I pulled into the turnout and shut off the engine and lights. The stars jumped out and I joined them. Above the horizon the core of our galaxy glowed in the last darkness of the night. I smiled. Hello, Darkness, my old friend, I thought. It seemed apt, though it was the sight of the […]
Art
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North Coast Night Lights: Here at the Edge
The vastness of things often comes home to me while I’m photographing at the edge of the continent or beneath the stars. To the east is the grounding solidity of the great North American land mass, to the west the immense Pacific Ocean stretches far beyond the horizon, and above, the field of stars. And […]
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North Coast Night Light: Freshwater Lagoon
Sometimes a creative urge will drive me nutty unless I can find a way to make something. I’m an artist but I am only interested in one medium: photography, which of course includes working with photos after taking the picture, whether with current digital tools or in the darkrooms of old as I started out. […]
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North Coast Night Lights: Grandmother Rock
It was nearly dark when I arrived at the Trinidad Head parking area. Sunset gazers had seen the sun set some 45 minutes earlier and were heading for their cars when I struck north up the beach. Night was descending and in the waning light I could see the footprints of the evening’s activity in […]
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This is Going to Hurt a Little: Photos from the Inked Hearts Expo
The 10th annual Inked Hearts Tattoo Expo at Blue Lake Casino hosted 35 tattoo artists and other vendors last Thursday through Sunday. Organizers Ted and Amy Marks brought in a familiar line up of tattoo artists, including Liz Cook, Lisa Hower, Tye Harris and Liz Venom, among others, as well as a good mix of […]
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North Coast Night Lights: Eel River Delta From Table Bluff
If you have ever driven to the South Jetty of Humboldt Bay, then along the bluffs just before the road descends to the ocean level, you will have passed by Table Bluff County Park. The park is graced with trails, a broad field, trees, benches and, of course, great views over the Pacific Ocean and […]
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North Coast Night Lights: A Bit of Whimsy
It’s not for everyone to take the world seriously all of the time, though some people probably need to, at least a little bit. But I don’t think I’m one of them. I surmise folks like that need people like me to keep things in balance, so this week I am taking creative license to […]
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North Coast Night Lights: The Changing Milky Way
I think many people take the night sky for granted, not realizing all that is happening in our view. It’s the night sky, what is there to think about, right? When the weather is clear, it is full of stars, there is a moon, which is probably full or else it’s a crescent, and maybe […]
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Photos from the Beaver Sisters
The Beaver sisters (played by local artists Sarah McKinney, Maggie Lally and Janessa Johnsrude) transformed Eureka’s Synapsis Nova on Friday into a setting for an angst-ridden fundraiser telethon with a major problem: No one calls in to donate money. The plot’s backstory for The Beaver Sisters Present: The Beaverettes is that the toxin-laden river is threatening […]
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North Coast Night Lights: Cooks Valley Bridge
In 1993, I spent a year in Chicago. Even then I loved photographing at night; I have always been drawn to it. I would use either available light or introduce light of my own, painting it into a scene much as I do now. I wasn’t comfortable photographing with models then, confining myself mostly to […]
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North Coast Night Lights: The Tower
The tower once stood silent sentinel in the quiet fields near the Marsh in Arcata, lonely and abandoned when I discovered it. Long disused, it rose above the tall grasses and blackberry brambles covering the broken concrete rubble of the bygone structures once surrounding it. Its floor was piled deep with broken chunks and slabs, […]
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North Coast Night Lights:The Covered Bridge of Elk River
Humboldt County is home to a number of noteworthy bridges, two of which are wooden covered bridges built in the 1930s. Both of these are still in service out Elk River Road and I’ve thought for a while that catching an unusual view of them beneath the stars would be interesting. Earlier this year I […]