In four days, I journey to New York, New York for the first time ever. Some of my photography work was solicited by the Students for a Free Tibet organization, for use in their Art for Tibet fundraiser. Since three of my photos will be hanging in a gallery in Tribeca for almost a week, along with many other works by artists much more notable than myself, my friends and family thought it would be prudent for me to attend the opening. In fact, when I mentioned to my friend Gregg that I hadn’t really thought about going and I was too busy anyway, his exact words were, “Are you #$%&ing stupid?!” right before he clubbed me in the head with his steak-sized palm.

So I bought a ticket to New York.

If you’re in the area and want to see the excitement, the show is at the Union Gallery, on 353 Broadway. The show opens at noon on Tuesday, Sept. 21st. I’ll be there then, and sporadically through the week. Otherwise, I’ll be wandering around the city, taking pictures and trying not to be overwhelmed by the fact that twice as many people live on the 22 square miles of Manhattan than on the 586,412 square miles of Alaska. YeeeeEEE!

If you’re not in the area but would still like to participate, the Art for Tibet website has an artist listing and online auction going for all the available pieces.

Here are the three I submitted:

This is day two of a lull in business, which is just fine by me. I’ve cleaned out the office, organized for my Mac class that starts next week, caught up on emails, and actually went outside and took some photos.

Today it’s overcast and sort of rainy, which means high contrast!

First, some sort of bee on a fireweed flower. Fuzzy!

I have no idea what this is, but it's bright and pretty!

Time to invade the flower's personal space. There are so many details that get missed on first glance.

Details like finding out this plant's sexual organs have bugs crawling all over them.

Another flower for a plant I don't know. I'm a font of useful information!

A fireweed leaf. Soon, this will be vibrant red. And then the snows arrive.

A fully bloomed fireweed flower reflected in a water drop on a fireweed flower bud. Foreshadowing!

One of the townie moose cows had twins this year, and they occasionally wander through and munch on the plants around our house. Mom is totally calm, though I still wouldn’t approach her on foot. The two calves are a little jumpy, probably because they spend an inordinate amount of time running away from loose dogs.

The whole gang.

Calm, but always aware.

Baby moose tocks.

Whut?

While Tyra was visiting, we took a trip with The Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies across Kachemak Bay to tour their field station in Peterson Bay. They have a house, a composting toilet complex and 4 yurts, where schools can bring classes for 3 to 5 day stays. There are a number of trails on the peninsula they occupy, as well as some spectacular tide pools.

Everything here in Homer is based on the tides. Cook Inlet and Kachemak Bay have the second highest tides in the world, next to the Bay of Fundy in Canada. Depending on where the moon is, low and high tide can differ by 28′! The best low tides are in the negatives, where the ocean recedes further than it usually does. We get a -4′ or -5′ tide every month or so, and everyone goes clam-digging since so much land is exposed.

All of that just to say: our low tide for this particular excursion sucked. It was, at its lowest, a +3.5′. So we took a hike in the forest with our naturalist guide, Dan. I learned an incredible amount on the hike, like the 4 different types of fern (Fox, Lady, Oak, Wood), elderberry leaves stink a lot and why the spruce beetle killing off huge swaths of trees isn’t a bad thing.

Fiddleheads unravelling to become ferns

I've been hoping to see this carnivorous plant since I learned they grow here, but I've never been able to find it. Dan had us get down on our hands and knees and search the sphagnum moss to find them. They're tiny! Smaller than a dime!

Fungus, ferns and wood

Some sort of seed case that was hanging from a small tree

Some sort of flower (obviously I didn't retain as much as I was hoping)

Some...other sort of flower. I think I need a review, Dan.

A lichen has taken over this dead tree.

All the standing dead spruce had these huge fungi all over them

Tyra was really excited about them

I didn't know fungus could sweat

This lichen, apparently somewhat rare, is called Fairy Barf by some lichen enthusiasts

We learned that a tree's second line of defence, after its bark, is to ooze sap everywhere. This one was putting up a good fight.

This spruce grouse let us follow it down the trail to take pictures

Our friend Tyra came up to visit last week, and we managed to do some pretty awesome things while she was here.

I have almost 30 photos to post, so I’m going to divide them up into separate entries to give them more attention.

First, photos taken on the water taxi rides.

Gull Island's arch

Gull Island's spire

Kittiwakes wonder why I'm taking pictures of their home

An otter snacks on mollusks

Red Faced Cormorants also wonder why I'm taking pictures of their homes

Pelagic Cormorants practice not looking at each other