mmmmm mmmmmmm MOSSY!

A few months ago - one of my good friends, Malcolm - came over and stole me away from my work computer for a lovely drive out into the woods near Acme for some much needed fun and conversation. He knows me - and my love for broken down, rusty, falling apart and forgotten things - so that when he told me we were going to an old Saw Mill ... he neglected to tell me about the amazing moss covered truck that would greet me when we turned the corner. I think he just "forgot to mention it" so he could see my eyes light up and hear me squeal like a schoolgirl. I think I even bounced up and down in my seat and clapped my hands before frantically searching for the seat belt release so I could go attack one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen!

These are some of my favorite shots of the outside of the ol truck. I just cant get over how much moss is on that thing! Its glorious!

Now....now that youve seen the outside - let me show you what I found when I pulled the door open (it wasnt too happy with me and creaked and groaned and got a little stubborn on me...but I won in the end) - I was shocked to see that the keys were still in the ignition and there was moss dangling down from that too! I had a bit of a hard time getting shots without sun glare but these are the best of the bunch and I think they turned out pretty well :) Enjoy!

It was a great afternoon and an amazing gift from an amazing man. :) Thank you Malcolm for spending the day with me and showing me this wonderful piece of history and for that sparkle in your eye and the giant grins you get when you are watching me run around, squealing at old junked trucks - You are a treasure of another kind. :)

Peter Iredale Shipwreck - Sunset of my dreams

While on Vacation with my family in June - we made a stop at the Peter Iredale Shipwreck and played in the sand and explored the remains for a while during the day...then my wonderful husband sent me off on my own with my camera after all the kids were settled in their bunks back at the cabin - so I could go see if I could get the kind of sunset photos I have always hoped for...and wow...did I ever!

Not only was it the perfect weather (stormy with sun patches) but I got a sunset AND something rusty...all in one shot! I spent a good hour out there and watched the sky go from bright oranges, to deep purples and amazing yellows. I couldnt get over how different the sky looked from one minute to the next and when I turned around away from the wreckage toward the shore, I was taken aback by the incredible misty purple and pink of the sky. Here are some of my absolute favorite shots from the evening. I took over 600 pictures just of this sunset...let me tell ya, it was hard to pick just a handful...let alone pick out ONE favorite. But the first photo (above) ended up being the favorite of 8 of the 10 people I emailed for input and they all picked the winner!

I entered it in the Northwest Washington Fair this year - and when I rounded the corner of the arts building entrance, I saw my photo next to a giant ribbon (its bigger than the 11x14 photo I submitted!) for a "Best in Show" and first place for my division prize! Im always coming in second or getting honorable mentions - so I was super excited to finally have a first place ribbon to display. Its a great feeling. :)

I couldnt resist trying out a filter in my editing program that makes water shots look like they were shot during a bright moonlit night...this last one is titled "Ghost Ship" and has a totally different feel to it than it does in its original version.

If you are interested in purchasing any of these photos - please visit my online store.

Peter Iredale Shipwreck - 2008

*Family Photo by random stranger - thank you random stranger!*

When I was younger - we would occasionally visit my father's hometown of Hammond Oregon and then head down the coast a ways to Seaside. I dont have many actual memories of those trips.... but I do remember visiting this old ship from time to time.

It's changed alot over the past 30ish years and it was one of the stops I wanted to make when we took our kids down to the Oregon Coast for our family vacation this year. I wasnt disappointed! I got to spend a week with my family, at the beach, with beautiful sunsets and RUST! I couldnt have asked for a more perfect vacation!

According to Wikipedia - "The Peter Iredale was a 4 masted steel barque sailing vessel that ran ashore on October 25, 1906...it was abandoned on Clatsop Spit near Fort Stevens. The ship was named after Peter Iredale, who not only owned the vessel as part of his shipping fleet, but was also a well known figure in Liverpool, England where his business was headquartered...Sailing from Salina Cruz, Mexico...they were bound for Portland Oregon with 1000 pounds of Ballast and a crew of 27 including 2 stow aways..." Needless to say, it was swept ashore in some knarly winds and remains there today. You can read more about it here.

Now that you know some of the history behind this beauty, here are some of my favorite "Daytime" shots of her and the wonderous power of the ocean to reclaim the ship. You can see the barnacles that thrive on her skeleton, you can see where the waves have carved their names into the steel beams...its a wonderful experience and I encourage you to make a stop there to see her before shes consumed completely in the next few years.

I loved crawling inside her - looking out at the sky and the ocean from within the skeleton of the hull. Its quite awe inspiring to be standing in the shell of what used to be a great ship - that housed various human lives...and to sit and reflect on all of the stories that must have been created inside the walls that used to be there...who were they? I always get a little lost in thought when I visit old houses and places that used to be inhabited by people, years before me...

I went back later in the evening when the kids were all settled in bed and my husband hurried me out the door of the cabin to send me off to get some sunset pictures...Im SO glad I did! I got to take some of the best sunset shots of my life thus far - though Im sure someday Ill find another amazing opportunity.

Ill save those for a seperate blog...They have their own story to tell.

Rust fix

One of my dear friends, Malcolm, took me for a sunday drive this weekend for a much needed rust fix. Dont get me wrong...photographing brides and babies is alot of fun but going out into the woods and finding a nice hunk of rusted metal has got to be one of my all-time favorite things to do. Weird...I know. But look at all this beautiful decay - the colors, textures and life it still has when viewed through a different set of eyes. I found a ton of things to photograph - but you know me...I took over 300 photos just of THIS car...so Ill break each treasured find into different posts so this one doesnt scroll down for miles ;)

I LOVE THIS CAR!

I think one of my favorite things about man made junk piles - is that once they start to rot, all sorts of new plant life emerges. I found these little flowery weeds next to this giant heap of decaying metal - quite a lovely sight.

I am a macro nut. I love to get up close to things and make pictures of the small details that most people dont really stop to notice anymore. Here are some of my favorite parts of the car. From the handles to the windshield wipers and giant seas of rust and moss...mmmmmm. :)

Look!! Can you see me in the side mirror reflection?? :)

I love doing rust photos in color but something about old abandoned cars screams "BLACK AND WHITE!" to me. Its so hard to decide which I like better...so here are a few in black and white - I guess you can decide for yourself. :)

I think Malcolm wins the "sneakiest way to get Jen away from her work computer for a day" award. ;) Offering to drive me out to a rust filled wonderland, a long car ride for catching up on each others lives and a few good hugs to boot - cant be beat really. Thanks Malcolm :) lets do it again real soon!

Sometimes...

Sometimes...


You just need to






Stop - everything


And just.....breathe...

Ive got the blues

Ok....now dont go falling out of your chairs...you arent imagining things...I am actually posting something besides rusty broken chains and abandoned houses!! Every once in a while I like to get out and enjoy fresh air instead broken down sheds with moldy old couches in them!

I recently purchased a lovely little filter that - as you can see - makes the sky a more vivid blue than most normal camera lenses achieve. I cant believe I waited so long to get one of these...its going to save me HOURS of editing this summer by giving me bright blue skies instead of washed out ones - that always lead to color adjusting and manipulating each photo by hand! I think this is going to turn out to be one of my best investments so far!

Anyway - the first set of photos I took on Saturday morning out at Larabee Park off of Chuckanut Drive in Bellingham and was just amazed at how blue the sky turned out in the photos - usually its a white washed out mess...and now its almost TOO blue!

I wandered around the various places that can be found down there at the park and ended my explore here - where these two were sitting and sharing probably the best spot in town for sipping morning tea! What a beautiful view.

Then Sunday evening, I wanted to see how it would do with a sunset situation and I wasnt disappointed there either. This is by far my favorite shot:

These next few I did actually use a second filter in Adobe Lightroom to pull out only the blues in the shot and they turned out looking like something out of a sci-fi movie or perhaps just a really bright moonlit night -

I was so focused on the seagulls in this shot - that I didnt notice the "Horizon Line" in the background until I got home to play around with the pictures. :)

And so there we have some nature shots for a change....dont worry - I found another house I want to sneak into soon...rust will be back to my blog in no time ;) But until then, I hope you enjoyed these. :)

Thanks for visiting!

Essence of Bellingham - Photo contest

Its that time of year again - where I sift through all of my "for fun" shots and try to find a few to enter into the city's Essence of Bellingham Contest - which is always an adventure and even more fun now that both of my son's are starting to get into photography!

Last year, my younger son Eli, took a ton of photos and entered just about every one of them, earning himself a "Best of Class" for the K-4th grade award, and a trip to the awards ceremony where he got to shake hands with the Mayor and pick up his certificate. He also managed to wrangle in 9 - "Best of Subject" awards and one honorable mention!

My eldest son, Christian won a "Best of Subject" award for his one and only entry as well and I was really excited this year when he asked to go take pictures with me and churned out a handful of great shots to enter for this year. Its such a wonderful experience - watching your children find a passion for the same activities that you enjoy and then getting to do that activity with them on occasion. Thats the best award in all of this - getting to do what I love doing, with the people I love the most!

I managed to get a few "best of subjects" and "Honorable mentions" of my own last year and this year I entered a few but am more excited for my children's entries than my own. You can view our winning photos from last years competition here.

This year, they put a limit of 10 per artist - so we really had to sift through and pick our very favorite shots from our stock piles this time around. It was pretty hard to decide - but I think we did a pretty good job of narrowing them all down.

These are my entries for the 2008 Competition:

"Red Go Line" (South State Street)

"Fiddling French Hen" (Fairhaven)

"Rusted History" (Fairhaven Water Front)

"Clapping Rainbows" (Cornwall Park)

"Window Shopping" (Old Town)

"Little Piece of Heaven" (Whatcom Creek)

"Cemetary Tree" (Bayview Cemetary)

"Frosted Wonders" (Lake Whatcom)

"Lunch Meeting" (Lake Whatcom)

"Bike.Walk.Boat" (Taylor Dock)

These are Eli's entries into the K-4th grade Competion:

"Old Town Cafe"

"Twins"

"Lonely Leaf"

"TV Head"

"Piercing"


"Old and New" (Self Portrait)

"Little Shop Of Horrors"

"Horse Fly"

"Best Place in Town"

"Alley Oop"

These are Christian's entries into the 5th-8th grade Competition:

"Paper City"

"Skater Shadow"

"Gummy Wall"

"Saber Neighbor"

"Music Man"

"Fruity Fun"

"Textures of Time"

"Eat Local"

"Webby Window"

"Spring Fling"

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

And so there they are - our 2008 Entries.

We will know how we did sometime around the first of June.

It doesnt matter though - if any of our photos win this year (Though it would be exciting...I wont lie!) - because we found something that we can all do together from time to time and I already "won" when I got to spend a couple of hours with each of my sons, out on photo adventures this spring - no certificate from the Mayor can match that kind of prize. :)

We are already taking pictures for next years competition and I cant wait for those sunny afternoons when my boys put down the video game controllers and ask to go take some pictures with me for a while. :)

To see last years gallery of winners and photo entries - please visit this page.

Zeeeeeeeeees!

I went out driving around this past weekend in hopes of finding something interesting to photograph and just wasnt really feeling in the mood to battle through blackberry bushes to get into an old abandoned house or get hollered at for standing on someones yard trying to get pictures of their old broken barn...so I found myself on the edges of Zee's Recycling out on the Guide - a place I think may very well be the ultimate Heaven and where I want to go when I die.

Wandering.....for all of eternity, through the mazes of mounds of rusty goodness - yes, if I could pick where Heaven was - this would definately be it for me. ;)

I couldn't get in of course - at least not without having someone call the police to rat me out...its right on the busiest road in the county and there were old watchful eyes peering out at me from the house across the street, just waiting to see if I was going to try to climb over the boxcar barricade or squeeze my tiny self between the two that would have possibly let me in with just a few small bruises on my ribcage ;) - probably with fingers poised and ready to dial 911 upon seeing me disappear into that wonderful land of "Yummy."

There are SO many different things to photograph just on the outside...I can only imagine all the joyous things Id find on the other side....but alas, I was doomed to wander the edges of Heaven and find myself denied by barbed wire, chain link fences and giant textured boxes - which were enough to fill my entire memory card with photos of close ups of the peeling paint, rusted edges and various odd cracks and dents that they were so proudly displaying.

These are some of my favorite shots - I just love all of the different colors and shapes...

And I couldnt help but laugh at this last one - when you cant find any paper...just write it on a boxcar door..."Red Sam - Going out today!"

I kept expecting to find a grocery list on the other side ;)

Anyway - thats my walk through Zee Heaven.
Someday, I'll make it to the other side....
My luck, Im going to Hell - where everything is shiney and new ;)

Trailer Trash...er Trashed Trailer?

One of my favorite things to hear as of late is "I found this broken down *Insert object here* on the side of the road and thought of you" - Friends are emailing to tell me of falling down barns, cousins are calling to tell me to visit them sometime and take pictures of old broken machines, and random people are telling me about couches they found in gravel pits or rusted pieces of metal they saw on their way to work - its awesome. :) Not just because they are leading me to great things to photograph - but because more and more people are starting to stop and notice the little things they pass every day and see them in a different light - something beautiful instead of something ugly.

I feel like Im having a tiny chance to change the world a little bit - even if its just something silly like finding beauty in the little things we so often take for granted...its a great feeling :)


My husband has been working on location up in Blaine the past month for his new job and kept telling me about the "Sploded trailer" he passes every day on his way to the factory hes working for. He drove me out there this past weekend to give me my wedding anniversary present...he got permission for me to enter the building and take pictures of industrial equipment! (stay tuned...Ill post them soon) - and to show me the "sploded trailer" he sees all the time.

Now thats a man that knows the way to his wifes heart... ;) give me a broken down trailer on the side of the road and a free pass to spend an hour inside a place with machines and rusty things (with PERMISSION!) over a diamond ring any day!


Needless to say, I squealed like a schoolgirl when I saw this trailer. I have no idea what happened to it, but I have alot of various scenarios running through my mind! Was it a lovers quarell? Did it get attacked by some crazed mad man or a hungry bear? Did the party get too wild? Angry teen? hmmmmmm so many thoughts - and such a lovely piece of eye candy!

I think someone had way too much fun beating the life out of this trailer - which in turn gave it a whole new life for me to photograph. It was surely beautiful and shiney at one time - and you know, Id not have given it a second look if it was parked on the side of the road back then. But here I am, all googly eyed and drooling over this junked pile of someones life.

I can never get past the stories I wish I could hear. I want to know who lived here...why? Was it a good life? Good memories? Sad story? - or maybe I dont want to know. Maybe it was a tormented, lonely soul and eventually they just couldnt take it anymore...



All I know is - I treasure it in its current state. You might think Im crazy - but its beautiful to me. Most everything is...you know.

Fairhaven Find Part 2

I decided I wanted to get a few shots of the old Fairhaven building - Reid Boiler Works - from the lower level near the railroad tracks and happily froze my fingers off one afternoon not too long ago and wandered down to the beach to get a better view.

Its just a gorgeous building - and after doing some web research on the place, I found an article about it - where it talks about a big fire back in 1904 that destroyed most of the original building. I believe they are hoping to restore some of this building and keep it from completely falling apart to save some small bit of history for this town - seems to me that far too many historical buildings are getting taken out and replaced with more condos every day :(

I really hope they do fix it up enough to let people inside someday - Id love to get in there for just one minute! (ok, I could probably spend an entire day in there if I could get inside! shoosh...)

*sigh* I'll just keep dreaming...