Taken last summer on a road trip in northern California…

The desert. All the reds, browns, and unexpected greens. The way the setting sun lights up the ancient, craggy rocks and paints them in purple. Evan took this photo when he was backpacking with our friend Alex last winter in the Superstitions. It was the week after Christmas, and we had escaped a bitter Northwest snowstorm by the skin of our teeth, driving through the Oregon passes at 4 a.m. so we could bypass a blizzard that would ground planes and leave people without power for days on end. Spending the worst part of each winter somewhere nice and sunny is a habit we’d like to work into in the next couple years… take the camera and set off on some great adventure.

This year, we’re planning to hunker down out here. Stay warm with lots of blankets, our wood stove, and a space heater. By the end of the week, there’s supposed to be snow on our mountain, which is really only a foothill, but a big one, and to have snow on it means winter has arrived, in all her glory. Hopefully we will have time to take some great photos of snow on firs and such. Lord knows we haven’t found time to do anything lately besides work, but cabin fever does set in eventually and forces us to get out. At least every once in a while.

Bellingham and the surrounding region is, quite honestly, a little slice of heaven. You’ve got the North Cascades and Canadian Rockies dotting the horizon, the San Juan Islands out in the Sound, Vancouver (only one of the coolest cities ever) only an hour away to the north, Seattle an hour and a half away to the south, water everywhere, green, verdant forests, farmland on the floodplain, harvesting oysters, mussels, gooey ducks, nettles, mushrooms, fishing, crabbing, hiking, skiing, boating, biking, bird watching, berry picking… the list goes on and on.

Here are a few of my favorite photos I’ve taken from the area:

Weathered tractor in front of a corn field in Skagit Valley.

Two women with little girl wearing angel wings at Larrabbe Beach.

Happy boats in the marina.

Dinghy, anyone?

Larrabbe Beach on Chuckanut

Tavern in Bow-Edison. Gotta love the antlers.

Moored sailboats on a glass bay in the morning.

Part of the old GP plant on Bellingham Bay. It’s not there anymore–the plant is being torn down and renovated into a mixed-use retail/commercial/residential pedestrian space.

Sunset on Bellingham Bay.

Tilt-shift is uber-fun, and easy! You can achieve the same effects in Photoshop without the super-spendy lens. The effect is reminiscent of a gaussian blur around the subject, but there’s also a miniature toy look that you don’t get with just the gaussian blur. So here are my creations:

Wanna know how to get this look? Check out The Book of Blog tomorrow for more information!