintly as possible all year, to sacrifice all year, and not just during the holiday season. We can't give everything we have away, we can't go barefoot all the time, we have to balance what we need with that which we can afford to give. 

This coming new year, every time I pull on a pair of bike socks, every time I munch a Clif Bar, or eat Chinese food, I'm going to think about giving back some of what I've been blessed to receive in my own life. And in so doing, perhaps I will – like riding my bike – find the balance.

An Alternate Yosemite

Note: click on any image if you wish to view a larger version.

The catch, as proposed by my friend, Chuck Nadeau, was simple: We would conduct a trip to Yosemite, and the people on the trip would set aside the seemingly ubiquitous digital single lens reflex (DSLR) cameras favored by most advanced photographers.

Film, digicam, pinhole, Polaroid, iPhone, medium format cameras, etc., were fair. Whatever we brought, we would have to learn – or relearn – how to find camera controls. We would have to learn to see in new ways; we would see an alternate Yosemite. And for those of us using film, some pleasure would have to be deferred, since we weren't likely to see the finished photographs for a week or two after our trip ended.

Our group of photographers would travel to Yosemite as autumn, the season of turning, slowly gave way to winter. The Merced River would drain the last of the melted snowfall from the high country, even as clouds would sweep into Yosemite Valley on rising currents of cool air. Daylight at this time of year would be in short supply, and, especially on the always-shaded south side of the Valley, the air would be cold.

The poignantly transient nature of life would be on display, as the last colors of autumn grudgingly morphed into the bare branches of aspens, black cottonwoods, and maples.

There were ultimately eight of us who traveled to Yosemite. Tom Turmen was from Tennessee, Ted Taylor, from Southern California, Robert Kidd from Rhode Island, Stjepan Gardilcic from Ohio, Richard Nolthenius, from Santa Cruz, California, the aforementioned Chuck (from Chico, California), mythic Ken Rockwell, who has always carried a soft spot for film cameras, and myself.

Winter was definitely coming to Yosemite. Yet I was struck by the amount of color still to be found in and around Yosemite Valley. Pacific Dogwood was bright red in places, so were some imported red maples.

The photo above, and the one below, show a little maple that looked like it was on fire, and which sat just across the road from our accommodations at the comfortable Cedar Lodge.

For me, this was a good trip to document the transient nature of life, if only because I ran a couple of rolls of black and white film through my 1954 Rolleiflex. The old Rollei, a camera which I think epitomizes the pinnacle of the Machine Age, belonged to my mom for many years. One day, when her eyes were no longer able to look down into the magnificent mirrored viewfinder to see what was there, my mom insisted I take the camera. (I'll try to post some of the Rollei images I made on the trip in another post, after my film comes back from the processor).

Most of the time, though, I used a little Panasonic LX5, a digicam with a wide and fast and sharp lens. I also made many photographs with my iPhone, using the iPhone's native camera app, as well as the wonderful Hipstamatic app, which gives photos the look of film.

Richard brought along his ancient Minolta A1 digicam. When it snowed, on our last day, Richard discovered that while the camera itself still worked, the battery had a difficult time staying warm enough to function for more than a few minutes. It would revive for a short time after he warmed it in his pocket.

Robert brought along the fantastic Nikon F6, Nikon's last pro film camera. Like me, he spent a lot of time with his iPhone, too. I had fun photographing Robert on various reflective surfaces, like car windows and, above, on the back of a driver's side view mirror.

Chuck chose to only use his iPhones; yes, he has two of them, a 4 and a new 4S. He also brought along a special tripod just for his iPhone.

Tom brought along a beautiful Leica rangefinder, with a few lenses. For aesthetics, I think Tom's camera was easily the match of my Rolleiflex.

Ted brought a variety of cameras, too, including his muscular Pentax medium format camera. And Stjepan switched between his film camera and a little Canon S95. The more he worked with the S95, the more he came to appreciate its worth as an artistic instrument.

Ken chose his own Leica rangefinder, as well as his own Canon S95.

Besides views of the soaring, granite cliffs, and the patches of autumn color, there were some spectacular reflections in the Merced River. Above: morning light on El Capitan is reflected in the Merced River.

Above: a duck conveniently swims into El Capitan and the sky's reflection, turning the scene into a piece of abstract art.

We also spent time photographing at Fern Spring, "Yosemite's Smallest Waterfall." A slow shutter speed blurred the water, while the leaves and moss held still for me.

Perhaps my favorite photograph came at the end of the second full day of the trip, at the Wawona Pioneer Village, an enclave of historic architecture, miles west of Yosemite Valley.

We all found ourselves photographing the lovely old covered bridge. I spent some time thinking about how to convey the sense of that old bridge with my little digicam, and ultimately I decided to make a more restricted view. Trying to show it all – the bridge, the water, the sky, the adjacent building and forest – just took in too of the view much for my taste. This time, I decided, less would be more.

As I made my photographs in the crisp air, I experienced a sense nostalgia. It was the sense of roads taken, of wonderful places I have been and people I've met over the course of my life. Where did that nostalgia come from? Maybe it came from the creativity that went into making those photographs at the covered bridge. Maybe that creativity let me live in the moment as well as connect on a deep level with my own history.

And if that's true, it's as good a reason as any, at the turning time of the year, to spend a few days with a camera and a few friends in a place like Yosemite.

Note: click on any photo to view larger sized images.