Halle’s Smooooth Words o’ Wisdom

Darryl is a longtime Tygh Valley, Oregon local. I photographed him in his garage for my portfolio and to see if a mag would be interested in this subject for an upcoming story on how ‘main st.’ Oregon is faring during these economic doldrums.

Today was my last day of Chanterelle picking for the season. It would have been nice to get out more this year. Some of the best and largest ones I found were emerging from under a large log:

I met two Russians with a beautiful 4-month-old German Sheperd. They assumed I was Ukrainian because I drive a VW.

Senator-elect Merkley was the Democratic candidate when I shot this in late August 2008. The Teamsters hired me to shoot an environmental portrait and group shot of the would be Senator with members of a Teamsters local. The shoot was scheduled in East Portland at the last minute. I couldn’t find an assistant for the day but lucky for me a Teamster at the scene was johnny-on-the-spot and his help made all the difference.

Recently a client asked me to scout for a woman’s tattooed hand for a possible shoot. Not a fancy Beverly Hills French nails and all kind of hand. I found this hand today at lunch. The potential hand model was super sweet and is keen to moonlight as a hand model.

Once upon a time when I worked for one I heard another art dealer say to a photographer: 

“If it doesn’t sell make it red. If it still doesn’t sell make it big. And if it STILL doesn’t sell make it big AND red.” 

There’s no stratergery here; the bag I happened to grab before heading out this morning happened to be the red one. Cooking the whole lot tonight with butter, olive oil, garlic and a touch of soy and sugar. Will eat some of the sauce though freeze most of it to enjoy come winter. Ok. Enough blogging about Chanterelles. Oh how I do love them though! Especially the hunt.

The Chanterelles were picked yesterday afternoon along the northern Oregon coast and the raspberries this morning in our yard. I love this time of the year.

We spent a scorcher of a Saturday-our thermometer topped out at 104.2ºF-mostly on the porch. Around 1pm we couldn’t help but notice the spectacular Gnarl Ridge Wildland Fire plume:

The politics of wildland firefighting is a fascinating subject. Lots and lots and lots of taxpayer dough spent year after year after year…

After a surf along the northern Oregon coast Tuesday I found my first Chanterelles of the 2008 mushroom season: 

They were exactly where I found my first patch in 2007 only 2 weeks or so earlier.