I noticed this little trail in my back yard the other morning, just a few inches wide and ending in a thicket. I haven't seen so much as a squirrel in that part of the yard.

Bright sun on a bright, sunny, Big Sur morning, and me lucky enough to catch it.

The morning before my father-in-law's birthday found a big group of us walking along the beach near his house. I miss being up there sometimes, with so much beauty being so easy to find. Sometimes, though, the obvious stuff--the cliffs, the ocean, the hills, the trees--makes us forget to look for the things that need to be found. Things like the sky and the rocks making stripes on the surface of a rippling lagoon.

I decided recently to try my hand at a different way of shooting--what photographer and printer Ctein calls "stochastic photography." I suppose I should rather say that I decided to try getting back into it, or perhaps further into it, since this sort of intuitive, catch-as-catch-can shooting is something I did a lot of when I was first getting into photography. In any case, I'm fairly pleased with some of the results.

A few seconds later, most of this lovely detail was gone.

The wildflowers in my aunt's garden have apparently loved all the rain they've been getting lately.

I've been sitting on a bunch of pictures from the trip home I took over Christmas, mostly because I couldn't decide which to post. Ultimately, I came to the realization that they work better as a set than they do individually, and thus this post.

I think there must have been something in the air this weekend. It's not really hard to figure out, of course--a beautiful wedding, towering redwoods, pools of sunlight amid the shadows cast by the trees. Who wouldn't feel a little romantic?

Juliette always says that her older brother and sister-in-law have the best relationship, and, you know, I think she's onto something. I haven't seen many couples that fit together as well as they do. I remember telling them that once and they responded self-deprecatingly, saying something like "Oh, you should see us fight." But, of course, everybody fights with the people close to them sometimes. Not everybody has fun together, and not everybody is affectionate with each other, and not everybody is so obviously in love, especially after multiple decades of marriage. It's really something special, and I always like getting to spend time with them.

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Nikon D40, Nikkor 35mm f/1.8 DX
f/1.8, 1/4000, ISO 200

I set this picture as my new desktop wallpaper a few hours after I took it. I don't imagine that sounds like much to most of you, as most of the people I know change their wallpaper all the time. I've been using the same neutral background since I got my laptop in 2007, though, and this is the first time I've used a photograph as my wallpaper ever. But I think this might be the best picture I've ever taken, and I want to keep looking at it.

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Nikon D40, Nikkor 35mm f/1.8 DX
f/1.8, 1/100, ISO 200

"Dad, can I climb on this?"

"Yeah, I guess so. Do you need me to pick you up?"

"No, I can do it!"

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Nikon D40, Nikkor 35mm f/1.8 DX
f/2.8, 1/640, ISO 400