On the Path

This shot was taken from just outside the eastern edge of the Garden of the Gods, in Colorado Springs, Colorado. I like the dead trees and the little bridge on the path toward what is the coolest city park I've ever seen in my life.

The Old Man in the Tree

I shot this at the entrance to a fee-based state park in Colorado not too awfully far from Cripple Creek. I didn't note the location because I wasn't prepared to pay an entrance fee, but I did notice this tree near the check-in kiosk, and marveled at the grimacing face in the tree created by time and an industrious bird or two. It's one of my favorite recent shots, and was taken in the spring of 2008.

Leaf. Us. Alone. Immortal.

This is one of my favorite recent shots. I walk on this sidewalk frequently while I'm on my way to the post office, Trader Joe's, a bar or some other local business.

One day I looked down and saw this impression of a leaf that had somehow ingrained itself into the sidewalk. I suppose that it fell from its tree on a rainy night and then lay there undisturbed for some length of time while it leached its chemicals into the sidewalk.

In some way, this single leaf has found a way to immortalize itself; how rare, how heartwarming. Perhaps we too can do something similar with our own unique and ephemeral lives.

Living in the hills above Escondido, 1985

IN LATE FALL

Living in the hills above Escondido, 1985

by Richard Graham

Our mail is delivered to an address on Meadow Glen Way East, but the street sign one hundred yards before our driveway reads Cougar Pass. In years past, I’m told, mountain lions wandered the hills which surround the house where I live. Long ago chased out by the encroachment of man, the cougar here is now merely a memory evoked by a street sign.

The dirt driveway, scarred with gullies from heavy rains, leads down past a pond. In late September, bass fed on insects flying above the pond’s placid surface, but now, early in the new year, such activity has ceased. Often muddy from the rain, the pond is home for a few frogs, and its water occasionally quenches a cautious rabbit’s thirst.

Up in these hills avocados are king, but they still have to compete with thousands of rocks and boulders and scruffy patches of scrub brush. Grapefruit, orange and lemon trees, planted with foresight and heavily laden with fruit, give color to the otherwise green landscape.

The view from the house looks down into a wide canyon that is split down the middle by a red-dirt road. About seven miles away, Escondido, mist-covered in the morning, sits under a canopy of wind-rippled clouds. In the evening, city lights shine brightly, a carnival of color in the night.

In the wide expanse of sky above the valley leading down to Escondido, hawks soar in the updrafts. Sometimes, if the wind conditions are right, these graceful birds hover in one spot, their sharp eyes combing the earth below for their next meal. Perhaps conscious of this threat from above, squirrels, mice and rabbits scurry about quickly on their daily rounds.

Down in the valley, trees at Orange County Nursery that were so fiery with red, orange, yellow and purple leaves just a short time ago now seem muted and cold. The canyon wrens, singing vibrantly in late summer, are quiet now. Even the dogs in our neighbor’s yards bark less frequently.

Some of the animal life in the area is rarely seen in this more somnolent time of year. A snakeskin found in a rocky crevice gives evidence that although unseen, certain creatures lie hidden just out of sight.

Up until November, a green heron graced our pond, its bright orange legs and feet trailing behind it when it flew, startled by the presence of a human, into the stand of trees near the pond’s edge. Probably forced south by cold weather, our heron may now be somewhere in Mexico, displaying its beauty to more southern eyes.

The rose bushes on either side of the driveway grew impressive flowers of pink, red and yellow until early October. Now mostly bloomless and forlorn, they quietly await the next season of growth.

Lizards that used to dart out from behind stumps and rocks not long ago have almost disappeared. With less sun to bask in, they seem averse to showing themselves at all.

Their energetic yips suddenly breaking the night’s serene silence, coyotes awaken me. Just as suddenly, they stop. Sleep returns quickly and leaves the raucous interruption more dream than reality by the light of the morning.

On another night, two owls on a telephone wire trade hoots in the quiet. They leave only when I come to satisfy my curiosity and shine a flashlight beam up at them. Gracefully gliding away into the darkness, the owls will find a new perch where they can converse unmolested.

The rain comes lightly at first, like tiny tap dancers from heaven, then in a downpour, drumming a steady beat on the roof. As the rain begins to subside, water drips off the leaves of the trees like tears. Swollen by the rain, a small stream winds its way down into the valley from the pond and forms rushing waterfalls over the rocks in its path.

Days later, the stream, too tiny now to roar or rush, whispers. Flakes of pyrite reflect brilliantly in the shallow water, golden reminders of last summer. Unlike the cougar, summer will return.

The Dunes, Las Vegas Nevada, Pre Implosion

This is a photo I shot of the Dunes Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas before it was imploded. I set the camera to its "bulb" setting, left the aperture open, held the camera steady for a while, and then moved it around a bit to get the effect shown here.

In a way, it's a one-of-a-kind shot, because that location, as Monty Python once said about a parrot, "Is no more."

Sharp Solana Surfer Silhouette

What I like best about this photo is the sharpness of the surboard's nose, and how you can see each rock and ripple on the beach. This was a very fortuitous shot, as I was taking a walk with a friend in Solana Beach and happened to see the surfer was the sun was just setting -- and I had my camera with me. A neat shot, and one I'm very happy to have captured.

Bridal Veil Falls and Half Dome

Yosemite, California, with Bridal Veil Falls in the foreground, and Half Dome in the left background. I'd like to spend more time in this great place of natural beauty.

Daylight, but You Wouldn't Know It

I shot this photograph at the U.S. Triathlon Series event in Miami, back in the late 1980s. It was a gray, rainy day, and there was lightning before the race start. It looked like the event was going to be called off. But the lightning flashes ended and the show went on.

Since it was a dismal day, I stopped down and used a fill-in flash to get this photograph of Lisa Laiti, a top female triathlete in her day. The water dripping off of her nose is more likely rain than sweat.

Fireworks in Utah

Taking photographs of fireworks with a manual camera is actually fairly easy. Set your camera on the bulb setting (which keeps the shutter open as long as you want it open) and hold a dark piece of cardboard over the lens. When you anticipate a burst of fireworks, take away the cardboard, then put it back over the lens. Do the same thing a few times. Click the shutter to end the exposure, and then repeat the sequence with different frames.

Man at Work

I took this photograph of a man cleaning his sailboat in the Oceanside Harbor marina. He's sitting on a little board hung from pulleys as he cleans the mast cables. I like the silhouette and the gradation of the light.

Masks for Sale

A vendor at La Bufadora, an ocean blowhole near Rosarito, Mexico, had these colorful clay masks for sale. I was taken by the presentation.

Triathlete Magazine, September 1989 cover photo

This is a shot of my friend Tony Richardson, taken in early 1989, when I covered a triathlon in Cancun, Mexico. In this photograph, Tony was coming out of the water after the first leg of a race, and Triathlete used it as the September 1989 cover shot.

I wrote an article for Triathlete's May 2008 issue (the magazine's 25th-anniversary). The article is a retrospective of my time there as an editor (1986-1991). The current editors, probably dealing with space limitations, cut out what I considered an extremely important section about the top-five male athletes of those days. If anyone has an interest in reading the entire article, as I wrote it, e-mail me at RichardNGraham (at) Gmail.com, or just post a comment, and I'll send it to you.

Acceptable Graffiti? Ugly Art? Something Else?

Right Time, Right Place

So much of photography, to me, is being in the right place at the right time. The most important issue, almost always, is light. I worked in a darkroom in Northridge, California, back in the mid-1980s, and I'll always remember Steve Moulton, the lab manager, telling me that "photography is light." Steve had studied photography at the Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara, California. He knew what he was talking about. At the same time, if you're not in the right place, with the right lighting -- and the right subject -- at the right time, you're not likely to achieve your photographic goal.

Maine Pastels

The pastel colors of these old gas pumps and the classic GMC bus caught my eye on a trip in 1984 I took with a good college friend. I took the shot in Maine on a foggy day.

Mt. Rainier waterfalls, 1984

This shot was taken on Oregon's Mt. Rainier in the summer of 1984. My college buddy Rob Krier and I were on a 60-day road trip across North America. We drove 17,000 miles through several Canadian provinces and about 30 U.S. states. I have another version of this shot with Rob in the picture. I'll have to find it and put it up on this site, as it really helps portray the true height of these incredibly beautiful waterfalls.

Sunset Over California's Oceanside Pier

There's something about piers that I've always liked. Oceanside is never a place I would have chosen to live, but I did live there for a year not too long ago, and I found a lot to appreciate about the place. The beach was great for long walks, and I walked from Oceanside to Carlsbad along the shore a few times. Bub's Whisky Dive may have changed names, but it's still the same place. ;)

Artsy Fartsy

I took this photo at the Sacramento Jazz Jubilee a few years back. There was a small blemish in the image that bothered me, so I said, what the heck, let's shake things up. So, I played around in Photoshop. I really like what I came up with. Coolio, mon!

Denali Grizzly and Wolf Tracks

A few years back, I had the opportunity to travel in Alaska, and I went to the Denali National Park and Preserve. My older brother joined me, and I borrowed his digital camera to take the following two shots of tracks left by locals in the soft mud of a river bed. It was probably only a 2-megapixel camera, but it was what was available at the time. I had bearly enough time to shoot before I wolfed down dinner.