The Japanese maples in autumn are in all their fiery beauty. Wandering around Kyoto with my camera I felt the need to write poetry. Hence these two haiku, the form…
Saihoji, the serene Zen moss garden in Kyoto, is known—-as you’d expect—-for moss. The Japanese Maples in the garden are also wonderful, and beautifully tended. Here are two photos showing…
This Japanese white pine with its imposing roots was originally a bonsai given by the 11th Tokugawa Shogun, Ienari, to the ninth lord of Takamatsu, Matsudaira Yorihiro, in Edo (Tokyo)…
Exiled to remote Shikoku, the sad samurai played the Biwa beneath this waterfall in melancholy melodies of their distant home.
This pair of camphor trees were standing tall near the epicenter when the bomb fell on Nagasaki. Blasted and burnt they were thought to be dead in the wasteland. In…
Creating Compelling Compositions Masterclass is an online workshop I will be giving on December 15, 2025 at 10am PT. Click here to register. My workshop is sponsored by The Nook, and…
The other day I set out to create a mandala using flower petals on my light box. The mandala uses petals that I plucked from alstroemeria, with the center formed…
I had great fun yesterday photographing a rose in my garden after an overnight shower. In the morning, the rose had wonderful, small water drops on its petals. I used…
I'm lucky enough to have scored a Leica Noctilux 50mm f/0.95 lens (used, but in excellent condition). The lens is most interesting I think wide-open at f/0.95. Yes, you read…
Before planting the beast of a cactus in a pot along our front porch, I photographed the plant in its black, plastic pot indoors using my Leica Monochrom M11 with…
The Split Rock Plant (Pleiospilos nelli) looks for all the world like it is made of small stones, each one dabbed with dots (see the black and white images at…
To make these portraits of an up-close-and-personal Western sword fern (Polystichum munitum) frond beginning to unfurl, I used my 135mm lens on a bellows. This is the same setup I…
The Gazania, commonly known as the African Daisy, is a highly heliotropic flower. This means that it opens in direct sunshine, and closes back up in the evening (or on…
I found the magnificent Columbia River gorge somewhat diminished (in gestalt if not in topography) since my previous visit years ago. Maybe this had to do with the time of…
I spent a few days on the Oregon coast in a model photography workshop. I primarily worked in black and white with my Leica Monochrom M11 using an orange filter.…
I’ve enjoyed photographing today at the Portland Japanese Garden. The garden bills itself as the most beautiful Japanese garden outside of Japan. This may well be true, and it may…
Yesterday I built a small spiral in our garden below a specimen Japanese maple tree. I constructed the spiral using small rocks as the border for an aggregation of miniature…
Yesterday I decided that my Serpentine Sunflower (Helianthus bolanderi) was getting a bit "long in the tooth" (insert favorite joke about serpents and teeth here). Indoors, I deconstructed the sunflower…