“How wonderful the color yellow is. It stands for the sun.” Vincent Van Gogh




When my flesh crawls and all my senses go into high alert, I usually don’t hang around to take pictures!

Alloniscus Speaks
I love photographing and learning about creepy-crawlies like spiders, bugs, snails and other flightless critters I come upon in my rambles.

Praying Mantis on high alert, looking sinister with it’s long shadow.
Growing up in the sandy sagebrush hills of central Washington, I learned to identify Black Widow Spiders, Scorpions and Rattlesnakes, and to be aware of places they might call home. It was my responsibility to stay clear of their territory.


This spider is a common orb weaver, like Charlotte, of E.B. White fame.
Orb spider web.

Velella velella, also known as ‘by-the-wind sailor,’ is a species of jellyfish which floats on the ocean’s surface. Usually found in the open ocean feeding on plankton, they are at the mercy of the wind. After a spring storm at Long Beach, the coastline was strewn for miles with these gelatinous creatures. Though not creepy on their own, a whole shore full is eerie.
~Now for the really scary stuff ~

Human Generated Trash (HGT) picked up from the beach on one morning walk.

Blond mopped dragon at Women’s March, January 21, 2017, Portland, Oregon.
Thank you Leya, for this opportunity to feature often maligned though decidedly innocent creepy critters, and to expose two images that represent realities I find to be particularly threatening and sinister in our world.
https://lagottocattleya.wordpress.com/2019/11/09/lens-artists-photo-challenge-71-creepy/
“Blue is the only color which maintains its own character in all its tones…it will always stay blue.” Raoul Dufy

“I never get tired of the blue sky.” Vincent Van Gogh
Blue symbolizes trust, loyalty and confidence.

“Let the blue sky meet the blue sea and all is blue for a time.” Moncy Barbour

Cheers to Blue!

For this challenge, I’ve selected previously posted photos that are monochrome due to the light that was present when I snapped the picture.

Sundown at Long Beach, WA ~ USA

Man and Kite, Long Beach, WA ~ USA

October Sundown, Orcas Island, WA ~ USA

Natural Sepia, Long Beach, WA ~ USA

Evening Walk, Long Beach, WA ~ USA
Light from our sun reveals earth’s beauty. It is up to us to preserve it.








Often I take photos not knowing how or when I might post them. Last week at the beach, I stopped to snap the numbered buoys on a pole beside the path through the dunes. Now, less than a week later, Cee provides a challenge to put these gems out for all to see!

I love spiderwebs dripping with dew. These two on either side of a provocatively stained post, are my nod to Halloween.

Two young Black-Tail bucks grazed in the dunes one morning at Long Beach.

It’s mushroom and toadstool time in the Pacific Northwest. Though lovely to look at and photograph, Amanita muscaria, commonly known as fly agaric, is considered poisonous, but not deadly. They contain psychoactive chemicals, and have a long history of use in Asia and Northern Europe.

This pair of Western Gulls (Laurus occidentals) looked like they were having an important tête-à-tête on their driftwood perch. I make it a practice to photograph from a distance, and don’t allow Jello to chase birds at the beach – well sometimes the crows – but not the shorebirds and eagles!

Immature ~one-year Bald Eagles, watched as Jello and I circled past. What magnificent birds they are!

A mature pair of Bald Eagles. They mate for life, and the female is larger than the male.

From the Albany Carousel Museum, two pretty ponies.

I’ll close with one of my favorite photo’s of a couple walking the beach, as Sanderling and other shorebirds migrated through.
🐾 When I read Tina’s theme for this week’s Lens-Artists challenge, I thought about the tune, Two by Two, from Tony Bennet’s, 1965 album, Songs for the Jet Set. A lifetime favorite.



Autumn cheer from Jello and Lindy!
Low tide at Beard’s Hollow, provides a peek into the geology and ecology of this region where the North American Continent and the Pacific Ocean meet, on the north shore of the Columbia River.

Buffeted by wind and waves over centuries, stone splits into boulders, rocks, gravel and sand. Caught in nooks and crannies, pockets of dirt provide a foothold for perennial native grasses, ferns, and shrubs to colonize the hillside.

Roots reach into and fragment rock, while leaves and stems add humus to the soil.

Native flora weaves a tapestry, from its sandy base at ocean’s edge, across and up the craggy hill, to where evergreen trees hug the ridge.

Beards Hollow, Cape Disappointment State Park, Ilwaco, WA – USA
From the mystery of a wild bog, skunk cabbage and horsetails rise to daylight.

Colors and textures stack, one over the other.

Amanita muscaria emerges, under cover of grass.
Layers in motion

A mature Bald Eagle keeps her perch, while a flock of Cowbirds glean in dune-grass along the berm.

When Jello and I took our walk the afternoon of June 9, 2019, Brown Pelican migration northward was underway. What a photographer’s blessing to see the sky dotted with pelicans on the wing, and a flock resting in the surf.

Clouds stack-up along the perimeter of a bright blue sky.

A serious minus tide, leaves layers of wrack-lines on the sands at Long Beach, WA.
Thank you Amy and Lens-Artists, for a challenge which prompted me to examine my photographic images from another perspective. I like that!