fire

The Fire at the Edge of Night

On the way to a friend’s “Home on the Range” (I mean that literally) near Redding, CA, riding along a dirt road that took us deeper and deeper into the “wild, wild west”, I spotted this cool pond reflecting the trees and sky beyond. I knew I’d have an appointment with destiny here, at this very spot, in about an hour, when the sun started racing into oblivion. And that’s exactly what I did. While it might have been nice to have my big guns along, I had left those on the East Coast. But I had my backup tucked into my waistband and I wasn’t afraid to use it. After the obligatory seven paces, I drew my iPhone and fired. And it was I who was left standing when the sun went down!

Guardian Fireboat No. 2

I had not really planned to put up a blog post today, but I suppose I should at least try to post something new 5 or 6 times a week, perhaps leaving Sundays as a BLOG POST-free day for me. Â While I usually post HDR photography, I started working on this non-HDR shot this morning and liked how it turned out. Â I liked it well enough to post onÂ Google +Â , and it seemed like folks there seemed to dig it, so I thought that you guys who come here to the blog and don’t follow me onÂ Â Google +Â might like to see it as well. Â As I mentioned in myÂ Â Google +Â post, I was experimenting with a mix of B&W, high-key, colorizing and, finally, onOne’s FocalPoint software. I may reedit it to fix some mistakes I see, but curious to hear what all of you out there think of this one.

While we burn it to the ground tonight

I love exploring old abandoned WW II and Cold War military installations, ’cause you never know what you’ll find.Â I have a long list of places I have yet to explore here in Germany, though I’ve not nearly exhausted the possibilities at the phenomenal Kaserne Krampnitz.Â After WW II, the Russians took control of this particular facility, and they remained there until 1995.Â Not sure how much time they took to un-ass this place, but they did leave some cool stuff behind, like this sweet safe.Â Rather than take it with them (and rather than unlocking it a removing the contents – maybe they lost the key), they went medieval on this bad boy detonating a thermite grenade (check this video out) on top of the safe.Â Shining my trusty SureFire tactical flashlight into the hole left by the thermite at the top of the safe, it seems some stuff may have actually survived the burn.Â I wonder what was in there, and I wonder what might still be salvageable!

By the way, you might be wondering if I found anything on the small safebox on top of the safe, right?Â Why yes I did, but I’m not telling.Â Oh, okay; I’ll tell you that one thing I found in there was that small Russian ID card photo that I I pressed into the crease of the huge hinge of the safe for you to see.Â See it?Â No?Â Look closer – then check out the huge crop of the photo I added below the main shot of the day.Â You can also see the molten metal at the top right corner of the safe where the thermite grenade burned through the top of the safe.Â Oh yeah!Â Almost forgot.Â I processed this shot to several songs, including Nickelback’s Burn it to the Ground.