You know the drill: more photos. This time from a mini-vacation I took with my dad a month back. Zion is one of my favorite places in the world, but I was a bit disappointed at our mutual ineptitude at getting a back-country pass. Oh well, it was loads of fun anyway (with a few scares, but we’ll leave that aside).

What, I have a blog?! Yes I know it’s been quiet lately…

Here are some assorted pictures from around Seattle over the summer. Most of them are from Mt Rainier because, honestly, Mt Rainier is just awesome.

EDIT: I stand corrected. These are pictures of Mt Shuksan, not Mt Baker. My first time up there, so I plead ignorance.

These are about a month old, but here are some pictures taken of Mt Shuksan. They are all HDRs, some converted black and white, some desaturated. Enjoy.

Last Tuesday, I was up in the greater Seattle area interviewing for Some Company™ and had the opportunity, the day after the interviews, to head to Snoqualmie Falls, which I had oddly enough never been to. It was stunningly beautiful for the time of year – I expected an ‘ideal’ time to be spring or early summer, with the snowmelts feeding the falls, but it was quite beautiful in the cold! The falls were surrounded by snow and icicles, and it was even snowing for a fair amount of the time I was there. I only had my point-and-shoot, but nevertheless managed to get some shots of the place.

Without further ado:

Some of these pictures I find a bit redundant; comments on which redundancies are ‘better’ are much appreciated – it’s hard for me to tell as the photographer which people will prefer, as I can internally appreciate different vantage points and I have particular memories attached to each photograph – and my initial sample group was inconclusive. As always, I have more on flickr. And this will probably be my last post before Christmas, so merry Christmas y’all.

Last Saturday I went to the prop 8 protest/rally kajigger in Austin, TX. I was debating whether or not to go until, that morning, I concocted the perfect compromise: I’ll go as a photographer, and if I find I don’t like what’s going on, I’ll distance myself through the camera lens. Besides, I don’t do enough people-photography, and this could give me the chance to practice a little. I’ve been wanting for a while to do a series on homelessness, but that would be a several-months long project (as I feel it’d be a great wrong to just take the pictures without getting to know the people in front of the lens), and I also don’t think my portraiture is up to snuff. This motivated me a bit more to start working to improve those skills. I will admit I did learn one important thing: having an SLR camera gives you amazing authority to move through crowds!

In general, there were some of the same faults with this that I find in many gay organizations, the chiefest being the loose use of ‘hate’ and ‘bigotry’, which is incendiary, unhelpful, and stupid. I don’t think that everyone who voted for California’s proposition 8 was a hate-filled bigot, and to paint the world in such clean strokes of good and evil is lazy and wrong. (You will see some of this in the pictures.) Another issue, one of the speakers was talking about how he met his partner at a Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) – at which point I tuned him out and started doing more photography (my litany of complaints about the MCC is too long to go into, but suffice it to say they are an almost-exclusively gay church combining all the worst elements of evangelical Christianity and gay pop culture). And there was another speaker from Soulforce – and I have a permanent allergic reaction to anything to do with Mel White. I also wonder how much good this actually does, separate from normal gay people living normal, honest lives in their community. Not much, I suspect – and it is why I hope one day the gay rights movement will die a peaceful, quiet death, as gay people are accepted into society at large – and this is happening, slowly.

On another aside, I am a bit astonished at the reaction to prop 8: true, it is a great first – the first time rights that had previously been given to gay couples was taken away. But there are nineteen states – Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Idaho, Utah, Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Florida (new this election season) – that not only have constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage but also recognition of other kinds of same-sex unions (usually civil unions). Same-sex couples in California still have the same rights as marriage, but in many other states even those are denied. From a practical point, when gay marriage is politically unfeasible, one should be working toward basic legal protection and recognition, even if it is not ‘full’ equality – and the US does not start and end with the west coast.

Nevertheless, there was much good: one was my astonishment at how diverse the crowd was – gay, straight, young and old, religious and irreligious. A PCUSA minister talked about being a supportive, straight, religious person. And another, and one which I found particularly encouraging, is how many families with children there were (again, gay and straight). This was not some raunchy event from which children needed to be shielded (as the concept of gay pride parades which I grew up believing defined gay people – these parades which are another thing I am hyper-allergic to), but it was extraordinarily civil, and tame. The positive, palpable sense of families coming together is the best thing I will remember: kids ran up and down paths with parents in tow, keeping an eye on them, or were moved around in play-wagons, or clung to their mom or dad’s hand. It was as if the gay rights movement was growing up, and understood that it was, fundamentally, about family.

Andrew Sullivan, as is typical, has a very insightful post on the subject entitled Modernity, Faith, and Marriage. (Go read it.) Gay marriage means loosening (for everyone) what ‘marriage’ means in a governmental capacity. And this is necessary for a great number of government institutions in any pluralistic society. And my inner libertarian is happy to have the meaning of government diminished, for it is after all in the private sphere of sociality that meaning is determined for the individual.

Here are the pictures:

After a little over an hour of photographing, a friend called me and we went out to lunch (at Applebees, like the young old fogies we are). And that was that.

And that’s the last I want to talk about gay stuff for a while. Sheesh it gets old. I’d much rather be talking and thinking about virtue ethics or (the very racist) second-temple Judaism – as I recently remarked to a friend, I have looked into my heart and found a 4 Ezra-shaped hole (I need to go pick me up a Greek apocrypha – it’s a sick fascination I know). And I think this may in not very much time end up turning into a photoblog, but that’s okay with me. That is, after all, what I enjoy doing. I may retreat back into music or philosophy, but I’m finding that the former escapes words and the latter is much more fun with friends, and I have far too much thinking and researching to do before speaking. Photography is easier like that.

Last Monday (Nov 10) I took a trip down to the southern part of the Hill Country to Lost Maples State Natural Area, in order to get a bit of what counts as autumn in Texas. Unfortunately, peak color was the Thursday and Friday previous, but between class and having two out-of-state friends visiting that weekend (both of whom I was happy to see), taking a day-long excursion was just not feasible. On top of that, the night before I arrived, there was also a big gust of wind that came through the valley and knocked off most of the leaves. Alas!

Nevertheless, there was still color – much more, as I have said, than is typical in Texas – although a lot of it was on the ground. But I tried to take advantage of this, incorporating the ground color into my pictures.

While out and about I ran into some older gents who were shooting some fairly serious photography (you can just tell these things), and engaged in a bit of talk with them, getting a few pointers about what regions in the park to check for color. They seemed to notice and respect me as well, which was a bit exciting. I felt like I’d passed some secret rite for being noticed as a photographer. And as I thought about it, I realized there is at least one fairly obvious giveaway about whether you know what you’re doing or not: an unskilled amateur will not walk around his subject and take it in from different angles before he starts shooting away; a more skilled amateur or professional most certainly will. There were some other folks come to enjoy the color whom I also got to meet, and for those that had a camera, this failure to study or even look critically at their subject stood out to me. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that – they’re not there for the photography.) There were of course fewer folks out toward the back of the park than toward the front – but it turned out that most of the color (with the exception of one brilliantly red tree) was not very far in. In any case, the Merry Band of Photographers went back to the parking lot and around to the other side, and I just hiked it. We later met again, passing each other near the creek on the other side.

Without further commentary, here are some of the pictures:

I have come to realize that I have a special affinity toward my tripod. It is more than just a piece of metal that is useful for placing a camera atop.

My tripod is my bulky companion on many a photoshoot. Like a significant other, it can get in the way, limiting my freedoms in the moment. But also like a significant other, when it pays off, it pays off big, and I remember all the reasons why I have it. My tripod and I work together to create something beautiful together, I creating an artistic frame and selecting the right times and places, and my tripod provides the necessary stability for this, so that when the light is low there is still a crisp image.

I feel secure with my tripod. If I am walking back to my apartment and am going through a neighborhood that may be a bit seedy, I know that I have 10 or so pounds of solid metal with a high-torque swing available to me, and have no need to fear. Whether the blows would be fatal I don’t know, but I have no doubt that some serious damage could be done with it. If I am hiking, even with friends, and we were to encounter a black bear, there is no need to fear, for my tripod is here. Alien invasion? No problem: I have a tripod. And such is my motto: speak softly and carry a big tripod.

And also, my traps are not entirely (but almost) insignificantly enhanced from consistently carrying it on my shoulders. I just have to keep it from always being on one side or I could end up looking like Quasimodo.