Back on the Wagon

texture rocks, originally uploaded by camille94019.

Every time I walk over these beds of seaweed, I imagine I am an airplane flying over tawny, oak studded hills anywhere in California.

I am finally getting back into my routine of photographing, developing, photoshopping and posting. Looking at my flickr page, I seem to have been away for nearly a year (at least the output has been slim for even more than a year). Nothing about the last year and a half has been normal. I used to take the time and resources I could spend on this for granted now that I am working more.

I just posted a roll of film onto flickr that I took last December on a trip down to Flip Flop. Dutch and I stopped at a beach and looked at the tide pools and hung out the the ReImagine folks at a retreat in the Mountain.

The seaweed arabesques are so lovely. The original color was striking as well, so I kept it.

The beach was full of amazing things to see. When I first was looking at the pictures I assumed it was Bean Hollow Beach, but then I saw Pigeon Point lighthouse in the background, and now I am not so sure. I can say, confidently, that its somewhere on the San Mateo coast.

Camera Tricks

I usually post these medium size, but this one looked so good large that I am posting it large. This is a short sand-bluff that when I got on my belly to shoot it appeared as big as the Grand Canyon.

Momento Mori

I took Dutch to my favorite pioneer era cemetery right at sunset. The setting sun illuminated just the hill beyond the rise. This is a special place. The last names are familiar because most of the people I went to school with have relatives buried here. The area has changed so little over the centuries that the tension between the timeless land and the impermanence of human life is high. A man is buried here who I knew as a child (and he was a child, too), and I didn't even know he was dead until I stumbled on his fresh grave last year. Now, he has a real marble headstone and the grass is growing over his plot. The dead have as much settling to do as the living.

I love You, California

While researching the links for this post, I found this immortal link to our State Song. You may have assumed it was "California Here I Come" as I had, for most of my life. But on closer inspection, it truly is "I love you Califonia", a song I had never heard of, but now it is close to my heart, as is my home state, where I hope they bury my bones.