I’ve been doing a fair bit of wandering.

I’m going to be doing a bit more. And then, I hope I’ll be settling down for a while in the Pacific Northwest.

I spent May/June attending a wedding and hanging out in Maui. I spent some stints catching up with people in New York City and Pittsburgh, and apartment hunting in Seattle. And, now that the Delta variant is spreading, and a return to no indoor dining seems imminent… Well, I’ll be driving across the country.

Somewhere in the midst of all this, I had a bit of downtime in Eastern Pennsylvania. There wre frequent thunderstorms and heatwaves, so it wasn’t like I was headed backpacking. I spent a fair bit of time packing, and otherwise, walking around the yard and nearby.

The main birds that I saw in this period were two flycatchers, both of which let me get really close to them. And, they were loud and easy to find. Obnoxious local dog Shelby was at the beach, which I think helped them be a lot more comfortable closer to the house.

So, for a few days, I took some deep breaths, paused, and got to see these birds.

As I wrote almost a month ago, I needed to move the site to a new email subscription system, and that took some time away from photo editing and writing.

I’ve now completed the migration.

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For a little information on the how and why, continue reading after the break.

Waiʻānapanapa attracts tourists for two main reasons: its black sand beach and beautiful coastline.

There are other black sand beaches nearby that are free to visit. These other beaches do not require that visitors purchase timed tickets in advance and show ID at the door. (Note, these are COVID-era restrictions, subject to change.)

But, they do not have such beautiful cliffs, such awe-inspiring vistas.

This post contains a large number of images.

And, you will soon see why.

I’ve been a fan of Jeff Vandermeer for a little over a decade. This means I am both biased (re: my baseline attitude towards the author and his works is favorable) and an insufferable hipster (re: I liked his books before he got fame, fortune, and a movie staring Natalie Portman.)

I first encountered Vandermeer’s works at a formative age. His novels shaped my understanding of what a novel could be. I became aware of dimensions of description and prose that were sorely lacking in many of the other books I was reading at the time, yet present in his novels about beheaded meerkats and sentient mushrooms. Vandermeet is technically accomplished, and has used a variety of unusual devices to add atmosphere, characterization, and immersion to his works.

His latest, Hummingbird Salamander is an eco-thriller. Its language is relatively terse; its atmosphere, one of decay. The world is ours, except farther along its track into ecological catastrophy: it’s filled with rotting institutions, unethical technology, devastation, and loss of havitats and species.

My weekly photos this month encompassed quite a few interesting themes, and most of them got very little editing. Has Steve turned into a JPEG shooter? Read through and find out!

27. Black and White

I’m someone who tends not to use certain fancy digital camera features like “filters” and “color profiles.” But, the (somewhat divisive) Dynamic Monocrome setting on the Panasonic GX85 really hits the mark for me. So, I knew I wanted to use it, and submit a straight-out-of-camera JPEG.

The subject matter was some plants, some weeds. Queen Anne’s Lace and some fern-y things. Shot at maximum aperture, some of the contrast that would have been provided by color is instead provided by depth of field. In the photo, a lot of green has shifted to grey and I quite like the effect.

Personal note: I’ve been bouncing around and VERY slow at uploading these Hawaii posts, but there is at least one more ready to go. Expect them to slowly trickle online as time permits.

Whenever I travel to a new place, I try my best to have as few expectations as possible.

But because the act of getting there itself is often some combination of stressful, tiring, long, and/or expensive, and because it takes some time for me to find my bearings and adjust to my surroundings, there’s usually a bit of mental and emotional gymnastics involved.

Case in point, Hana.

If no one else but me was driving on the Road to Hana, I would truly love it.

Instead, I admire it, appreciate it, and am just a touch wigged out by it. Let me explain.