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Spring Fever

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Spring fever is here for me, my goodness.  Up here in the Great White North we are still buried under.  We are getting some great sun but it is not coming fast enough it seems.  Now I love the cold, and I love the snow but this year I am just ready to roll.  Last summer was very short due to some late snow storms, rain, clouds and the coldest summer on record up here.  All of that has me, and my northern brothers and sisters, chomping at the bit to get some warm weather “on”.  April is here and that means birds, lots of birds, and I am looking forward to that.  Unfortunately a considerable amount of snow is still covering major nesting areas and so we are all anxiously awaiting break up so these guys can get in here.  We will be heading down to Homer later on this month to catch the migration stop over that comes through there; if reports are accurate we are talking tens of thousands of birds at a minimum. This will be our first time to attend this and we are looking forward to it.  The stop over in the Copper River Delta is to the tune of millions of birds.  That is the one I want to hit next year, it just won’t work out for us this year.  They had a bird count of 1.25 million birds in one day last year.  We also have a massive Rapture migration that occurs through the area.  Gunsight Mountain is a major migratory corridor for this and there is a raptor watch from Feb to April with some days counts over one hundred.  If you want to participate check out the Anchorage Audubon website they are looking for volunteers.  There is a BBQ coming up too in April.

Anchorage Concert Association

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Check out this link for a great write up on a really neat performance http://www.adn.com/life/arts/story/739809.html.  I did not make this concert and I was very skeptical about the advertising that I was hearing about this Ukulele player, it seemed really over top.  Well, if you read this review I guess it was actually understated; apparently this guy is all “that” and more, really a fantastic review and write up and frankly I am very sorry I missed it.  It sounds like I missed more of an experience than a concert.  If you hear of Jake Shimabukuro performing in your area I think you should really consider going, I wish I had, wow.

Where is he today?

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We see the world piece by piece, as the sun, the moon, the animal, the tree; but the whole, of which these are the shining parts, is the soul.  We in succession, in division, in parts, in particles.  Meantime within man is the soul of the whole;  the wise silence; the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related; the eternal One.  And this deep power in which we exist, and whose beatitude is all accessible to us, is not only self sufficing and perfect in every hour, but the act of seeing, and the thing seen, the seer and the spectacle, the subject and the object are one. —Ralph Waldo Emerson

I love Ralph.  Is there anyone writing now like Ralph did?  That man had a direct line to God, his wisdom was other worldly and he understood the essence of every man.  Pick him up and see if you don’t agree.  He tells you what you know inside about yourself.

Rail Cars and Ash Fall

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Crazy day shooting yesterday.  Wind was all kicked up and keeping everything down on the ground but the ash.  We saw more eagles on the ground than I have ever seen.  I watched one for over a half hour sway back and forth in some wicked gusts;  I think it was sleeping, or trying to.  It never did move so I moved on.  The ash was getting kicked up too (Redoubt) and smelling acrid, but hey it’s all good.  Snowed last night and that laid it down.  Anyway got a few pics in, I liked these rail cars sitting out in the Valley.  The railroad is doing some work out on the Knik River Bridge and these cars were sitting for the weekend.

We got a light dusting during the night of the ash cloud that came from the late Saturday afternoon eruption but it turned out to not be too onerous.  The snow was dirty but mostly just a trace.

400 Photographs

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A great book of photos, a broad insight into the work of a great photographer, Ansel Adams 400 Photographs is a pleasure.  Ansel felt his photographs as much as he saw them, he worked harder at printing them than making the image.  He gave himself to every image and every print.  He never had the consistency that we have now with the digital process and I am not sure that we haven’t lost something there.  As an artist when you come back you see the work just a bit different each time.  When I finish a print I could theoretically keep it exactly the same forever, I can save the file and print it exactly the same every time.  We call it “reproducible results” but may its a little colder than the experience of creating and recreating the print for each viewer.

This is a real book not something to breeze through in an afternoon. Enjoy slowly and in smaller portions so pour a scotch or a glass of wine and unwind with the work of a master.



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