In Love With Colors

The Dark Sun

noreply@blogger.com (Bryht) — Tue, 22 May 2012 06:50:00 +0000

Like a ghost, like a wraith, it darkened all around me. A complete solar eclipse passed over Reno and much of the Pacific and “Western” world. So brief and so dark, who else could love an end of days?

2012-05-20

1/640 sec, f 16.0, ISO 100, 250 mm

Walls and Time

noreply@blogger.com (Bryht) — Tue, 08 May 2012 06:50:00 +0000

The Incas built to last an eternity; in that way they were akin to the Romans. Yet time, Nature and mankind have eroded both empires. In a way I find it comforting to know that the scars we’ve left will one day disappear, to know that the damage it’s permanent. I am a student of the earth, inevitable since both of my parents are geologists, so time has a different meaning for me. It is measured in both minutes and millennia. I saw my home as it was yesterday, and I imagine what it was like covered by ancient lake thousands of years ago. In the same way, I saw Machu Picchu: the unmortared walls with life creeping through, and alive with laughter from the Imperial family. History is not just the study of the past; for me it is also about what the past means to us.

2010-09-02

1/90 sec, f 5.6, ISO 100, 32.5 mm

Penguins, Penguins Everywhere

noreply@blogger.com (Bryht) — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 07:30:00 +0000

This is Salisbury Plain. Many of us have seen that classic picture by National Geographic of penguins stretching from horizon to horizon; it was taken here. The ground was muddy; the hills foggy, and the air was filled with the trumpets and whistles of several hundred thousand king penguins. Their young were curious, coming right up to us humans, and studying us with their black-brown eyes. I couldn’t help grinning from ear to ear to be so surrounded by these beautiful avians and their less than beautiful offspring. You see those grey and white dots covering the hillside? All penguins. It was overwhelming, and I find it difficult to explain exactly how it felt. The world is filled with such wonders.

2012-01-03

1/50 sec, f 11.0, ISO 200, 25 mm

Beautifully Ordinary

noreply@blogger.com (Bryht) — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 08:10:00 +0000

A dear friend of mine on my Antarctica trip taught me that even an “ordinary” bird can be beautiful. She is a Mallard, the most common, ubiquitous and ignored duck of the Western hemisphere. Her kind is everywhere to us, Westerners; almost nuisances. A photographer can so easily be taken away with our desire for the sharp and the extraordinary; a cloud of beauty. Mayhaps it was the timing; perhaps it was merely that this was my first chance to go birding since my accident. I was excited to be in Nature again, to feel like a click-click hunter again. And she is beautiful; a most common, “boring,” water fowl. I can’t help feeling taken with her black and gold mosaic, the tracings of white, an intelligence in her garnet eye. So pause, and take the time to really look at all of the things we ignore, we take for granted. There can always be something extraordinary to be found in our day-to-day ordinary.

2012-04-18

1/320 sec, f 3.2, ISO 200, 250 mm

Selection of the Hidden

noreply@blogger.com (Bryht) — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 06:50:00 +0000

Antarctica as I know her is all white, black and grey. Even the deep blue ocean is grey here; she keeps her secrets close. As much as I’m fixated on colors, I loved this continent’s starkness. The colors could make an outsider believe that this is a realm devoid of life, but I loved its subtly. Small oranges and yellows lay claim to the spark of life in this end of the world. I adored the mystery. We, mere mammals, had to hunt for our avian prey, to sneak up on the “Megas” and capture them with our lenses. This was the Fin del Mundo, and her denizens are blended with her shores; they embody her spirit. I find myself envious of their icy acceptance.

2012-01-10

1/320 sec, f 10.0, ISO 200, 250 mm

Precipice

noreply@blogger.com (Bryht) — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 06:50:00 +0000

I felt as though I could step off of the edge of the world. The northern cliffs of Española are a sight beyond all others, and they were my last of the Galapagos. The next day “our camp was struck” as the ship landed before the lonely airport on Baltra, but for the moment I was alive with the striking magnificence of these islands. How could I not believe in our infinite imaginations when something so beyond my own imagination lay before me? I longed to leap; I longed to fly; I wished to be as the albatross here. I would leap off that precipice, just to embrace the wonder that is the Galapagos.

2010-08-28

1/250 sec, f 8.0, ISO 100, 50 mm

Geometric

noreply@blogger.com (Bryht) — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 08:00:00 +0000

Sometimes poetry is more about the lines than the physics. Parallel is only the beginning, and perpendicular can be cliche. Lines should form the bones of a picture; they are the structure, the frame. And as I stretch the canvas on this lattice, the sunlight is the paint, and the stone is the pigment. To stand in a ruin, is to give in to days long past. To pretend, is to surrender to history, and at the time, I felt swallowed by this dead world. I could hear the Latin cadence, those alien yet familiar syllables. I wanted to know this world. I wanted to be part of these comfortable lines, so precise and timeless. This is the most human of expressions.

2009-07-15

1/180 sec, f 6.7, ISO 100, 18 mm

What You Learn in Africa

noreply@blogger.com (Bryht) — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 06:30:00 +0000

No place on Earth teaches you about wildlife like Africa does. There are many things to find extraordinary in that subsaharan land. The local tales of the clownish wildebeest, the sheer volume of thousands of animals, their proximity. I think for me, it was the size of them. Before my fateful trip four years ago, the largest creature (outside of zoos) I had seen were deer, common enough and predatory only of my mother’s rose gardens. Then suddenly I found myself half a world away and dwarfed by the wild. For once I was insignificant, and that more than anything teaches a person about heir place in the world. Human superiority means nothing you could be trampled to death in an instant. That is a lesson; that is what Africa makes you understand. We’re all part of the web, and Africa lets you understand that.

2007-12-31

1/180 sec, f 6.7, ISO 100, 155 mm

Felicia Ides of March!

noreply@blogger.com (Bryht) — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 08:02:00 +0000

Every year I celebrate the Ides of March, a day that truly defined the history of the Western world. And here at the scene of that violent event, there is a monument. The Torre Argentina is a series of four temples that were excavated during the 1920s, and they are also the site of Julius Caesar’s assassination. And what has become of this ancient landmark? It is a cat sanctuary. Rome has had a long tradition of Gattare, women who would feed the stray cats of the capital. Over time, this below-street-level plaza evolved into a haven for these feline orphans.

I discovered this marvelous institution on my very first trip to Rome in 2006, and visited it again in 2009. Surrounded my blocks of ancient marble, these abandoned cats have found a home in the ancient capital. Not only does it give these animals a chance at new lives, it gives them an open-air space that is safe from the perils of city-life and puts them in a place where they have a chance at adoption (even by foreigners). I encourage all of you to please donate to this wonderful institution and help the abused and neglected cats of Rome. Take part in a piece of the ancient world, and maybe find a place in your wallet or your home for these extraordinary cats.

Torre Argentina Cat Sanctuary

2009-07-11

1/350 sec, f 6.3, ISO 100, 250 mm

The Crowned Rockhopper

noreply@blogger.com (Bryht) — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 02:22:00 +0000

I doubt there has ever been a penguin more designed to look surly and peevish than a crested penguin. The wind turned out to be perfect that day; it was contrary, blowing upcountry and overpowering. It ruffled all of our feathers. I of course enjoyed my first glimpse of the Rockhoppers. Penguin rookeries are loud and smelly, and this was no exception. However, I also found it charming. A bustle of activity, everyone shouting and squawking and feeding; they all seemed to be jostling for their own space on the cliffside. It was a chaotic vitality, crowned by the smug look that every Rockhopper decided to favor me with, an expression that seemed to say, “psh, mammal.” I still smile to remember them.

2011-12-30

1/320 sec, f 7.1, ISO 100, 110 mm

Patterns

noreply@blogger.com (Bryht) — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 03:08:00 +0000

When traveling to such far reaches of the world, how often does a person look down at the ground? Remember that next time; you never know what you’ll miss.

2011-12-30

1/400 sec, f 6.3, ISO 100, 47.5 mm

The Feral Cape Buffalo

noreply@blogger.com (Bryht) — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 02:40:00 +0000

On so many of my travels, I seem to have collected near-death experiences. In Africa, it was not lions, crocodiles, not the sly leopard, but the cape buffalo who threatened my life. Twice. We had traveled to Ngorongoro Crater, a paradise isolated by two thousand feet of collapsed caldera. Our lodge was situated on the eastern ridge, open-fenced and perched as if to launch itself into the wild beneath it. My sister and I were leaving the dining room after dinner, giggling and chatting our way back to our bungalow. I heard a strange noise off to my right, something crunching, tearing. It persisted, so I turned my head to look. “Oh shit!” The words escaped me before I could even register. The beast started. Our eyes locked. It has been over four years, and I still remember every detail of him. How he was grey and not black, the imperfections in his coat, the gravelly bumpiness of his horns, how a piece of grass hung from his charcoal maw. It’s still crystal clear; it’s still completely frozen in my mind. Seconds, minutes, decades; all could have passed while I stared into this bull’s eyes. Finally he turned his head and went back to eating the grass. My sister and I ran, though we did turn back to see. We wanted to know how close we came. It had been too close.

2008-01-01

1/180 sec, f 6.3, ISO 100, 250 mm

Cages

noreply@blogger.com (Bryht) — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 07:59:00 +0000

The bars that keep us from some places are plain and obvious. The bars that enclose us in life are less conspicuous. But I stood before an obvious barrier on my quarter-century expedition. There is no curiosity like that which longs for the past. The black and white mosaics made me long to stride on them Their simple geometric patterns called to me. Yet I was forbidden. A gate is to be respected in the sharp and physical realms, but a gate is just an invitation when it comes to our own abilities. Every person possesses all the keys for our own lives. We can struggle and yell and crash against the things that hold us back, but in the end, those cages are made of only our own minds. I do hope that you and I are old enough to see these keys, to let the locks clack open and be as nothing. We only limit ourselves through our perceptions; maybe we should all let go of our “cannots” and follow our “cans.”

2009-07-18

1/180 sec, f 6.7, ISO 100, 23.13 mm

Sick Day

noreply@blogger.com (Bryht) — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 04:29:00 +0000

Taking a sick day; it's been a tiring weekend.

Madre's Flower

noreply@blogger.com (Bryht) — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 01:56:00 +0000

I asked mi madre last night what she would like to see on my photoblog. Her first response: something with color. Her second was something green. So here it is, a delicate Sierra wildflower. A friend and I attempted camping last summer. Alas all the campsites were full, but we managed to have a fantastic hike anyway. It was August, and yet the hillsides were still alive and painted with wildflowers. Our hike was long and breathless, yet I can say that I gained an appreciation for elements of dwarfish beauty that such grand mountains could contain. There is a balance between the gigantic and the miniature, a symbiosis between the tiny paint strokes and the masterpiece itself. This strange upside-down parasol was a part of the whole creation. I’m just glad I noticed her before someone crushed her scarlet petals.

2011-08-13

1/400 sec, f 8.0, ISO 800, 250 mm

Happy Four Years!

noreply@blogger.com (Bryht) — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 19:01:00 +0000

Four years ago, I returned from Africa, fired with a passion for photography. I wanted to do something real with my pictures, something meaningful, and I was struck with the idea to start a photo-blog. I haven’t always been consistent in my postings, but I’ve always come back, and it has always been important to me. And here I am, celebrating four years of pictures, four years of writings, four years of exploration. I hope that my words have touched someone, that maybe I inspired someone else to take up a camera and start traveling. That would be more than wonderful, even though just sharing my pictures and my perspective are more than enough. It is the doing something that matters most, creating something outside of myself. It has been a good four years, and I hope for many more.

2011-12-30

1/100 sec, f 4.5, ISO 100, 29.38 mm

Gold Plumage

noreply@blogger.com (Bryht) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 09:00:00 +0000

The landscape was stark, all browns, greens and greys. It was hard not to be overwhelmed by the mud, the rain and that ever-present fishy penguin smell. Yet the landscape was dotted with brightness; vibrant flames of orange and gold lit up the hillside, a hundred thousand strong. This was Gold Harbour. They are the Kings. The most regal of penguin and named in honor of His Majesty George, handsome does not begin to describe them. I think the thing I adore most about them is their voices; they trumpet. Neither riotous nor cacophonous, a King penguin’s fanfare is magnificent, their children’s whistling comforting, and for me, I found myself enamored with their royal presence. Yes, several hundred thousand; yes, loud; yet how could I not adore their curiosity in me, their innocence, their complete love of being an aquatic avian.

2012-01-03

1/320 sec, f 6.3, ISO 200, 250 mm

One Word: Hard

noreply@blogger.com (Bryht) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 08:30:00 +0000

South Georgia is beautiful. Simply put. So few have heard of this fair isle (can you even locate it on a map?); it wasn't even made widely famous by Shackleton's hellish trek. A combination of light, sea, shale, and penguin; there is one word that truly describes her: hard. Hard land, hard people, hard life. She will make or more often break men to her will, and as such I respect her. I witnessed closely how dangerous this unbreakable, rigid island is. I watched firsthand a harsh lesson in her unforgiving nature. One cannot endure here without being strong, without embracing the cold, the shale, the icy rain and the constant peril. Look closely, look at her beauty. It is sharp, unforgiving, and completely vibrant. I will return.

2012-01-02

1/640 sec, f 9.0, ISO 100, 25 mm

To The South

noreply@blogger.com (Bryht) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 08:30:00 +0000

How do I even begin to explain a place like this? It wasn’t cold, not really, but ice and snow layered everything. How clear and peaceful, the end of the world was; how sharp and dark, her islands. As desolate as all the tales of the southern continent are, they fail completely to describe her summers: she teems with life. Birds abound; seals porpoise all about, and whale spouts dot the horizon. I walked with hundreds of thousands of king penguins; I hiked mountains; I watched humpbacks lunge-feeding; I communed with the albatross. It would take a colder soul than mine to not be moved by my journey. I don’t know how my path changed, but I know that it has. I’m going back. A phrase oft quoted on the ship: “Antarctica is like a classical mistress; once she has you in her grasp, she’ll never let you go.” I happily clasp her frozen fingers.

2012-01-11

1/50 sec, f 10.0, ISO 200, 25 mm

Icy Return

noreply@blogger.com (Bryht) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 19:01:00 +0000

A half-birthday and another half-turn of the planet. This turn has sent me both to the skies and to Terra Australis. I flew as a bird with canvas and aluminum wings, and hope to gain my own pair someday. I traveled to my fifth continent, the great Southern mystery, and a land my father has told me stories of my entire life. I hoped to follow in some of his footsteps: to swim in Deception Island, to smell the foul colonies of Emperors, to see no night. I hope that I feel happiness this day, that I can appreciate that I am balancing on the cusp of so many unbelievable experiences, that I could lose myself in just being alive. Everyday is the beginning of a fantastic adventure, whether a person is fifteen or fifty. Embrace it. Embrace every second of it.

2011-09-03

1/100 sec, f 8.0, ISO 100, 18 mm

Angels and Angles

noreply@blogger.com (Bryht) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 08:01:00 +0000

I have a big thing for stairways and archways. I could create a book from either through my fixated journeys, but here I found one most unique and pleasing. The Clementino Museum has a play on perspective, a teasing of domes. I like the coloring and the combination of patterns; it’s utterly classic and poignantly marble. Darkly beautiful, I am so mixed by religious monuments. I think I should ignore the locale, focus on the mathematical pleasure of such a sight. Sometimes we must forget ideology in order to simply enjoy a beauty, to let ourselves be purely aesthetic.

2009-07-12

1/30 sec, f 3.5, ISO 200, 18 mm

The Oldest Elephant in the Forest

noreply@blogger.com (Bryht) — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 08:01:00 +0000

His eyes have seen, and now he wanders the crater, passing his last days on the world. Elephants never die from old age; they die from starvation. It is a tragedy of biology that an elephant can only survive as long as his teeth. He receives five sets during a lifetime; each lasting around ten years. After that, he can no longer properly chew the fronds and leaves he requires, and thus cannot digest his needed nourishment. I can imagine that the end is slow and agonizing, utterly unfair for a creature nearly as intelligent as humans. This lone bull has had decades of experiences; it’s a shame to see those disappear for nought.

2008-01-05

1/180 sec, f 6.3, ISO 200, 250 mm

Christmas Tree Iguana

noreply@blogger.com (Bryht) — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 08:01:00 +0000

Merry Christmas! (And a happy Chanukah as well). Here is a biological anomaly. The Galapagos has a variety of iguanas that actually swim in the ocean. But here’s the magic: an iguana’s coat is determined by its diet, and on these few magical isles, red and green algae are the staple. The result: scales of a myriad of greens, reds and blacks, playfully nicknamed the “Christmas Tree Iguana,” and it was one of the many wondrous sights the Galapagos has to offer.

2010-08-28

1/250 sec, f 6.3, ISO 100, 250 mm

Gypsy Themes

noreply@blogger.com (Bryht) — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 08:01:00 +0000

I was listening to one of my random classical music collections when this image appeared on my desktop. The sudden combination of sound and sight proved to be more than compelling to me. When I was much younger, a friend and I would go on drives together, typically to isolated spots around our hometown. We’d park, and then start listening to music. We’d close our eyes and let ourselves drift away with the melodies. Afterward we would describe to each other what images the music created in our minds. We would see colors and blooming vines; pictures and plots would flow through us set to a theme from someone else’s imagination. It was a very good memory, a feeling this sudden combination brought back to me. I hadn’t thought of it, and how very special that experience was to me, in years.

2010-09-03

1/60 sec, f 4.5, ISO 100, 18 mm

Navona

noreply@blogger.com (Bryht) — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 07:59:00 +0000

I have a recording from my birthday trip to Italy; it was exciting for me to preserve the auditory as well as the visual. It’s grainy, more wind than anything else, but it still takes me right back to the Piazza Navona. There is the faint sound of a saxophone, some street player hoping for a euro or two; his melodies echoed off the buildings. I heard laughter, its Italian cadence more comfortable than English, and young voices in more tongues than I could identify. The best part was at the end: a didgeridoo. I felt young and alive then, just days away of being twenty-five. It was a great place to be at any age, and so typically Italian with its fountain and market stalls, and I still find myself grateful at being able to pass such a time in the piazza.

2009-07-11

1/750 sec, f 8.0, ISO 100, 18 mm