Took a trip out Washington way to see family and was thoroughly energized by the many surfaces and textures of the Pacific Northwest.  Lots of new visual and tactile information to fuel the Work.   Here are some samples….

A wildly diverse outcrop of Chuckanut sandstone along a Puget Sound beach. Both images look like they contain digital noise but that is a reflection of what is an extremely grainy surface, pocked and incised over time by the action of salt water (among other geologic forces).

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The bark of a Pacific Madrone  is a smooth yellow-green skin covered here and there with an orangey-brown, papery layer which lifts away from the skin’s surface in thin, delicate strips.  The graceful but sturdy Madrone is a guardian of the erosion-vulnerable cliffs above the shoreline. 

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Bull kelp bulb washed up on Puget Sound shoreline – a frequent sighting.

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Burned and weathered, with its tile-like delamination, this piece of driftwood was nesting in the rocky shoal of a mountain river.  I can’t tell you how many photographs of rocks and driftwood (always a great source of inspiration) I took in this vicinity alone!

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In this same riverbed, I was attracted to the play of sunlight through the river water as it rippled along the shoreline.  It lent a great fluidity to the rocky bottom and I was curious to see what sort of results would come from the images.  At first, there seemed to be nothing very interesting but as I enlarged them and adjusted the contrast (the only adjustment I made), so much more was revealed.  Since the glacial rocks on their own are quite varied in shape, color and texture, they enhance the image further.   The distortion is the product of moving water bathed in sunlight – stunning!