~ Lens-Artists Challenge #314: Shorelines ~

Posted on September 6, 2024 by Lindy Le Coq

Anne Sandler of Slow Shutter Speed invites us to go on a journey to shorelines, any place “where water touches land.” Like Anne, I find my mind at peace and my body able to relax whenever I’m near water; lake, river, stream, ocean and even my little backyard waterfall and Koi pond.

Odell Lake

Big lakes like Odell in central Oregon, and Priest in northeastern Washington State have been protected from excessive commercial development. Both are surrounded by hills covered in evergreen forests that grow right down to the shoreline.

Even smaller lakes in these rugged Cascade Mountains have trees all the way to the shoreline, like here at Miller Lake. Even so, on both large and small lakes there are stretches of sandy beach and places to pitch a tent, park an RV or rent a cabin.

When I was in grade school, Conconully Reservoir in Okanogan County, Washington USA, is where my parents took their young family to camp, fish and play on our summer vacations. In the early summer there were pollywogs in the warm sands along the shoreline where Salmon Creek enters the reservoir (below). My older brother, sister and I had many adventures with our little row boat here.

When I was 12, my family drove on a ferry from Anacortes WA, to San Juan Island, WA. Thirty years later, my husband and I started staying on Orcas Island, for our summer vacation. I have so many memories of our thirty years touring the islands on our bicycles. After I retired and we acquired a condominium at Long Beach, WA we had one last visit to Orcas. Below, the shoreline at the Anacortes landing, and low tide on the west side of Orcas, with Freeman Island in the distance.

The Long Beach Peninsula features miles of sandy beach to recreate on. Below a group is digging for Razor Clams, a man is riding his bicycle along the shoreline, a king tide spills up toward the berm, and a man is surf fishing in the swirling tide.

Whether day or night, sunny or cloudy, I enjoy listening to the breakers as they roll in, and watching the many shorebirds that frequent the area.

On your walk with life, please honor our earth, encourage dignity and share kindness. 🐾

Thank you Anne for the perfect excuse to virtually visit some of my favorite places on planet Earth!

Lens Artists Challenge #314: Shorelines
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~ Garden Delights + Cee’s Flower of the Day ~

Posted on September 3, 2024 by Lindy Le Coq

Usually I remain home on busy holidays like Labor Day, however, I was excited to gather with my fellow writing group friends on Saturday to visit Hariana’s gardens in Portland.

Sitting in the shade of a pear tree, Hariana glowed as she explained how to store and sow the seeds she had gathered and was giving us. While we walked through the community gardens, I could see how this would be a little bit of heaven for her. She loves plants, flowers, bugs, and teaching others about them. It was pleasant to be with this small group of nature loving writers on a walk through a garden of many delights.

On your walk with life, please honor our earth, encourage dignity and share kindness. 🐾

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~ Lens-Artists Challenge #313 – Cool Colors ~

Posted on August 28, 2024 by Lindy Le Coq

John of Journeys with Johnbo, invites us to showcase photographs that portray the various shades of the cool tones; purple, blue and green. I’ll begin with the soft-fresh hue of lavender. This sunrise view across President Channel from the west side of Orcas Island, WA evokes in me a sense of awe and transcendence.

True purple flowers are unusual and always alluring when they appear in nature. Below are three that have graced my spring gardens over the years, tulip, hellebore and huechera.

Lets move over a bit on the color wheel to blue. There are so many lovely shades of blue, yet for this challenge I’m sticking with the hue of a mostly clear sky and its reflection on water.

“Blue skies smiling at me, nothing but blue skies do I see.” Irving Berlin

Blue calms me, brings a smile to my face and sets my heart to singing. One step over on the color wheel is green, the dominant color in the Pacific Northwest USA. Below Martha’s Marsh, near Leadbetter Point State Park WA, hosts a profusion of water lilies as spring starts to move toward summer.

Green gives me hope, it symbolizes life and regeneration. Green equals growth and health in my world, and when I need a boost, the beauty of nature lifts my spirits.

Green on blue affects me like a breath of fresh air. I feel revitalized and at peace.

On your walk with life, please honor our earth, encourage dignity and share kindness. 🐾

Thanks to John for providing a perfect excuse for me to escape into photos of nature that nurture and heal my being!

Lens-Artists Challenge #313 – Cool Colors

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~ Lens-Artists Challenge #312: Sense of Scale ~

Posted on August 21, 2024 by Lindy Le Coq

For this week’s challenge, Sofia invites us to show the various ways we “convey the size of what we’re seeing”. Sometimes size is the main point of a photo, and other times it is subtle yet vital to the image. Below is the largest “wishing rock” I have ever seen. It was on the beach at Point Doughty on Orcas Island, WA, and I placed my water bottle on the sand by it in order to show the scale. Also, that black spot in the distance by a tree top is a Bald Eagle. To learn about wishing rocks, here’s an earlier post on that subject. https://lindylecoq.com/2017/03/11/wishing-rocks-weekly-photo-challenge-wish/

The Astoria-Megler bridge is 14 miles (23 km) from the mouth of the Columbia River as it flows into the Pacific Ocean. Opened in 1966, it is the longest continuous truss bridge in North America at four miles (6.5 km) in length.

The size of automobiles entering the bridge on the right side of the above photo provides one sense of size, and the distance shore on the left side offers another.

Above, two shots with leading lines. Left is the view on the bridge looking south to Astoria, on the right is the view looking north toward Megler. Below, photographed from Fort Columbia State Park, in the distance the bridge stretches across the mighty Columbia River.

Extending 28 miles (48 km), Long Beach WA is the longest beach in the United States, and the longest beach on a Peninsula in the world. On a foggy morning two people walking along the shoreline at low tide give us a sense of the vastness of this place.

I’ll finish with a close-up shot of a honey bee working over a butterfly bush. The insect appears quite large compared to the tiny dimensions of the flowers.

On your walk with life, please honor our earth, encourage dignity and share kindness. 🐾

Thank you to Sophia for this challenge that made me look more closely at dimensions in my photography!

Lens-Artists Challenge #312 – Sense of Scale
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~ Wordless Wednesday ~ Big Mac! ~

Posted on August 14, 2024 by Lindy Le Coq

On your walk with life, please honor our earth, encourage dignity and share kindness. 🐾

Posted in family, fishing, nature, outdoors, pacific northwest, photography, travel, Wordless Wednesday | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

~Lens-Artists Challenge #311: What’s in a Garden? ~

Posted on August 13, 2024 by Lindy Le Coq

Ann Christine invites us to explore the wonder of gardens this week. After taking two weeks off from my blog, I’m ready to jump right in with photos from two botanical gardens, and a brief tour of my own home flora. I’ll start with photos taken at Balboa Park and Botanical Garden in San Diego. There is a clean, stark beauty to the plants that thrive in a desert environment. This garden features lovely architecture, big boulders and original large sculptures as well.

Missouri Botanical Gardens in St. Louis, offers a lush variety of garden landscape styles including formal English gardens, Japanese and Chinese designs, and a Geodesic Dome Conservatory. I was fortunate to visit when the gardens featured a Chihuly glass installation – what a delight!

Over the 40 plus years of living in my Vancouver, WA home, I have nurtured perennial gardens with a goal of having something blooming or colorful from early spring through early winter. August is a time of abundant blossoms, and also when my annual vegetables and herbs are coming on strong.

In addition to plants, flowers and trees, having water features, bird baths, places to sit and other objects like ceramic pots, sculptures and yard art make for an interesting landscape design. Finally, having birds, butterflies and beagles visiting makes it even more delightful. Daisy loves watching the fish in the pond, and Max enjoys lounging on the love seat during our warm summer afternoons.

On your walk with life, please honor our earth, encourage dignity and share kindness. 🐾

Thank you, Ann Christine for this lovely, open challenge!

Lens-Artists Challenge #311 – What’s in a Garden?
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~ Lens-Artists Challenge #308: Perfect Pairs ~

Posted on July 27, 2024 by Lindy Le Coq

This week’s guest-host, the woman behind Albatz Travel Adventures blog, invites us to present photo pairings, or Diptychs. No, that is not a slang put-down, it is the term for “two images placed in proximity to one another, forming a pair.”

My first pair is a vista looking south toward North Head on the Long Beach Peninsula, WA-USA. On top the very low tide reveals a pattern left in the sand by the receding tide. Below it, the outgoing tide washes over the beach with a similar meandering pattern, while Sanderling and other shorebirds feed.

Foxglove seems to grow in the middle of anywhere! On the left, one tall stem is alone in the middle of a marshy forest habitat. On the right their lovely blossoms invite pollinators to come on in, and photographers to get a closer look.

Echinacea, commonly called coneflower, are an excellent addition to a sunny garden. They bloom in mid to late summer and continue on into fall. On the left, a bee is evidence of one of this flowers attributes, while on the right, we see confirmation of finches feeding on the seed heads in winter.

To encounter a flock of Brown Pelicans is a random act of nature that thrills me! When they are above the fray in a group, it’s not too hard to get a good shot. However, as they quickly moved past me and above turbulent ocean waves, all I could do was aim my camera in their direction and press the shutter button. It was one of those good camera miracles to have any of the closer shots turn out.

Here’s to you of Albatz Travel Adventures, for taking on the responsibility of hosting this weeks Lens-Artists challenge. It is indeed an honor to be asked, and requires time and thought to complete the task. I am one of those last minute contributors, and I do appreciate what you have done to keep us all engaged!

On your walk with life, please honor our earth, encourage dignity and share kindness. 🐾

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #308: Perfect Pairs
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~ Lens-Artists Challenge #307: Tourist Attractions Near and Far ~

Posted on July 18, 2024 by Lindy Le Coq

Leanne Cole, our guest-host for this week’s photo challenge, invites us to feature Tourist Attractions. She isn’t asking for the standard postcard view however. “What the normal tourist wants to see is not always what we [photographers] want. You might go to the same place, but you are after something different.” I so agree with Leanne, and offer a few photos of favorite tourist attractions from my archives.

North Head Lighthouse, Cape Disappointment State Park, Ilwaco, WA – USA, has been restored, thanks to a group of dedicated volunteers. The first photo was taken years ago, as I was walking away from the site and turned around. In my eyes, the windswept trees, and background of fog and clouds add to the mood of the site. Middle photo was taken from a stretch of Long Beach looking south to the Lighthouse on its promontory. Last is the view out a window from the inside, which is open to tour seasonally.

“Salt Creek Falls is a cascade and plunge waterfall on Salt Creek, a tributary of the Middle Fork Willamette River, that plunges into a gaping canyon in the Willamette National Forest near Willamette Pass in Lane County, Oregon.” (Wikipedia) The top photo shows the dramatic dive the creek takes from level to over the edge. Seeing the waterfall through trees from the trail brings one right into the scene. At the end of this trail, the pool of frothing water is a stunning combination of blue and green.

I’ll close with the iconic Arch Gateway in St. Louis, MO – USA. True to my view of what photos should have in them, I’ve framed a live tree in the middle of this incredible feat of engineering. The view from the top of the arch is worth the ride!

On your walk with life, please honor our earth, encourage dignity and share kindness. 🐾

Thanks to Leanne for this timely challenge. It is quite a responsibility to come up with a subject and then respond to those of us out here contributing to the fun!

Lens-Artist Challenge #307 – Tourist Attractions Near and Far
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~ Lens-Artists Challenge #306: Habitat ~

Posted on July 5, 2024 by Lindy Le Coq

Woefully late with no excuses, I offer a bit of natural beauty for Tina’s challenge to show various habitats this week. Below is a view of the wetland marsh that forms during late winter through spring in the acreage between the Breakers condominium buildings, and the berm to Long Beach, WA. It hosts a multitude of birds and other critters, attracting migrants and providing a home for residents.

Canada Goose raise their broods here. On the right a pair of Mallards at their nest, female in upper left.

As spring yields to summer, the marsh turns into a lush meadow that provides food and shelter for other life forms. Geese fly off while swallows swoop in to feast on mosquitos, song birds call for mates, and resident Columbia black-tail mule deer bring their young to munch on grass. And, there’s always fascinating bugs and critters to enjoy as well!

“Born and bred in the briar patch, that’s me,” laughed Brer Rabbit. “I told you not to throw me there. In all the world, that’s the place I love best!”

On your walk with life, please honor our earth, encourage dignity and share kindness. 🐾

With five days of 100°+ weather in my future, I plan to spend my afternoons inside browsing through Lens-Artists posts that I have yet to see!

/https://travelsandtrifles.wordpress.com/2024/06/29/lens-artists-challenge-306-habitat/

Posted in birds, bugs & critters, Lens-Artists, Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, nature, nature photography, outdoors, pacific northwest, photography, travel, weekly photo challenge | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

~ Lens-Artists Challenge #305 – Two Rectangles ~

Posted on June 27, 2024 by Lindy Le Coq

Egídio introduces another technique to compose compelling photographs – two rectangles. “Having two dominant rectangular areas in an image, gives balance, harmony, and unity to a composition.” After studying his examples and explanations of each, I delved into my archives to see what I could find. It was a pleasure to realize some of the photos I like very much, but didn’t quite fit in other challenges, worked with this one. Below is a photo with three of the elements Egídio highlights; a horizon line, leading line (vanishing point) and two different textures.

The vista out the windows in the foyer of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, drew me in. When I see curves and straight lines combining to make a harmonious whole it takes my breath away! With the clean repetition of lines and the view across to the old courthouse, this view provides many rectangles within rectangles.

Below, the foreground of upright shrubs with their clusters of cream color blossoms (probably Oceanspray) contrasts nicely with the soft velvety texture of the rolling Palouse farmland.

In this photo, as the sun is about to rise over Lake Tahoe, the open space of sky and horizon provides visual relief and balance to the stark tree and branches.

Hydrangeas are a welcome summer bloomer in my gardens, and consequently a subject of many photos over the years. With Egídio’s example of contrasting colors in a Muhly grass photo, he noted that “the rectangles do not need to be strictly a straight line. The overall appearance of the two rectangles is the factor that matters.” Photography is flexible!

When presenting a photo of a bird, using Rabatment, “putting a square inside a rectangle” so that the bird is on the “line inside the square” is half the solution. Matching the horizontal line to intersect with the vertical at the eye is the other half. Common Murre is an uncommon sight at Long Beach.

In conclusion, I’ll end this exploration with a lovely sunset from my deck at the Breakers in Long Beach, WA. I never need an excuse to feature a sunset, however given the lure to show contrasting light, well, I’ll bite!

On your walk with life, please honor our earth, encourage dignity and share kindness. 🐾

Thank you to Egídio for a fun invitation to frame our photos another way!

Lens-Artists Challenge #305 – Two Rectangles
Posted in Birding, Lens-Artists, Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, nature, nature photography, outdoors, pacific northwest, pacific ocean, photography, travel, weekly photo challenge | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments