Category: Landscape
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Ravens | Stratford, WA | 2010 The crackle of my lunch bag, the glint off foil wrapping, the scent of meat and cheese — something about my sandwich lured this crafty pair of scavengers to my picnic spot in the middle of nowhere. They were surprisingly good conversationalists: squawking, clicking and cooing with my every…
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Skier | Twisp, WA | 2011 Don’t we mostly follow in someone else’s tracks? Trails, sidewalks, stairways, aisles, hallways, highways, even sky routes at 30,000 feet? The local college pours concrete paths on the diagonals students use as shortcuts to classes. Last week, I felt a tingle of excitement as I stepped off one path…
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Peninsula | Chelan Falls, WA | 2010 Peninsulas can have the isolated feel of islands, but with no boat required. This one-tree jut, really a small jetty, slows the Columbia River current at Beebe Park. In fog, you can lean back against that tree and imagine the world has retreated, finally leaving you alone to…
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Ribbon Road | Farmer , WA | 2010 Dark clouds race overhead on a whooshing wind, but few cars go by. From the west, a ragged line of tumbleweeds buzzsaw past, but nary a vehicle plies the road. Dust devils turn black with topsoil as they spiral over plowed fields, but Highway 2 stays mostly…
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Fence | Rock Island, WA | 2008 Way up on the hill is a fence out of place. Not a cow or horse in sight. Deer can jump it easily. Trespassers who admire its sturdy lines can climb right over. Clearly, this fence is not so much a physical barrier as a mental boundary. Within…
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Diatoms | Quincy , WA | 2008 Fossilized remains of single-celled algae rise in heaps (in photo’s foreground) atop the basalt plain southwest of Quincy near the Columbia River. Each teensy skeleton dates to the late Miocene Period (about 5 million years ago), long enough to form huge mounds of silica now used in water…
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Car Carcass | Hunters, WA | 2009 “That’s an interesting old abandoned car,” I said to my brother. “Looks like a gangster car from the 1930s or ’40s.” A pause. Then my brother responded, “The cloud isn’t too shabby, either.” From that moment, I’ve taken few photos without first looking up, around, to the rear…
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Old Tree | Wenatchee Heights, WA | 2009 Strip an old tree of leaves, and you can trace its life. The paths it followed: growth spurts, droughts, fire blight, the ’68 freeze. All is revealed when naked, whether it’s wood or flesh.
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Emerald Island | Lake Wenatchee, WA | 2008 My visits to Lake Wenatchee are often marred by winds whipping up whitecaps. But one winter I high-stepped through deep snow to stand alone on a boat dock in utter stillness. Not a breeze, ripple or trembling leaf marred the calm. Until then, to my eyes, Emerald…
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Ag | Quincy, WA | 2008 Our region’s gazillion acres of agriculture — fruit, wheat, onions, potatoes, wine grapes — flourish from commercial nurseries that are those industries’ Source. Even in winter, the fecund farmland seems to celebrate its ability for abundance.
IrwinFoto 