I have to admit, I was having a little trouble with the prompt this week. And then I started looking at my pictures from Yellowstone that I took last summer.
I LOVE this one of the wavy orange bacterial mats in the Grand Prismatic Spring disappearing into the fog:
Here’s the same spring from a higher (and clearer) vantage point:
This pinecone, with its zigs and zags:
And finally, these burnt snags, pointing into infinity, but not straight away:
Yesterday I returned from my week-long and now annual trip to Colorado to ski with my family. Last year I flew home with a bunch of guys who were returning from a motorcycle rally. Apparently their rally is the same time as my family’s annual ski trip. I had mentioned to my parents that this happened last year, and sure enough, when I got to my gate, there was a group of guys returning from their rally.
I am notoriously shy about taking pictures of strangers. I always like to ask permission, which I usually don’t screw up my courage to do. I was standing behind this man while waiting to board the plane. He had a freshly shaved scalp with an elaborate tattoo, a long, grey beard and this particular shirt on. I was admiring the design and asked him if I could take a picture of it. He gave me his permission.
As I pulled out my iPod to take the picture, though, the giant young man behind me gruffly said, “Don’t do that.” Before I could react, the man in front said, “I told her it was okay. It’s just my back.”
My subject didn’t make it easy for me to take the picture, so this was the best I could manage. After I snapped it, I apologized to the man behind him, telling him I didn’t mean to offend him. He waved me off, telling me there was no need.
The men, and they were all men, wore some variation of this Bandidos shirt. They marked themselves publicly, dressed up to signify their membership in this group. The second man’s behavior added weight to my impression of their cohesiveness. They had one another’s backs, literally and figuratively.
Here’s how other people interpreted All Dressed Up this week.
This week’s prompt was My Reflection
I took this a year and a half ago, when my little sister came out to visit the west coast and flirt with the idea of moving out here. I loved that this was the mirror on the outside of the photo booth, and the reminder that you are beautiful was etched into it.
We stayed at the Ace
just down the street from Powell’s in downtown Portland.
We did not heed the advice to “call your mother.”
In other words, we had the time of our lives.
I loved it when they painted the Space Needle “galaxy gold” in honor of the 50th anniversary of the World’s Fair. This is the view I have one block from my apartment. And while I do enjoy a good glimpse of the Needle, it’s always the Olympic mountain range behind it that takes my breath away.
One summer day we overheard two bikers as they passed this view – on a day when the mountains were particularly stunning and the Needle was its usual white. One said to the other: “Wow! Look at the … Space Needle.” We’ve added that to our repertoire of inside jokes!
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And a couple of other “wide open spaces”:
I’ve been thinking a lot about Thailand, because it’s been three years now since I visited. This picture was taken in Ayuttaya, out in the countryside:
And this is Mt. Blanc, taken in France:
This week’s prompt from 52 Photos: Something really small.
I poked around the house and talked with my sweetie. She offered up a few items, and I came up with a few things on my own.
Here are mine:
And here are hers:
And here is the combination:
This week’s prompt was “First Day. The only requirement was that the photo had to be taken on New Year’s Day.
Sometimes a picture speaks for itself, and sometimes there really are no words. Let me just say that this is the front door of an establishment in my neighborhood that styles itself a tavern. A tiny, tiny tavern.
Happy blog birthday to me. I’ve posted 53 times in the last year, averaging once a week. I started this last year with the intention of it helping me find my voice. I wasn’t sure where it would go. It still feels very nascent, and I’m fine with that. There’s lots of room for me to go where I want. A lot of my focus has been on the 52 Photos Project, which has been really fun – combining my love of photography with my love of language and words.
Today I just wanted to share this photo I took on Christmas Eve (above). The light felt so thick, as if it had heft, and I had no idea when I pointed my camera in this direction that it would capture that honeyed sky.
You can get the idea here:
And here:
Thanks for coming along with me on this ride. I’m looking forward to what 2014 will bring!
This week’s prompt: Holiday Traditions.
Last week a man asked me how my Christmas preparations were going. I cringed, took a deep breath, and confessed to him that I don’t celebrate. I told him I don’t like telling people that, because I don’t want to ruin their enjoyment of the holiday. He took it with good cheer and I felt okay, this time.
I was struggling with this prompt, because Hannukah was so early in the month, it feels like it was in another season. Besides which, I can only seem to muster up enough effort to light candles. And this year we got gelted into buying some chocolate coins.
For the second year in a row, there has been a small holiday event at the park down the street from us. We are quickly coming to love this tradition, which includes the fabulous Beaconettes, a choral group from Beacon Hill in Seattle, who take familiar songs and add their own twist for extra enjoyment.
I don’t have any pictures of my own, but we cap off our festivities every year by going to the show Homo for the Holidays. It really does feel like family, and every year we return to laugh ourselves silly.
I hope you all are enjoying the day and holiday, no matter what you find yourselves doing. Thank you for reading, for cheering me on, and for being who you are. That is the greatest gift I could ever receive.
This week’s prompt was polka dots. I roamed far and wide, spied with my little eye and finally came home, to this:
Which, I might add, in addition to be fantastically polka dotted, is a great spatula. Since I’m not feeling full of verve, let me direct you to this lovely piece: A Brief History of Polka Dots. Especially this:
“Polka dots need not be emasculating,” said Anna Akbari, wardrobe consultant and founder of the styling business Closet Catharsis. Akbari, who teaches a course entitled “Fashion and Power” at NYU, added that men wearing polka dots “demonstrates that they pay attention to fashion, that they’re fashion-focused.” Other renowned male advocates of the polka dot include Marc Jacobs, with his “Dotty” collection and Dot perfume (jasmine, orange blossom and honeysuckle), and the artist Damien Hirst, notorious for his sterile, vertigo-inducing dot paintings.
This week’s prompt was dessert.
If you give me the choice between a chocolate dessert and a fruit dessert, I will almost always choose the fruit (har har). Even within fruit, there’s a hierarchy, and the citrus sits at the top. Since I only cook/bake vegan at home, home made lemon bars are a treat I’ve gone without for a Very. Long. Time. I have always loved them, and have tried making a few vegan recipes over the years that just disappoint me. I was ready for my heart to be broken again with this one, particularly since the lemon topping uses agar agar flakes, which can have a strong and distinct flavor.
I’m happy to announce that this one wins, in every way. Flavor, texture, and even visually, it is all appealing. There is the added bonus of the lack of egg flavor, the one thing I actually don’t like about the regular lemon bars.
I bake pretty regularly, and despite what I say about the fruit, most of what I make has chocolate in it.
Chocolate thumbprint cookies:
Chocolate crinkle cookies:
And my favorite rich treat, vegan peanut butter cream cheese brownie with chocolate chips:
And sometimes I just like to buy someone else’s treats:
What’s your favorite dessert? What do you like for someone else to make for you? What do you like to make for others?