Recent work: "Balboa Bakery Donuts"

Out on the Balboa Peninsula in southern California, remnants of the “good old days” remain here and there, including the Balboa Bakery sign.

I took this picture a long time ago, and tweaked it a bit this week. I hope the sign is still there.

All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh. Thank you for your understanding and kindness.

Good advice . . .

Warning sign in a boat yard. Good advice. Bad spelling!

All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh. Thank you for your understanding and kindness.

Week-end potpourri . . .

Sometimes we don't really know what we've accomplished until we take the time to look back. These are just a few images I've created this week, and it's gratifying to realize this is maybe just 20% of the total.

I often think I'm not working enough, not putting in enough effort, especially when I compare myself to what I perceive others doing.

Comparison. Big mistake, no?

Anyway, mucking around in my photo archives, I came across two pictures (a number "2" and some rust, both on an old train), shot in Eureka, California, and combined them for something new and different and unique. (If one can consider rust and old metal "new" and "different.")

In my Facebook "Photomotivation" group, we're working on images that relate to "summer." So when I found two "ice" signs on a pole this week, I automatically photographed them for our project. The beauty of giving yourself an assignment on a regular basis is that you become a better observer, a noticer, and your work and your portfolio improves and expands. Plus it's just fun.

In the studio, I made textured papers using acrylic paints and cardboard and stains, then combined my photos of them in Photoshop to make something completely different -- an interesting picture of texture in muted colors to upload to Fine Art America.

And finally, in the middle of a week full of birthdays, explorations, and meals with friends, a wander around the docks in Port Townsend brought me to this lovely wooden boat quietly moored in late afternoon light.

So it's been a week of friendships, meanderings, collage-making, and photography.

I should take time more often, really, to simply recap what I've done in a week. I may amaze myself. Try it yourself -- YOU may be amazingly surprised by how much wonderful stuff you create and experience and contribute. Let us all carry on!

All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh. Thank you for your understanding and kindness.

Latest work: "Surfer Crossing"

I found this grungy old sign tacked to a stick in a Pacific Northwest boat yard. I got the feeling this guy would rather be out on the ocean than repairing boats on dry land!

All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh. Thank you for your understanding and kindness.

But, but . . .

. . . then who do we wave to?

©Carol Leigh
All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh. Thank you!

The only zone . . .

Not just the zone, the only zone! Five years ago, while conducting a workshop on the Oregon coast (attended by my three North Carolina buddies), I found a "Loading Zone Only" sign. So I mashed it up, broke it apart, reassembled it, tossed out all the leftover bits, and came up with this.

A new dimension in time and space. The ONLY ZONE . . .

©Carol Leigh
All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh. Thank you!

ROYGBIV: YELLOW!

Next in the color spectrum is yellow, a bright, cheerful color, a color that really stands out. So the "Beware Alligators" sign is pretty tough to ignore when you're wandering around Florida.

A painting show I watch says that shadows are always purple, so paint them some tone of purple. And yellow's complementary color is purple, making yellow look particularly striking. The photo of the yellow boat was taken early in the morning when the light was a bluish-purple, and yup, the boat looks especially good next to that purple-colored dock.

And in the last photo, I noticed how the buoys looked dramatic against the dark background of a fishing boat. A symmetrical composition, with the rope dividing the photo in two, seemed to be the right way to go. Clean, bold, simple.

It's Saturday today, the day the movers will be offloading our belongings. I'm writing this on Wednesday, so here's hoping everything arrives in one piece and that a new life/lifestyle is about to begin for real. I know you wish us well.

P.S. Happy birthday, Laura! A year older. A year wiser.

©Carol Leigh
 All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh. Thank you!

It's a good day to . . .

. . . take the day off! ©Carol Leigh

It's a good day . . .

 . . . to be on the Oregon coast! This is what the docks looked like yesterday morning. My little playground! ©Carol Leigh

You are here . . .

Good to know . . . ©Carol Leigh

Not a English major . . .

©Carol Leigh

Three more from Maui

Walking around Lahaina early in the morning, before the cruise ship people arrive, before the stores open, before it gets crowded, I find this brightly colored Dumpster enclosure. Love the complementary colors of green and red.

A shop down a side street specializes in shipping pineapples and Maui onions to the mainland. You can also get a cool drink if you wish.

And finally, a wooden statue of King Kamehameha with a sort of wistful look on his face. I can relate. I lived in Hawaii when I was 10, 11, and 12 (a very long time ago). Visiting now, as a tourist, I am really an outsider, melancholy about the Hawaii that's no longer the Hawaii of my youth. And if I feel this way, think of how the native Hawaiians must feel. Auwe!

©Carol Leigh

Crabbing season begins at last

Crabbing season began just after midnight this morning and I could see the lights of at least eight crabbing boats on the horizon when I looked out the kitchen window. It's good to see them finally out there. This season began a month later than usual because the crabs hadn't filled out enough by Thanksgiving. So Christmas for the fishing community is just now going to begin for these folks.

Yesterday we made a quick turn around the docks to see the boats all loaded up with crabpots. Deckhands were making sure the stacks of pots were completely secure, as you can see in the first photo. The F/V Norska sits patiently waiting for midnight, along with hundreds of other boats along the bayfront.

I liked the bright red color of one boat's hull and the contrast of smooth metal and the multi-textured crab pots above.

And then there's a guy looking for a deckhand job who posted a resume at the top of the gangplank leading down to the docks. He says, in part, "I am the man you want on your deck. I have been crewing for vessels big and small now for several years ... I am a simple family oriented man who is looking for a solid reliable local crab job so that I can start investing in the more important things opposed to being gone in Alaska for months at a time. I am all I say I am and nothing else. I am easy going ... but I won't abide working with slosh drunks, tweakers, or screaming fools. Just a good hand looking for a good boat and crew, to make the most of this years Season..."

I hope he found a job.

©Carol Leigh

An afternoon in Portland

Chris and I had a great time in Portland Thursday with Linda H., who took us to an area she KNEW I'd like — the more industrial part of the city. So great to be shooting with someone who, if I'm taking a photo of a crack on a wall, doesn't make fun of me! We walked under bridges, along railroad tracks, through parking lots, finding interesting signs, businesses, windows, shadows (it was an incredibly sunny day), and murals. Thank you, Linda, for everything. It was a terrific day. ©Carol Leigh

A good day

When it rains, we wonder why the heck are we still living here. But when it's a day like today, with the overcast gradually giving way to sunshine and cool breezes, life's pretty good. We had a bunch of errands to run, but first we took a walk along Newport's Historic Bayfront, chatting with store owners, checking out the sea lions, gazing across at all the big white ships lined up at the NOAA docks, etc.

We had lunch at Canyon Way and talked with a guy at the next table from Idaho, here on vacation, away from his regular job which is putting out forest fires using helicopters. Interesting guy, good sense of humor, but not optimistic about the upcoming fire season.

We also took care of business, picked up some supplies, and then leisurely headed back home, where we enjoyed more sun, more time outside.

Contrast is everything. If we didn't have so much rain (36 inches so far this year, but who's counting?) would we appreciate the sun breaks so much? (I'd like to think so.)

But what cemented our "we're happy to be living here" frame of mind today was watching the osprey fly directly overhead, a fish flapping in its talons, seeing the seals sprawled out on the rocks just offshore at eponymously named Seal Rock, and noticing a brown pelican, optimistically still in his breeding plumage, sitting on a dock.

The photography wasn't so great, but it didn't matter. Here you see the top of Gino's Restaurant with a big mural directly behind it. And then a little sign in the whale watch window welcoming NOAA to their new home port here in Newport. Sunshine, good conversation, an osprey, a few seals ... life is good.

©Carol "it's supposed to rain tomorrow" Leigh

Count your blessings

Tacked to the bulletin board at the fishing docks. ©Carol Leigh

Think. Turn around. Buy fish.

"Think" spray-painted on a railroad car in Santa Fe, a sign here in Waldport, Oregon, and a composite of a building in Bandon, Oregon with a little painting on a wall in San Diego. Love photographing signs. ©Carol Leigh

NOOVERNITEPARKING

This little coastal town is economizing by not including spaces in their signage. ©Carol Leigh

A bit of Route 66

Route 66 is my kind of place — lots of color, texture, grunge, weird stuff, old stuff. I can see that Chris and I are going to have to return, and not in a cross-country mad dash kind of way. Here you see various signs, murals, and billboards I found here and there. It's kitsch. It's retro. It's fun. ©Carol Leigh

Forty miles south of here ...

Last week we had to run some errands south of us and we stopped in the town of Florence, where I found a terrific "F" for my current online "26 in 26" class. The repeating vertical patterns of posts in an empty marina on the Siuslaw River caught my eye, as did a cool "Bill's Auto" sign on the side of a building. ©Carol Leigh