Abstract Art

"There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterwards you can remove all traces of reality."
Pablo Picasso 1881-1973

Now that's a comfort.

A Short Visit

"Don't hurry. Don't worry. You're only
here for a short visit. So don't forget to stop
and smell the flowers along the way."
Walter Hagen 1892-1969

And take a good long look too.

The Really Useful Shop

“Every man serves a useful purpose. A miser, for example, makes a wonderful ancestor”
Laurence J. Peter 1919-1990

Now this is something I could really use. I find useful stuff very helpful. Too bad this shop in England is closing for “refit”. In the useful biz, if it doesn’t fit you must quit. Really.

Bird On The Wire

“Like a bird on the wire,
like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried in my way to be free.”
Leonard Cohen 1934-

Simple.

The Lake District

I travelled among unknown men
In lands beyond the sea;
Nor, England! did I know till then
What love I bore to thee.
William Wordsworth 1770-1850

William Wordsworth loved the natural world and especially the Lake District of England where he was born. I can see why. There is beauty around every bend in the road.

Tall Trees

"Trees are your best antiques."
Alexander Smith 1830-1867

Are the branches on these trees reaching out to each other? That's the way it looks to me.

Boulders

“Photography helps people to see.”
Berenice Abbott 1898-1991

I saw these boulders along the 17 mile drive between Monterey and Carmel on the California coast. I was attracted by the contrast between the solid and heavy boulders in the foreground and the liquid ocean blending into the misty fog. The horizon line has disappeared.

An Artist

“An artist cannot fail; it is a success to be one.”
Charles Horton Cooley 1864-1929


This is the Castlerigg Stone Circle in Cumbria England near Keswick. The circle was built between 2500 and 1300 BC during the Neolitic and the Bronze Ages. It is one of the best preserved stone circles in Britain.

There is a man sitting against a stone in the middle of the picture who I thought was meditating but he was not. He was sketching the scene behind me in his sketchbook. Or maybe he got a quick sketch of a photographer taking a picture of an artist sketching a photographer. Infinity.

My Other House

"If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them."
Henry David Thoreau, 1817-1862

Actually, this is Balmoral Castle, the queen of England’s other summer home in Scotland. The original castle dates from the 15th century but the current castle was built by Queen Victoria in 1853-1856. Balmoral is the private property of the Queen and is not part of the (government-owned) royal estate. Ownership of Balmoral became an issue when Edward VIII abdicated. His brother, George VI had to buy it in order to keep it as home of the monarch.

Sweet Home

"There’s no place like home."
The Wizard of OZ 1939

And this is mine. A fair amount of this blog will be about travel photography but this is where I start from and return to. This is the house that my father grew up in. It was built in 1907, a year after the great San Francisco earthquake. My grandparents had been living in San Francisco but they lost their home in the quake. They moved to Berkeley to build a new life.

This photo was taken this past July. It was just before sunset when I looked out my window at the beautiful warm sunlight and realized that it had begun to rain-rare for summer in the Bay Area. When you have sunlight plus rain there’s a pretty good chance you have a rainbow in the opposite direction of the sun. The sun was setting in the west and the window I was looking out of faces north so I went outside to go rainbow hunting. To the east, this is what I saw.