IrwinFoto

A gallery of photos by Mike Irwin

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  • Liftoff

    Liftoff | Wenatchee, WA | October 2019

    What’s alive in our lives — dog, horse, friends, family, each other — expanded years ago to include a surprise addition: Canada geese. They honk in the sky; they poop on the ground; they strut on our periphery, a presence just out of reach. Located along their Pacific flyway, our area hosts hordes of tourist birds every spring and fall, but it’s the resident pairs that affect us the most. They’ve set up households, hatched families, joined goose communities and populate the (more…)

  • Garlic Bulb

    Garlic Bulb | East Wenatchee, WA | October 2019

    Cutting crosswise through most things — vegetables, firewood, personal problems — reveals unknown details which clarify structure. The rare enlightened soul encourages this process. “I just want people to take a step back, take a deep breath and actually (more…)

  • Sea Life X-rays

    Sea Life X-rays | Seattle, WA | October 2019

    The tiny ad in the back of comic books promised the x-ray glasses could see through clothes. I ordered a pair for $1.99. “Give ’em a try, honey, but you might be disappointed,” said my Mom. “Naked people can be a letdown.” Months went by before the glasses arrived. They had flimsy cardboard frames and purple cellophane lenses that turned busty women in red sweaters into curvy silhouettes, nothing more. But the package also contained a (more…)

  • Lab Desk

    Lab Desk | Seattle, WA | October 2019

    A priest once told me that what’s on a desk reveals what’s in the soul. His desk was crowded with Brazilian statues of a tortured Christ — nails piercing hands, thorns spiking eyeballs, guts spilling from the spear wound. Years later, another supervisor had a display of family photos with his ex-wife’s face replaced by an ape’s. Still later, in my job as a bookseller, I delivered thrillers to a rural funeral director who had hundreds of Beanie Babies stacked around his desk, on office shelves, in the coffin room. He thought it cheered grieving customers, but it was mostly creepy. So … seems to me the priest was (more…)

  • Sofa

    Sofa | Seattle, WA | October 2019

    Reverie | To replay my last dream, I sit on the sofa. It relaxes me into a meditative state where I can control the dream’s flow — rewind, freeze frame — to better interpret the message. All I see for many minutes is an undulating sea, ocean swells slowly rising and falling. But wait … a white speck appears, disappears. I zoom in to see a hand, then an arm, then a torso slicing through the waves. Someone (me?) swims on the endless expanse with no destination in sight. He keeps pumping, never pausing, never tiring, heading in a straight line for (more…)

  • Beaks & Bills

    Beaks & Bills | Seattle, WA | October 2019

    The bird mouths in this photo don’t belong to finches, but Charles Darwin’s principle of natural selection still applies. “Darwin wondered about the changes in the shape of bird beaks from [Galapagos] island to island,” writes William J. Cromie in The Harvard Gazette. “So-called cactus finches boast longer, more pointed beaks than their relatives the ground finches. Beaks of warbler finches are thinner and more pointed than both. These adaptations make them more fit to (more…)

  • Window

    Window | Seattle, WA | October 2019

    This view of Lake Union through a weather-etched pane had a painterly look that got me thinking. Don’t we each see the world through a set of personal filters? For instance, anger can blind us to the better qualities of those we berate. And strong positive emotions — joy, commitment, love — veil the flaws of people and places in our lives. When I was a kid, our family (on vacation) had lunch in a West Texas town’s only restaurant. Both the diner and the town itself were rundown rat holes — dirt streets, ramshackle buildings, water that smelled like rotten eggs. “Purtiest place I’ve ever lived,” exclaimed the waitress, who served us (more…)

  • Stanchions

    Stanchions | Badger Mountain, WA | October 2019

    They’re seemingly everywhere in Eastern Washington. Stanchions and the electric lines that connect them stretch across some of the region’s most dramatic vistas. I cursed them at first for slicing through my landscape photos, but soon realized they are landscape. Or, at least, a major element of what makes this area so livable — cheap hydro power. Sure, Photoshop can erase all blemishes. But when it comes to power lines I now offer (more…)

  • Signs

    Signs | Twisp, WA | October 2019

    You’ve already made up your mind; you just haven’t admitted it to yourself. The signs you’ve sought from God, the Universe or palm reader Madame Mystic will likely affirm what you already know. That anti-smoking billboard with the cancer-eaten face means, yes, you should toss the cigarettes. A brochure on the sidewalk about decluttering your life means, yes, you should (more…)

  • Houses

    Houses | East Wenatchee, WA | October 2019

    A neighborhood can emerge as an abstract mix of light and shadows, angles and planes, people and personalities. You know: A jumble of quiet, noise, laughter, anger, buddies and jerks. Those many pieces seem to mesh best when connected by the amiable qualities of empathy and forgiveness. “Imagine what our neighbors would be like if each of us offered just one kind word to another person,” said Mister Rogers, the children’s TV luminary. “Sometimes that’s all it takes to (more…)