and kisses for the lasses

i got back from mccall yesterday, where i spent most of my time curled up in a giant papasan chair, reading the books i got for christmas and trying to write a bit of poetry. there was also much taking of pictures. i’ll probably make a second post about all the marvelous things i’ve read lately, because right now i want to focus on photos.

during the summer i’m all about close-up photography, really connecting and sometimes interacting with the subject. but during the winter it’s much more detached, resulting in a lot of landscape shots, which i don’t really like…it just seems like anyone can take landscape photos, there’s not much challenge to it, and the result is not nearly as interesting. recently i started cropping landscapes to non-standard, panorama-type sizes. the aspect ratios turn out completely different on all of them, so they look funky next to each other, but it's fun and liberating not to have to fit in to the usual 2:3, 5:7 or 4:5, or any pre-set standard.

i walked down to payette lake…it’s not far, our cabin is just across the bridge and down the street from the little tourist lake-area, but it was a bit of an ordeal walking along the highway with all that snow. it reminded me of the time i rode my bike to the mccall thrift store and got caught in a huge rain storm, without any rain-protection and no fenders on my bike. just about everyone i passed was staring at me, and they probably thought i was insane because i was completely drenched, muddy, freezing, with mascara running down my cheeks, and laughing my fucking head off the entire way. i couldn’t get over the hilarity of the situation, despite the discomfort of it.

three snow-covered cars, belonging to our nearest neighbors, whom my parents refer to as “the bumpuses.” they typically have about 5-10 broken-down cars in their yard, along with a lot of other crap that makes their property look really goddamn classy.

this is one of the wee little out-buildings on my parents property. the previous owners said a writer lived there for a while. i can’t imagine living in that tiny room…it has electricity, but no heat or gas or running water—imagine roughing it like that, especially when there’s two feet of snow on the ground! i really wonder what that person was writing about. in my imagination, s/he was writing on an old typewriter, by the light of an old gas lamp, with a cot in the corner and a little wash basin. it’s kind of a cool romantic thing to think about.

the snow was well over andy’s head, but still he plowed through it, with his tiny little munchkin-dog legs, wearing his new christmas “spa robe;” he blazed trails all throughout the back yard, and lucifer tripoded along behind.

on the night of christmas eve i ventured out and took some pictures of all the lights, and the full(?) moon. 1600 ISO works wonders. i was even able to write messages in the snow and take pictures of them using the cabin’s outside lights as the only light source.

i took a lot of pictures out the window on the ride home. i loved how these cows were lined up on the very top of a hill, so symmetrically; also the backlighting made for a neat effect.

the drive back was mostly clear, but there was a short snowstorm at one point…luckily it cleared up just before we hit the curvy/dangerous part of the highway.

the view of horseshoe bend, from highway 55.