Tag: Washington
-
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 —…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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.…
-
Highway Tunnel | Chelan, WA | October 2019 The tunnel appears as a little blemish on the side of the mountain’s huge, rocky face. Like a freckle, hardly noticed. It’s definitely big enough for cement trucks, but also smaller than some boulders on the cliffs above. Once or twice a month we zip through the…
-
Quonset Hut | Orondo, WA | October 2019 Autumn Orchard #4 | A bit of history on the ubiquitous hut: During World War II, the U.S. Navy required a lightweight all-purpose building that was easily shipped and assembled by unskilled labor. Military engineers modified a decades-old British design and built a prototype in the naval…
-
Windbreak | Orondo, WA | October 2019 Autumn Orchard #3 | Poplar windbreaks, this one ablaze at sunset, have long been part of the fruit industry’s old-tech toolbox, along with pickers’ ladders, human sorters and hand-packed shipping crates. My guess is that new trellised orchards and hybrid varietals are less susceptible to wind damage, which…
-
New Ag | Orondo, WA | October 2019 Autumn Orchard #2 | The image of Grandpa and Little Timmy ambling back to the farmhouse with a bucket of Braeburns has always seemed more fantasy than fact. So today’s new-fangled fruit farms — industrialized, computerized, optimized — don’t stir my yearning for the good ol’ days.…
-
Aquarium | East Wenatchee, WA | October 2019 How are this fish and my ego alike? The alluring bala shark, a favorite of home aquariums, grows too large too fast. First a minnow, then a monster. Also, its arrogance often propels the darned thing over the tank’s edge — from what it knows (a cozy…
-
Water Tank | East Wenatchee, WA | October 2019 About 55 years ago a priest led us Catholic kids into the schoolyard and pointed to the town’s water tower. “That could be you,” he told us. “Standing straight, reaching for the sky, able to quench a thirst most people don’t know they have.” (Yes, I’m…
IrwinFoto 