Raw Earth Ink
Spit mixed with dirt – Muddy words flow
Ice and Snow Winter Photography
Hi friends, here’s another little glimpse at my little bit of Alaska. It was fairly chilly, relatively speaking, for a few weeks but now it’s been in the warm high-teens to mid-twenties (Fahrenheit degrees)… excluding wind chill of course. I can’t believe how warm it’s been and how little snow we’ve gotten. I hope that changes for the next month to build back up the water table and all that. I hope you enjoy these.
Frozen River.
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Mount Spur (volcano) highest point on the right of these screen.
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they say don’t look at the sun… I think its just so we won’t see how pretty it is. I’ve doing a lot of sun-gazing lately.
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No camera filter, by the way… the cloud-layer was just perfect.
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Of course, gotta have some ocean ice.
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And I love textures.
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Never get tired of this view.
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It’s a little deceiving how big these boulders actually are. Not huge but… like 3-4′ tall each.
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I braved hypothermia for these photos. It was worth it. This giant piece of ice is easily 10-12′ tall. You know it’s cold when the salty ocean freezes. This comes from the mouth of the river and the harbor then gets beached on the uh… beach.
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tara caribou | ©2021
All images taken by me.
Photography – Textures Edition
Hello friends, I’d like to share with you another set of photos. In these, I was thinking about texture. I hope you enjoy them.
Ash clouds after volcano eruption. Anchor Point, Alaska
Snow in ocean channel. Douglas, Alaska
Peach leaf. Washington
Wheat field. Washington
Can’t remember the name of this plant.
Wheat and lentil fields on the Palouse from on top Steptoe Mountain, Washington.
Cliffs above the Pacific Ocean. Cape Disappointment, Washington
Cottonball clouds.
Lakeside late winter. Eastern Washington
Lichen on rocks. Lake Lenore Caves, Washington
Grewingk Glacier, Kenai Peninsula, Alaska
Foamy ocean. Near Homer, Alaska
Fireworks in St. Marie’s, Idaho
Cedar tree.
Seaweed at low tide. Washington coast.
Fractals with snow and branches.
Train trestle. Off in the mountains near St. Marie’s Idaho
Low tide sandy beach. Near Homer, Alaska
Berries on dogwood. Spokane, Washington
Burning logs. Snake River, Washington
tara caribou | ©2021
All photos by me. Going through my archives… made me remember, I used to take photos. I always had my camera with me. And I used to really really enjoy it.
Winter Photos January 2021
Hi friends, I hope you’ll like this batch of photos from my corner of rural Alaska. What lovely winter weather we’re having ❄️💕
Fresh bunny trail.
tara caribou | ©2021
All images by me. PS: if there’s a series of photos you’d like to see me post, let me know in the comments.
Video: September 2020 Flying With Crows
One afternoon at the beach, I met with a murder (or mob… I think I prefer mob…) of crows. I flew amongst their midst and was accepted. *No audio, it was such a windy day all you could hear on the video was wind.
tara caribou | ©2021 video by me
Nature Photos: Up Close and Personal
Hi friends, today I have twenty close-up photos for your pleasure. I hope you enjoy them.
tara caribou | ©2021
Video: 28 December 2020 Slow Motion Wave Crash
Everybody around me seems to constantly be going, going, going. Looking at their phones. Talking non-stop with no pauses or thoughtful reflection. Working on and off the clock. Even sitting at the table or on the couch in the evening, television turned on the big screen and the little hand-held devices powered up…
In The Moment
“I’m writing,” she says in a clipped tone, her fingers barely pausing in their rapid dance across worn-down grey keys. Of course she is. She always is. If she’s not writing, she’s painting, if she’s not painting, she’s sketching, sketching becomes graphic design, graphic design becomes writing… I begin to wonder where I fit into her world.
“What about?”
“You.” Clickety-clickety-click.
“….And…?” my wrist rolls around and around, hoping to conjure more depth. She doesn’t pause.
“You mentioned something last night, got me….” tappedy-tappedy-tap “..got me thinking. Not important…” her voice trails off and I know she’s far too deep inside her own head to hear another word.
Still I try again. “I got some great shots of the high tide this afternoon…. the kelp was churning in the waves… maybe,” I soldier on to the drumbeat of rapid key clicks, raise my voice a little, “maybe you’ll come with me tomorrow? I could photograph you with the sun in your hair…”
“mmmhhmm,” she hums, not fully committed.
She’s beautiful. She doesn’t believe me when I tell her that either. It’s only the art, the creating, that matters. It’s all in the beholder’s eyes. Except when it comes to her and me.
“I love you,” I say quietly. The desk lamp makes her hair glow, not as gloriously as in the setting sun, but still…. a strand has loosened itself from her bun and rests on her shoulder, soft as a feather. The moment lengthens as I gaze at her, brow slightly furrowed, chewing her lip, fingers flying, her foot tapping to some internal metronome. I wonder what I said last night. I wonder what she thinks about it. I wonder what she’s writing. I recall the kelp thrown against the rocks, lifeless now in winter, broken to pieces, helpless and at the mercy of the cold relentless waves. The moment had stretched on and on, just like this one.
I turn and walk out of the room, picking up my camera as I pass it. The waves are beckoning. Just before the front door closes, I hear her say distractedly, “…hmm? What was that, babe?”
I wonder what I said as well.
tara caribou | ©2021
Flash fiction inspired by the video.
Nature Photography: Sunset Edition
It’s no secret I’m a night owl. I could probably count the number of sunrises I’ve actually seen on two hands… I might be exaggerating, because where I live here in Alaska in summer, sunrise and sunset aren’t too far apart. I’ve been awake to witness the rise about the time I’m going to sleep…
I hope you enjoy twenty of some of my favorite photogenic sunsets.
Thanks for hanging out,
tara caribou | ©2021
All photos taken by me. Also, I apologize if some are repeats from previous posts, I don’t always remember which I’ve used on not. 😌
Video: 08 Jan 2020 Trickling Water Over Sea Ice
It was cold. Really cold. In fact, it hadn’t been over negative Fahrenheit for over a month, and it was only January. Winter lasts a long time in Alaska. It would be another two months before it would raise past single digits. Just a few days prior I had suffered a traumatic physical experience which saw me in shock and bleeding without stopping for hours, which turned into days.
I was weak. Body and soul. I was hurting. I was alienated. I needed to get outside. Let nature touch me as only it can. I was driven to the beach at my request and out I clambered of the truck, ice and negative degrees be damned.
Typically, the waves are crashing on my beach but today, it was calm. So calm and quiet. The sea water was freezing. Laying micro-thin layers and layers of ice on the sand, rocks, coal, and sticks which litter the beach. On top of the gently moving water was a thin layer of ice as well, though this was broken into small sheets with the movement constantly mushing them together and breaking them apart. These ice rafts varied in size and sat just slightly below the surface.
It was divine. It was magic. It was healing. I squatted near the edge of the high-tide mark, looking out at it all. Trying not to breathe in too deep because it was so cold in my lungs. Tears ran down my cheeks and they burned and froze.
Questions flooded my mind. Why do these things happen? What if….? Gratefulness, in spite of it all. I will be okay. But what if…? No point in obsessing. Look around. It’s so damn beautiful. I’ve never seen the beach just like this. And tomorrow it will be different. It will be the same. But it will be different. Like me. Tomorrow is a new day. I will never be who I was yesterday again.
I am the same. I am different.
tara caribou | ©2021
*video and story are mine from this same time last year. My how the days and months roll on…
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