Ann-alog, a Pixel Remix, where Ann Torrence blogs about photographing for a book on U.S. Highway 89, the greatest road trip route in America. Photography tips, locations, trip reports, and real life.

Boot bouquet, Blue & yellow #1

I generally agree with Thoreau:

However, if I am going to learn to ride a horse, I need appropriate footwear. These boots are mine, purchased last month in Wickenburg from a lady saddle-maker named Karen. Next task: find a horse. In the meantime, don't you love the stars on the shaft? And they are as comfortable as Karen promised - I wore them 10 hours the first day, on a horrendous trip to Ikea. Brand is Twisted X Boots (site under construction), which I recommend if you need some cowboy (or girl) casual.

Paint spatters

I like this a lot, including the yellow in the upper left corner. Taken backstage before my nieces' Nutcracker performance, it is a wall against which many sets must have been painted.

Today, I had to cut an essay down by 40%. The first 20% may have improved it; by 30%, I was losing content and it was getting dense. The last 10% was hard. I should have cut 10% more to meet the "suggested guidelines", but I didn't. If "suggested guidelines" really means "rigidly enforced rule," then I might not like the outcome. But I can't do anything about that. I wrote concisely, informatively and persuasively. If they count a few extra words against me, so be it.

R will probably make super-ultra-kabillion-mile badge (of honor or shame?) again this year, unless Delta rewrites the rules of the game in the merger talks. Would be nice if all those miles could be used for trips to NZ or Australia, but I'm not going anywhere that's not on Highway 89 for a while anyway.

He bought me these little softies in Nagoya on his last trip with Bryan. Apparently the two of them had a quite fine time shopping the vast collection of Japanese licensed cartoon character merchandise, completely out of any cultural context, other than that the Japanese seem to love the genre. These two characters could be mortal enemies for all we know, although not likely. Could those be anything other than little friendly faces? Before I make up a highly improbable back-story (escapees from a exploratory space program, running away to avoid a certain doom like poor Laika), does anyone know anything about them?

I found them on Friday, when I was packing up stuff to take to the Photowalk. I meant to stow them in with the Christmas stuff. It wasn't until I grabbed the cardboard studio box to make this quick shot that I got the message: boy and girl plushie. It's so romantic, and I can be so slow sometimes.

Just lurking around the corner...

We have some odd stuff at the palace. R picked this up on our Montana voyage. It was not an easy thing to pack home when you are living and sleeping in a 4Runner that is already full with camera gear, camping gear, food, cooler, fishing poles, did I mention camera gear? Luckily, he got it on the last few days of the trip, and we stuffed laundry all around it to protect its fragile teeth. No calamities ensued, and now it sits as a sort of totem on his desk at home. The dino keeps company with the pelican skull, the rainbow of optical prisms, the poison-tipped spears his father left him. Not that I am pointing fingers, just mentioning that I have a large selection of objects to photograph. The glow-in-the-dark Virgin Mary my friend brought me from Lourdes is in the queue too. But not together with the dino. That would be very wrong.

Straws in a pitcher

In a short break from our usual topics, I present this photo just because I like it, the festive colors, the optical transformation, the simple subject.

Thinking about straws reminds me of a story. At the end of an Alaskan rafting trip, our party got to the place where 4 tiny little planes were going to swoop in and transport us back to civilization. R had fallen ill, it was raining, and one couple in particular had worn out the group's patience. We were huddled in a shed next to the gravel srip when the pilots radioed that they couldn't fly because of the weather. We were looking at a four day storm, they said. I went out in the rain to set up the tent, to get R some privacy for his misery, and to have something to do other than listen to "that" couple complain. And I heard a plane. One plane.

The women drew straws to see who would get the seats. The nicest lady in the world, a 60+ year old second grade teacher free from any pretense or suspicion, held the straws. And I am sure she rigged it to get the disagreeable couple out first.

In the event, the other planes came in. I doubt the pilots should have flown at all, since the clouds were only 300' above the beach, but what do I know about Alaskan bush pilots? I took down the (now wet) tent, had a momentary panic about getting into a craft the size of a cracker box piloted by a guy missing a front tooth, got in anyway, and returned to a land of porcelain fixtures, coffee and credit cards. And now I don't trust anyone to hold the straws.