One Thing and Another

Hi!

 

Hello my friends. It’s been three weeks since you received the first email of my six day trip to Oregon. It’s fun for me to revisit these times and spaces along with you. After shooting the Bonanza Dairy I stayed in Klamath Falls, Oregon for the night. On my way out of town I came across this concoction of cormorants. It reminded me of the visual of this wake of vultures I saw on the first day of this trip.

 

I stopped in Ashland to visit photographer Tina Bolling, my ex-wife Jennifer, and long-time friend Janie and her son Sean. Janie and Sean were about to leave on a road trip  to San Diego where Sean would be going to live with his father, my friend, Randy. We did a photo shoot to commemorate the event of this natural transition that was supported  by these two loving parents of a fantastic son. I also got to meet, for the fist time, Kate and her friend Ilea. Kate had received one of my emails from a friend and had extended an  open invitation to meet if I ever was passing through town.  It’s always a delight to meet someone that I have been sending these tales to in person and put a face with the name.

 

After dinner with Kate and Ilea, I hit the road and headed into the night. I got a motel in Weaverville, California about midnight and got up before dawn and drove into the night to see where I would find myself in the morning light. The only vehicles I encountered on Hwy 299, the Trinity Scenic Byway, were teams of firefighters heading out for yet another day. At the height of this year’s California forest fires there were 2,700 individual fires. The perfect warm, dry, beautiful days of Spring, that I had  experienced at my home just north of San Francisco, also provided the perfect conditions for the lightning of a single dry thunderstorm on June 20th to ignite the majority of the fires.

It was the driest season on record. San Francisco registered only 0.007 inches (0 cm) of rain out of a normal of 6.18 inches (16 cm) from March to May. Long before records were kept, this cycle has repeated thousands of times over millions of years.

 

At dawn I found myself in an area in the midst of regeneration from a previous fire.

 

Less than a mile from where I used to lived in Boulder, Colorado there was a fire that covered the area called Wonderland Hills. The Boulder Fire Department and local volunteer firefighters were able to prevent the loss of a single home. The next day I put up a few pictures in the local grocery store and North Boulder Liquor directly across from the now blackened hills and offered to email images of the fire to my neighbors who wanted to have a  record of this event and to send to friends and relatives letting them know that we were all alright.

About seventy-five people requested the shots including the image you see below. It’s a picture of Wonderland Hill residents sitting on a pole fence  watching the fire rage at night. Yet, over half of the people specifically asked for this picture of “the firefighters.” Was it the poles that looked like fire hoses or the form behind the leg that looked like a boot or was it simply that the firemen were the first thing on everyone’s minds.

 

Along the coast on way south I came across a number of enormous lumber mills. Because my mind was still thinking about seeing entire mountainsides deforested by fire, I was feeling thankful that all this wood had been successfully harvested. I also remembered seeing clear-cut mountainsides in days past and feeling sorrowful. It’s all about balance…a lesson I’ve observed and learned from looking at and being in nature.

 

As always, when I am in this neck of the woods, I spend time in Redwood National Park. Once found almost world wide, the redwood’s natural range is now restricted to this  foggy coastal belt of Northern California, a strip in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and a remote valley in China. Their resistance to water rot is one reason for their longevity  and a reason why they make such great lumber.

Standing taller than the Statue of Liberty, Sequoias are the tallest living thing on earth. Their giant seed cones are so packed with resin that it actually takes a forest fire to  release the seeds. Eighty-percent of the trees are cloned from fallen trees or by rising from the roots of trees struck by lightning. Some of these giants are genetically the same tree that rose from a seed thirty-thousand years ago.

When I am there I don’t think about all these facts. My mind is speechless.

 

When I stopped in the seaside town of Mendocino I came across another mystery. Atop a Masonic Hall that was built in 1866 from local redwood is a sculpture carved from a single  redwood trunk. The meaning of Father Time and the Virgin is shrouded in Masonic secrecy. No one in town had any clue. >From Wikipedia I learned that one Mason  has interpreted its meaning as “Time, patience and perseverance will accomplish all things.”

I took the picture of the seagull and the cloud just because it looked so cool. By the time I got back in the car, the cloud had changed and the seagull was gone. Letting go of time, being spontaneous and assuming that all things are beautiful allows for infinite possibilities.

 

At sunset I witnessed the waves and the last light playing on the beach.

 

Thanks for coming with me on my trip to Oregon. I had a blast. For the next two weekends I will be taking pictures at CHALK4PEACE around the Bay Area. I love supporting  this worldwide event because it is so playful and apolitical. It’s not about fighting against something, it is simply for peace. A distinction that I have observed and learned from looking  at and being in human nature. If there is one in your neck of the woods, check out this very visual event. For info and locations: http://www.chalk4peace.blogspot.com/ .
If, for any reason, you  would like to be removed from the list, just send a reply with “No Thanks” in the subject line. If you received this from a friend and want to be added,  just  send me an email: jd@jerrydownsphoto.com. I will be delighted to include you. I’ll leave you with this picture I took on the beach in San Francisco a few days after I returned from my trip of a crow contemplating the Milky Way. 

 

Keep Crowing!

Love, Jerry

Jerry Downs Photography
P.O. Box 1082
Larkspur, CA 94977
415-686-2369
http://www.jerrydownsphoto.com/

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.
John Muir

 

Harold: Maude.
Maude: Hmm?
Harold: Do you pray?
Maude: Pray? No. I communicate.
Harold: With God?
Maude: With Life.

 

Well, if you want to sing out, sing out
And if you want to be free, be free
‘Cause there’s a million things to be
You know that there are

And if you want to live high, live high
And if you want to live low, live low
‘Cause there’s a million ways to go
You know that there are

You can do what you want
The opportunity’s on
And if you can find a new way
You can do it today
You can make it all true
And you can make it undo
you see ah ah ah
its easy ah ah ah
Cat Stevens