The Pacific

Christmas in Seattle

Last night as I was packing for Paris I was surprised to hear Christmas carols coming from outside. When I looked out the window I saw about a dozen ships all decked out in Christmas lights drifting in front of the Olympic Sculpture Park. On deck people were singing and the singing was broadcast so that the entire neighborhood could hear them clearly. It was beautiful. 

Turns out that this is part of the yearly Christmas Ship Festival. For 59 years ships have been sailing to over 45 Puget Sound waterfront communities where choirs bring a special feeling of Christmas to thousands of us. What a treat. And what a joy. Christmas carolers on ships. Where else but Seattle.

Image taken December 2008.

Environmental Portraits

In October I was fortunate enough to be able to take a workshop with Nevada Weir, who is known for her travel photography. In addition to being a spellbinding storyteller she has a knack for pushing students out of their comfort zones. One way she did this was to send us out to shoot environmental portraits with a wide-angle lens. The idea was to capture images of people in their environment. The thing about a wide-angle lens is that you have to get right up on top of someone to get anything interesting. It’s very different from using a telephoto lens that allows you to shoot people from a distance. I find that there is something more honest about engaging people and getting their collaboration in the image making process. They can say no. But you respect their right to say no and when they say yes something really magical begins to happen. You are treating them like a person and not like an object. Plus, you learn a lot about what matters to them.

 

The first two images on this post are from that shoot. But the experience energized me and made me want to begin to capture images of people working. I was especially interested in photographing window washers. I’ve always been a bit in awe of people who will dangle from ropes to clean windows of tall buildings. A few weeks later I had an opportunity to capture Thomas, one of the men who washes windows in our building.

 

I was delighted with the images I was able to capture and wanted to thank him. Today he was back outside my window so I was able to print out the final image on this post and give it to him.

 

Now if I could just figure out how to get on a tugboat.

 

Images - of merchants at Pike’s Place Market and of window washer on the side of our building - taken October 2008

Blur

Back from Kauai I have been going through some of the photos I took. I am trying to find a way to capture the magic of the island. Lots of sunrises and sunsets and flowers, but how do you capture the essence of such a beautiful place. On this trip I tried a few new things like blurring of images, especially flowers. Here are a couple of my experiments. The first is a ginger plant.

The second was an attempt to make a flower border look a bit like an impressionist painting. 

Images taken November 2008.

Swimming Lessons

This morning Bob and I went out to see how the new monk seal pup was progressing. We had hoped to see a little more activity than I saw when I went out several days ago. Maybe we would even see the baby nursing. Instead we arrived to find the little fellow playing near the edge of the ocean under the careful watch of his mother who snorted loudly when he ventured too far.

Soon he hauled himself up the beach – quite a difficult process for an animal that is built for the water. He seemed to be asking her permission to venture a bit further. After a period of what appeared to be a monk seal version of nagging, mom hauled herself down the beach with junior close behind and they were soon happily swimming together.

 

Mom and pup will be on the beach until he is weaned in about six weeks. We leave Kauai tomorrow but will be back in five weeks. We’re hoping they will still be here so we can see what the pup looks like when he reaches 200 pounds and is ready to be on his own.

 

Images taken in Kauai on Mahaulepu beach November 2008.                                                               

Kauai's Monk Seals

Two days ago a monk seal pup was born on Kauai's Mahaulepu Beach and is now being protected by Kauai's Monk Seal Watch Program. Monk seals are among the most endangered creature on earth so the birth of a pup is big news. No one knows how many still exist in the Hawaiian archipelago but around 25 live on Kauai.

Newborn pups are black and weigh 25-30 pounds. In six weeks, while nursing, this pup will grow to 200 pounds while his mother, poor thing, loses a large portion of her body mass as she does not leave the pup to feed during that period. 

In this photo the black blob is the pup while the large grey blob is the mother. 

Photo taken on Kauai, November 2008.

Breathing

After holding my breath for the last few months the election is over and I am beginning to breathe again. Like many of you I kept track of election progress obsessively, monitoring every poll and Palin clothing report. On Tuesday I watched and waited and continued to hold my breath. When the Obama victory was announced I laughed and cried at once, proud once more to be an American. 

I do not believe that the troubles facing us as individuals and as a country are over in a single stroke. There is no doubt that we have a hard road ahead of us for the next few years. But I am optimistic that we will work together as a people to regain some of the lost ground that the last eight years have cost us.

For this blog I intend to return it to its original purpose and once again post images, text and links about my life along the Pacific. In the last few months I have taken three photo workshops and attended an important party. I will begin by reporting on these. But before I do I wanted to take a moment for a deep cleansing breath.

Queen For A Day

Some of you may remember an old television show called Queen For A Day. Each day a woman was plucked from obscurity to be honored. She was just like you and me. Typically she had many children and lots of other challenges. Sometimes she had a special needs child, or a teenager who was an unwed mother. Whatever her background she was plucked from the audience and honored with gifts. Her job, after they gave her a cape and a crown, was to smile and wave and look pleased with herself for her unexpected good fortune. She never answered questions. Just smiled and waved.

Sarah Palin is our very own queen for a day. What’s most troubling about her selection is the deep vein of anti-intellectualism that it reveals in our society. In a recent article in the Washington Post Marc Fisher quotes a woman (Beth Tweddle) as saying: "We don't live in an age of looking up to authority anymore. We don't cotton to the idea that there are people who are our betters.  In this time of "American Idol," bedroom bloggers and the belief that experience, knowledge and education don't necessarily mean a whole lot, Palin is a symbol, a statement that anyone can make it if he or she really tries."

In a chilling way it reminds me of China before the Cultural Revolution, just before it became downright dangerous to have an education or to be someone who actually thought about things. Belief trumps education. Independent thought is punished. We have had spectacularly bad vice presidential choices in the past. Think Spiro Agnew. But in this election the selection of a beauty contestant from Alaska has turned our public debate from considerations of a tumbling economy, current and potential wars, and massive education and health care problems to pictures of a smiling woman who is enjoying her role as queen for a day.

This year, this time, the stakes are too high. Do we really want someone who believes we are fighting “god’s war” in Iraq with her hand on the trigger that could destroy the world? Let us hope that in this instance the queen will only be around for a day.

So You Want To Be A Vice President

Casting Call

New TV Reality Show: So You Want to Be A Vice President

 

Anyone can play. Anyone can win. Contestants chosen at random but preference given to those who have the following characteristics:

 

1. Beauty queen. This is television so special points to people who look good. For years we’ve called elections a beauty contest. Who better to represent us than a real beauty contestant?

 

2. Speaking of world peace. Don’t most beauty contestants say their goal is world peace? Of course it helps to know where Iraq is located and why we are there.

 

3. Or maybe not. Most Americans, including our president, seem to have a shaky hold on exactly why we are there so too much knowledge about international issues would be a disadvantage.

 

4. Be a woman. Maybe this should have been #1 since the women’s vote is so important. But hey, one woman is as good as another. Hillary, Sarah, what’s the difference?

 

5. Be a real person of the people. No special education or experience required.

 

6. Have a hunky husband. Who cares what he does in his free time.

 

7. Stand up for your family. Make sure that ex-husbands of family members get fired from their jobs.

 

8. Have at least five children. For sex education teach abstinence. That works.

 

9. As mayor of a town of at least 5000 try to get books with naughty words banned from the library.

 

10. Hunt. Try to be at least as good a shot as our current VP.

 

11. Looking for a fresh face so previous experience in national politics is a disqualification.

Into the Blue

When I was a regular scuba diver I loved stepping off the boat to drop 100 feet below the surface into another world. What I am about to do reminds me of that experience. After working for seven years to found and establish WebJunction as an important part of the library community I am planning to retire from my position as Executive Director on September 1.

Creating something from nothing is an exhilarating experience and something I could not have done without the enthusiasm and hard work of my colleagues. For all of you who believed in the dream I am deeply grateful. You have made the work of the last seven years a joy. And I will miss our daily interactions. But yesterday we launched WebJunction 2.0 and I know I can leave secure in the knowledge that our shared vision will survive and thrive.

For me, I expect to continue to contribute to the WJ community – in a somewhat less intense fashion. You can also expect to see more blogging and more photographs. Writing and photography have been subsidiary parts of my life for many years and I now hope to have the time to bring them more into focus – so to speak.

And then there is the unknown. In the past I have found that to find the new you have to first leave the familiar. The discovery process requires space. It is both uncomfortable and necessary – like stepping off the boat. You don’t know exactly what you will find until you take that big step and drop into another world. I’m looking forward to the adventure.

Image taken by Bob several years ago. That’s me behind the mask.

A P-Patch Grows In Belltown

Several nights ago we decided to visit our local P-Patch. These are wonderful urban gardens where you can grow everything from corn to kale – as long as it fits on a 10x10 plot of ground and you grow it organically. Annual fee for a small plot is $34 plus you agree to contribute 8 hours to maintenance of the common spaces. Only problem is that there is usually a waiting list so be patient 

Our P-Patch in Belltown is glorious. We were delighted by the abundance of flowers amid all the produce. While we there taking pictures we met Robin, who is the volunteer coordinator for our P-Patch. Although he was in the middle of constructing a home for honeybees to help with pollination he took time to tell us all about how P-Patches operate.

 

P-Patches are distributed throughout Seattle and contribute 7-10 tons of produce each year to food banks that feed the homeless. The term is specific to the program in Seattle although other cities have similar types of programs, often called victory gardens – a resurrection of the World War II term. In spite of the similarity of purpose P-Patches seem far more community oriented than victory gardens.

 

And I haven’t even mentioned the three cottages that sit on our P-Patch in Belltown. One is for use by the community but the other two are rented out for $300/month to struggling writers selected by the Richard Hugo House – a writers’ program.

 

It is lovely to live in a place that values gardening, writing, and community in the shadow of condominiums and cruise ships.

 

Images of abstracted lavender, cabbage, and city roses taken at the Belltown P-Patch July 2008.