The mystery of life isn’t a problem

We were quietly looking around for Sunstones as the sky shifted to deep blue and then purple sunset-tones. The gentle, desert-baked glimmer captured in those stones felt like an echoing brilliance of this massive April “pink” moon that was somehow quickly floating over some Eastern Oregon mountains.

Ben: I couldn’t help but feel a bit of awe realizing how the best answers are often just right there, kind of floating in front of you, in the quiet beauty of the present moment.

Moon: Life isn’t something to be solved, but to be experienced.

Red Velvet Cake

It’s a bit slower going, but it also sounds pretty compelling… heck, these hills almost look edible.

If nothing else, it might be more photogenic than the rest of that valley. It’s pretty up here, for sure- but the road gets pretty sketchy at times, too. Doesn’t look like anyone really heads this way much.

As the sun starts to go down, the setting colors splashed onto the surrounding mountains reminds you of pictures you’ve seen of Oregon’s Painted Hills.

Other than the wind, it’s really peaceful… but still you start to think that heading North as long as possible might have been the best idea. It’s generally less hot in that direction, right? It’s only a passing thought- you definitely don’t have the gas to cover that kind of distance. Everything uphill around here is cooler at night, and it’s a lot closer.

“Well”, you think to yourself, “If I’ve got 200 miles to cover with what’s left of these gasoline dregs, I better not try back-tracking now.”

You take a long, deep breath and keep driving towards El Dorado…

“This better be worth it.”

GREEK

You walk around inside the cemetery for a few dozen paces, trying hard not to actually step on the graves. There’s just so many… and all are packed about as close together as they can be without basically being right on top of each other.

A lot of the gravestones are in various states of disrepair and a few (like this one) are really strange… this is a lone plank of wood with a couple of screws sticking out of it marking the remains with one conclusive, five-letter word: GREEK …and that’s all it says.

It must mean something to someone, but not you. This place is starting to feel really weird, almost noisy.

You beat a hasty retreat, considering the setting sun and all-too-vivid thoughts of ghosts.

Tonopah Plague

It’s kind of hard not noticing this insanely packed little graveyard on your way into Tonopah. There’s several hundred graves, and it looks like they were filled in only ten years.

There’s a metal placard that says some fourteen miners fell victim to the Tonopah-Belmont Mine fire of February 23, 1911. The others all appear to be Tonopah’s pioneer residents who fell victim to a mysterious 1902 “Tonopah Plague”. The placard goes on to say that no one ever could figure out where this plague came from or what it really was, just that it killed most of the town off.

The sun’s going down. You can check out a grave up close or just continue on past the graveyard.

Painted Sky

Throwback to 2008: Mikah Sykes playing guitar during an impromptu live acoustic set at “Heaven” also known as the Skidmore Bluffs, in North Portland.

The sky was overcast but still glowing a little, so I took some creative license on the color. I don’t normally bend colors to such extremes, but sometimes (I’m looking at you, shots of people silhouetted by the sunset) …it just feels good to get crafty, no?

Nice Lamp Tree

I love it when people wire lamps into the branches of their trees. This particular lamp is hanging up in a junkyard in Las Vegas.

Cara Mia

Hey it’s throwback WEEK over here while I continue to sift through some great old images. This is an older shot of model Cara Mia, shot near the Mississippi neighborhood (Portland, OR) back in 2010. She’s got a bit more ink these days and is still doing tons of great modeling, I understand. Once I get a grip on this workflow of mine, I look forward to doing more casual, fun work like this shoot.