There is a truck in my neighborhood. It's an old truck. I don't know nearly enough about cars to be able to begin to tell you anything interesting about it (nor could I find anything that piqued my non-car-loving interest on the internet), but I do know it's a Chevrolet Apache 10. Oh, and the color of the truck is amazing.

I took some shots of the truck today, as I walked around the neighborhood. I frequently bring my camera with me as I walk, and I often find interesting things to shoot, but I don't always take the shot that I want.

Check out those rims! The color or this truck makes me want to eat ice cream.

I wonder about the owners of the things I want to photograph. If I looked out my window one day, and saw someone in my front yard taking pictures, it would be a little creepy. I definitely don't want to be that person. And yet, this truck is just sitting there, being all minty, begging to be my model.

So, then, what to do? Mostly, I just keep my camera to myself, or stick to shooting things that are definitely hanging over into the realm of the sidewalk. Or, I walk past the same thing over and over again before I get up the courage to take a picture. Like with the truck. It's been parked in front of the same house for at least 10 years. I finally took pictures of it today.

What have you always wanted to take a picture of?

There's nothing quite like an aquarium with dramatic lighting for capturing phyla-without-faces. These were taken at the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, Oregon, while waiting for my step-cousin (?) to give a whale talk as part of her current internship. Unfortunately, we missed the whale talk, but we did get a behind-the-scenes tour complete with a sneak peak at Pearl, the new octopus currently in quarantine and hidden from visitors. Don't worry, you can watch Pearl in her isolation tank from home on the "octocam." The former octupant was Ursula, who was released from... a cooler on December 23rd. Pearl was so named because she was acquired by the center on December 7th, on the 70th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor.

But enough about things with lots of legs, here are some photos of things with lots of... things:

This fern is growing in my mother's front yard. It's called an "Australian Tree Fern."

Being from the PNW, I take a lot of photographs of ferns, and having spent so much time with the native ferns of this lovely temperate rainforest, I would have expected something different based on the name. The Licorice Fern grows as single fronds anchored to tree trunks. It's a fern that grows on trees, primarily the trunks of Bigleaf Maples. A tree fern.

Australian tree ferns, on the other hand, are so called because they grow to be the size of a tree. This one pictured isn't that big yet, but it definitely towers over its PNW cousins. I'm accustomed to taking photographs of fiddleheads while squatting, crouching, or laying on the ground. This one was eye-level, and I'm pretty tall.

Things I love about photography: ocean shots, sunsets, and long exposures.
Things I don't love about photography: sitting somewhere uncomfortable (like perched precariously on a sharp rock), keeping the drops off my lens when it's raining sideways, and fingers so cold I have a hard time manipulating the controls on my camera.

All of the above came into play for this shot. I had no idea all of these colors were lurking under the surface. The original shot had white-balance issues, and when I corrected those, all these shades of pink emerged. Also, the water was over exposed; correcting that problem revealed surreal textures.

Maybe there should be a unicorn prancing about in the background somewhere...

Two delightful baby rabbits spent the day in the classroom before heading off to their new home. Baby rabbits need names, of course, and it is the solemn duty of teachers, just as it is the solemn duty of older brothers, to horrify children as often as possible. So, we named the rabbits after ways to cook rabbit, inspired by Elmer Fudd: Fricassee and Rotisserie (the one pictured here is Fricassee).

Elmer Fudd: Got you, you wabbit stew, you.
Bugs Bunny: Look, Doc. Are you looking for trouble? I'm not a stewing rabbit. I'm a fricasseeing rabbit.

I had to look up Fricassee, and it turns out, Bugs Bunny is even funnier than I thought. Fricassee is a way of stewing meat in gravy. A fricasseeing rabbit is a stewing rabbit.

After a student had been cuddling with Rotisserie for a while, she very innocently asked me what Rotisserie meant. I told her it meant "to skewer on a spit and roast slowly." The absolutely appalled look on her face was priceless.

We also found this recipe for Bunny Burgers, and left it casually displayed on the computer screen.

Of course, these rabbits are not going to be eaten. They're pets, and the students know that. But it's fun, for just a little while, to evoke their protective instincts and the most indignant expressions they can muster.

Fricassee and Rotisserie are sisters, and they like nothing more than to cuddle with each other in the corner of their cage (soon to be a deluxe hutch), usually with Fricassee serving as the mattress.

So, there I was, stuck in traffic again. This time it took me 45 minutes to travel a distance that Google Maps says should take me 4 minutes. Normally that's true, but every once in a while the traffic gods want me to take some photographs, I guess.

And since this qualifies as not planning to take a photograph, but then seeing a shot I just couldn't pass up, I'll file it in my Lazy 365 category. If I had passed up this shot, it would have been ridiculous, since I was sitting there, inching forward, for forty five minutes!

My three favorites from my commute, leaning out my unrolled driver side window with my camera are below. I'm pretty sure I like the one above the best, but I'm open to critiques.

My favorite kind of sky: Dark, clear, and starry as all get out. Huge expanses of sky (for extra stars) are a plus, too. So while I love exciting topography and tall, tall trees, they just get in the way where stars are concerned.

I'm forever trying to get a good sky shot. This was a pretty good attempt. The full moon lit up the sand pretty well, but Orion and his mutts, Canis Major and Canis Minor are still clearly visible.

This photograph is guest hosting over on SkyWatch this week!

It's hard to say where or when inspiration will strike. I find myself trying hard to rationalize my inspiration when it's for something exceptionally silly.

Take my Birds in Heels, for example. For some reason, birds wearing bright red high heels struck me as funny at one point, and I had to do something about it.

And now this... I can't even really say how this came about, but it turned into a cat with a hopelessly touristy fashion sense, setting out to see the world. He visits all the gift shops. He can't leave until he has a photo of himself in front of wherever he is. He's not very original with his poses. He has lots of frequent flier miles. He never steals hotel towels, but he just can't resist those little bottles of shampoo. Maybe you'll see him hanging around your favorite monument someday.

Have a good photograph of somewhere you think Claude the traveling cat ought to visit? Send it to me, and Claude just might fancy a trip. He'll send you a postcard when he gets there.

As I was getting directions to a dinner party last week, I noticed that I would be in the hills on a street called "Vista." Seems like there's only one reason it would be named such a thing; I threw my camera and tripod in the car just in case. On the way there, I noticed the glorious view, and was particularly enchanted by the blue‐green lights of the convention center.

The dinner party was lovely, and as we drove home, I forced my roommates to stand with me in the cold midnight air so I could take a few photos. Unfortunately, the lights at the convention center were no longer aglow, but everything else was a lovely purple hue.

Just today, my prints arrived (and I had just been thinking to myself, "someday, my prints will come!") and I eagerly opened them to see how they turned out. I showed my roommates. I loved the responses. "We live there?" "That doesn't look like Portland. That looks like Las Vegas." "Wait, I was standing next to you when you took that photograph? I don't remember seeing that."

They still don't have titles, but they will be available for purchase soon.