This is How We Hike

Camera in hand, bear spray (100% grizzly proof, or so they say) strapped to the belt, and, perhaps, a couple of dogs to accompany you--these are the bare-minimum requirements of a good, albeit brief hike through the Rockies.

Maybe some water, too, if it's 35+ C (95+ F), and you're a wimp (sometimes, I am!). 

And it is this kind of a hike that goes particularly well while listening to the best tenor in classic metal, Kipelov, e.g., "I'm Free."   

If you don't understand Russian, you must learn it immediately. (The equivalent was my original reason for picking up Japanese a while back!) But I'll summarize it for you: he sings about being free like a bird in the Heavens, like a wild wind (at least in its literal interpretation)...

You might smirk now thinking the lyrics are a bit predictable, but wait till you're out there, either in solitude--or with someone who appreciates the value of comfortable silence.

And just as you're finally getting lost in thought while observing animal shapes in the clouds--perhaps, interrupting yourself on occasion to yell at the dogs in order to keep the potential predators away--the said canines: 

...notice this overrated dinosaur somewhere in the bushes:

And next thing you know, you're reluctantly retrieving your little hunters from halfway down the side of the hopefully not-too-steep cliff.

At least it was just a grouse: it's wild-berry season for the bears after all!

Escape

I am in the process of completing edits and indexing for an excellent book on sustainability, ecology, climate change, peak oil, and, most important, surviving a potential economic collapse by a Swiss author and an acquaintance of mine. In it, I was a bit surprised--because of the specific context--to come across a quotation by Alain de Benoist, a French philosopher and a vocal critic of what I'd refer to as the ideology of infinite progress.  

Every day, the planet becomes uglier, poorer, more uniform. It is turning into a vast garbage dump with unbreathable air. (Alain de Benoist, Demain, la décroissance ! Penser l'écologie jusqu'au bout [Decline Tomorrow: Thinking Ecology through to the End seems to remain untranslated], 2007)

To that I'd add that the escape routes are getting fewer and less accessible. 

Still Life with a Seashell and a Glass of Whiskey

Worry not!

No whiskey was harmed in the creation of this image, for I filled the glass with water to submerge the shell! To top this off, this isn't even a seashell, but a tiny (empty!) freshwater shell--the kind that I sometimes fish out from the local glacial lake. 

But at least the color scheme in this image is true.

 

When I create editorial-type photographs, I attempt to generate as much of the background color I want before editing. This isn't even about the amount of processing afterward, but my preference for authenticity (certain necessary editing and minor airbrushing exceptions notwithstanding).

Here, the bright orange was produced by using, well, an orange sitting behind the whiskey glass, obscured by the water and a shallow depth of field.

And unlike whiskey, the orange was most certainly consumed afterward! 

Rising Moon, Setting Sun

And I crawled, and I crawled through the waves tonight; 
Rising Moon on my left, setting Sun on my right. 
As it should be.

Despite appearances, I'm not trying to write pretentious mystical poetry. These lines have been in my head during the last two swim workouts at the lake almost like a mantra. Of course, they were literally what I saw during front crawl: it's that time of the year in the greater Pacific Northwest when you encounter both the Sun and the Moon simultaneously starting from the early-to-mid afternoon when there is no cloud cover. And if you're lucky enough to have sufficient time to observe, you'll see one "rise," as the other "sets."

This is just a mobile shot.

My favorite part has been doing back stroke into the Deep and the Cold, because the comforting Moon--rather than the blinding Sun--was in my line of vision.

And now that I've given myself the luxury of blogging about this, I will likely stay up working till 2 am. But that's okay, I'm a night owl! 

This image is from July 15. Not bad for a 7:50-pm Moon in a clear blue sky, huh? 

Bunny Frolicking in the Field of Clovers

Idyllic, isn't it? 

Last night, a friend of ours relayed his recent experience of visiting a national park in this area, watching adorable marmots running about...only to have one of them carried away by a coyote minutes later to gasping, vocalized horror of all the tourists! 

He had pictures to prove it, too. 

Whereas the tourists' reaction was expected, it reminded me that people here, by and large, have lost their connection to Nature to such a great extent that they no longer realize its unsightly attributes, its dangers, and, most important, death as a fact of life. The philosophical, overarching reasons thereof--linked to Modernity and Postmodernity (which are quite obvious to some)--are beyond the scope of what I normally post in this essentially visual blog of mine, but there are more immediate, pop-culture-specific reasons, too, such as the proliferation of "unlikely friends" animal photos in news media and infotainment. 

Admittedly smile-inducing images of pigs cuddling with tigers (well-fed and in a controlled zoo environment!) are often used for some sort of feel-good social commentary along the lines of "we, humans, should all get along!".  Not only does the latter reinforce the above misconception, but it also makes us forget that in addition to being beautiful, Nature is hierarchic and violent.  

So why the cute little bunny? 

My two tiny dachshunds--they both feast in canine Valhalla now--used to team up, chase wild rabbits, and, yes, sometimes catch them, too. It was never a pleasant experience for us, owners, but it certainly demonstrated the Janus-like character of Nature.

Mistress of the Mountain

As a child, I grew up on Bazhov's fairy tales from the Ural region of Russia, such as the Mistress of the Copper Mountain. As an adult, I've become convinced, as have those before me, that people of the West had lost their links to the archaic, by and large, pushing their myths deep into the subconscious, only to manifest in dreams or during the creative process.  And even when we see patterns that resemble mythic beings, we focus on the scientific, not the symbolic. 

So I imagined that the local mountain here has to have a Mistress, too, and I willed her into existence.  (Admittedly, there likely are authentic Native American legends associated with this part of the Northwest with which I'm not yet familiar.)

Her base is rock on rock, as she is of the mountains, after all. I've deliberately used only local plants and tried to incorporate as many attributes from different seasons as were available.

The Mistress' dress at the neckline, for instance, is made of old, fragile leaves that survived the winter. They reminded me of intricate chocolate-tinted lace, as the closeup demonstrates. In contrast, her pink earrings are fresh flowers. Closed eyes: indifferent, asleep, or deep in thought? And, of course, the Mistress is not always amicable: hence the tiara made of prickly bur. 

P.S. Music sets the mood, the tone, the pace. I've created this while listening to Creature Creature's Phantoms (and a bit of Light & Lust). Consider it an inspiration as well.

Hakodate in the Rain

As a break from one too many (!) sunset images from the American northwest, here is a photographic selection from Hakodate, one of my favorite places in Japan.

Of course, anything from the north of this country is bound to make it onto my "favorite" list. And the Russian cultural connection in this part of Hokkaido--the old imperial consulate along with the Orthodox church--made me growl, "AAAALRIIIIGHT!" numerous times like a blackened deathmetal vocalist.

The latter occurred inside my head, naturally, so as to avoid scaring the locals. Also, it is rather impolite for proper ladies to growl in public!

At night, I explored the desolate streets of this major international 19th-century port, getting soaking wet in pouring and rather chilly autumn rain; hiked up the mountain and back down to the shore line in the day; smelled seafood--raw and cooked, chased ravens and walked past the lonely graves of Russian and European foreigners buried far from home. 

When I reached the Russian Orthodox church one morning, it started to rain again, making decent photography impossible. So I said a little prayer asking for the sun to come out. Five minutes later, a ray of light pierced the thick gray cloud cover and lit the image of St. Nicholas of Japan outside the building. Then the bells chimed at the Catholic church next door, and the crows picked up and echoed their sound.

It was noon, right on the dot, and I got my onion domes glistening with rain water in brilliant sunshine.

Divine intervention or just a coincidence--my Pentax was pleased either way!