It's fun to look over the pictures I've posted here over time, and this morning I decided to look at my February photos since 2009 and selected one from each February for the past eight years.
in 2009 I was doing a lot of "drive-by" shooting, taking photos through the car window as we were out driving around. I particularly like these trees, taken at Ona Beach on the Oregon coast. There's a lively, whimsical feeling to them that I find appealing.
In 2010 Chris and I were down in San Diego, visiting relatives and Rich and CJ. We stopped in Encinitas to check out the sunset. The sea was glassy smooth, a pewter look that echoed the color of the clouds. I like all the horizontal layers, beginning with a dark strip of beach at the very bottom, the incoming waves and foam, the silvery smooth section farther out, the peachy glow of the sunset, and then a strip of ominously grey clouds at the top.
The folks in lower Bayshore, Waldport, Oregon, certainly remember February of 2011, where, after a night of heavy winds and rain, they awoke to find their yards, driveways, and streets covered in huge, wet sand dunes. The homes are built on a spit, right on the ocean, and Oregon weather such as this can wreak havoc. Unlike snow, which shoveled and it eventually melts, these dunes (some so heavily pressing on garages that the doors collapsed inward) do not melt. A company is contracted to come in, load up all the sand, and take it elsewhere. I've heard of homeowners removing the plates off electrical outlets inside their homes and having sand come pouring out. It gets in everywhere.
In February of 2012, I was thinking about giving my online photo students an assignment to take pictures of jewelry, and so I photographed a silver charm on my mother's bracelet, part of a series of charms she got while we were living in Japan in the early 1960s. It's a lovely image and brings up warm memories.
Always a sucker for shooting letters and grunge, the two came together beautifully in February of 2013, where I was in Toledo, Oregon shooting whatever I could find on train cars.
A big wet snow in February of 2014 was fun to see, and I went out into our back yard where we had an old mailbox (given to me by my neighbor Juanita when she moved away) draped in buoys. Wore my wellies to get out there and tromp around, taking pictures.
In February of 2015 I processed a few photos I'd taken in Kyoto the previous fall, and this one I particularly liked, taken inside a temple.
And then finally last February of 2016, our first winter on Whidbey Island, I took advantage of good weather and went out photographing the military bunkers here on the island. I was drawn to the wall texture, the black and white look, the shadows, and the combination of straight lines and the circle. Fun, abstract stuff!
And now we are on the cusp of March. The rhodies are just beginning to bloom; what might be crocuses are showing their leaves, soon to be eaten down by deer; the owls are remarkably quiet, probably nesting; but the towhees, juncos, and varied thrushes are out in force, gobbling up the seed we scatter for them. The ruby-crowned kinglets have come and gone. But I think I heard a chickadee the other day. Spring is about to spring!
©Carol Leigh
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