taking the long way

most wonderful time of the year

the annual holiday card is finished...
just in the st. nick of time!
have a joyful, reflective and festive holiday!

p.s. click on the image below to view it in full.

winter sparkles

christmas in portland

natefest

Every year around this time my friend Nate organizes a fest in his honor - to get friends together and to celebrate his birthday. I was lucky enough to be able to attend the 15th annual Natefest which was held at the Olympic Hotel in Centralia, Washington this past weekend. I tried to attend last year, but caught some sort of nasty flu on my return home from Thanksgiving in Mexico... yes it could have been the swine flu. And yes, as many people have joked I could have been patient zero. Though no one I know got sick after me so that puts that theory to bed. Anyhoo, Nate scouts out locations early in the year, makes all the arrangements, and then collects $100 from each of us in the fall. All we have to do is pack and get there and everything else is covered. About forty people came this year. We were booked in nearly every room at the Olympic Hotel, a former brothel, that from the histories I read provided quite a service for quite a few men during the early 20th century. The hotel is linked to a pub, pool hall and movie theater and located along a historic main street that seems to have the corner on antiques in the area. A full-sized full set plastic glow-from-within Nativity set was on sale for only $450. Quite a steal! So Friday I took the MAX from work to the train station and boarded the Amtrak going North. I met up with my friend Molly (whom I've known since the 2nd grade) when she boarded at the next stop (Molly is married to the Nate of Natefest). About an hour and a half later we deboarded in Centralia and walked across the street to the Olympic Hotel where the festivities had already begun. The weekend was full of yummy drinks, food, friends and field trips. A quick trip to Mima Mounds came close to resembling a Gilligan's Island style three-hour tour. Our Saturday night festivities were capped with the annual Feuerzangenbowle and the season's first snow fall. On Sunday I hopped out the back of the Oly Club and on to the train for a lovely ride back to Portland through fresh snow-covered hills. Quite a way to start December!

diptychs - part deux

Kaitlyn and I have been busy snapping away all over Oregon and New England to capture daily photos for our diptych experiment (see earlier post for more details). Sometimes we end up snapping photos in places where people wonder what the heck we are doing. A little public humiliation never stopped us before and it won't be stopping us now. Here are a few more diptychs we've created as the first month of our experiment comes to a close.

the last kodachrome lab

If you have rolls of kodachrome film still hanging around your closet like I do, then check out this story. There is only one lab left in the world that develops the iconic film. This film changed the trajectory of popular photography and was memorialized by Paul Simon in one of my favorite songs, Kodachrome. The lab in Kansas will continue to develop this film until the end of 2010, which means I have some photography shoots to schedule! Looking forward to 2010! today-today_people

the diptych experiment

Beginning on November 1, 2009 Kaitlyn Smith, living in Massachusetts, and Laurie Matthews, hailing from Oregon; started taking one photograph a day during the course of their daily lives. Their daily photographs are connected to form diptychs capturing the combination of their daily lives - sometimes showing the similarities and often times showing the contrasts between their lives on the east and west coasts. These are just some of the diptychs they've created. More can be found by clicking the flickr link to the left, a site which will be updated as the experiment continues.

The idea for the diptych is not new. The tradition reaches back centuries into the early days of artistic expression when two panels were attached with a hinge. Attaching two panels or tablets was a way of showing the relationship between two seemingly separate elements. Diptychs also allowed artwork to travel with added protection - folding the two pieces together until a traveler reached their destination. Modern inspirations for the WestEast diptych came from friends and other artists who are creating similar artistic experiments using 21st century technology.

Laurie and Kaitlyn met in Boston in 2005 at a cocktail party featuring a cocktail ice luge and a ton of designers. The best part was that Kaitlyn also met her future husband, Andrew (also a friend of Laurie's), that very same evening. An auspicious night for sure. Kaitlyn and Laurie quickly bonded over their love of the Boston Red Sox.

Now with 3106 miles between them, they devised this way to keep in touch with both the momentous and mundane aspects of their daily lives. Laurie's west coast images are on the left and Kaitlyn's east coast images are on the right. The "12" and "45" correspond to the numbers of their favorite Red Sox players (Mark Bellhorn and Pedro Martinez, respectively), both of whom were members of the 2004 World Series winning team. Go Sox! And enjoy the experiment!

in memory

Canon G9, a beloved point and shoot digital camera who captured many memories during her short life, was swept away in Columbia Creek during a raging rain storm today. She was two years old.

After being coated with rain during a mid-afternoon storm, the Canon G9's slick exterior prevented a good grip. She quickly fell out of the hands holding her, bouncing down a steep muddy bank and into a swift flowing creek right above a waterfall. In a futile attempt to save the 12.1 megapixel workhorse, photographer Laurie Matthews slid down the slick bank and into the creek, but the camera was long gone.

Canon G9 was met with illustrious reviews when she was launched in October 2007. As one reviewer stated, "The new Canon Powershot G9 is the sort of elegant, very capable, and completely self-contained imaging tool that Henri Cartier-Bresson (if he were still with us) might have used to capture the "decisive moments" of the 21st century."

During her two year life she traveled extensively within the United States and abroad including New York, Massachusetts, California, Missouri, Montana, Minnesota, and Mexico. She captured the weddings of dear friends, holiday trips, and architectural details of many noted buildings and landscapes. Highlights of her work are captured on this blog, facebook, and flickr.

Canon G9 is survived by her owner, Laurie Matthews and all of the photos she's taken over the past two years.

pettygrove park

Pettygrove is the second of four parks designed by Lawrence Halprin as part of the Portland Sequence. This park is often forgotten since it's design was less revolutionary than either Forecourt Fountain or Lovejoy Fountain, two of the other parks in the sequence. However, this park has the most ties to the Northwest and the history of park design. Local basalt, deposited here during one of many lava flows that spanned the region thousands of years ago, is crafted into low stone walls which are modeled after those found along the historic Columbia River Gorge Highway. The park's miniature pastoral design recalls the work of Frederick Law Olmsted, especially his design for Central Park. My favorite design feature stems from how the linear elements play off each other - the silver 60s era light standards against the warm brown bark of the shade trees.

day and night

(love the shadows of the pine trees reflected in the fountain's waterfall)

(love this image's depth - from the leaves in the bottom left corner over the top of the fountain's sculptural forms to the distant pine trees)


I'm working on a National Historic Landmark nomination for the Portland Sequence, landscape architect Lawrence Halprin's ground-breaking design for public spaces in Portland. The sequence includes four public parks linked by walkways that were designed to span one of Portland's late 1960s urban renewal projects. While similar urban renewal projects failed in other parts of the country, Portland's has been deemed successful, in many ways because of Halprin's parks.

Forecourt Fountain, the most visible of the four public parks, is turning 40 next year (just like me). While many parks of this era are dated, Forecourt Fountain (also known as Ira Keller Fountain for the man whose vision and political power was at the root of this urban renewal area) remains both modern and relevant. Though many of the forms and concepts are purely born of the late 60s and early 70s, they are also classic enough to transcend time and design fads. Added to that the park is both functional - serving as a place of respite on cooler days and a much needed wading pool on blistering hot days, and beautiful - a sculptural centerpiece both for both day and night.