I'm a little late updating my featured image for June (so what's new?), because I've been traveling. Here's one of the things I saw (more to come).

Around and AboutFeatured Image for June 2015 Around and About

See this image in the Gallery.

As well as their organic aesthetic and a sense of time suggested by wear and repair, I loved the way these steps show a pragmatic approach to construction. The big steps and small steps don't line up. The spacing changes to get round the curve. And yet it all works somehow. Rather than being based on a careful plan, these steps appear to have been created spontaneously in response to some immediate need - almost like they grew naturally out of the ground, shaped by their environment and needs of practical use.

Then there's the question of why someone needed two types of steps going to the same place. A story there for sure.

In Alice Through The Looking Glass, the White Queen claimed to do as many as six impossible things before breakfast. As a digital photographer, that seems like a low bar, however there are some images which seem impossible, or manipulated, but which are really just a straightforward shot, just as you would see it in life. I love to find images like that -- and this is one of them.

Inside OutFeatured image for May 2015

Inside out

See the image in the Gallery

The secret here is the curved glass of a tall window where two buildings join at the end of a deep urban canyon. This makes it appear that the viewer in looking in to an outside space, while reflections of florescent lights dance and twist, and the reflection of a TV screen hangs in space.

The location clearly makes the window difficult to clean, and a patina of dirt spots adds to the surreal effect, while the layout of the buildings and the position of the camera allows the viewer to glimpse a thin sliver of both worlds, right and left.

Keep an eye out for shots like this. You'd be surprised what you'll find once you start looking.

However, "six before breakfast" should be left to the professionals!

I finally made it over to Alkatraz Island this week to see the work of dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei which has been installed there over the past few months, and will only be there a few more weeks. WeiWei is not allowed to leave China, so the installations were created based on photos and plans of the buildings, and he has never seen the final result of his work, at least in person. It was also an excuse for me to revisit Alcatraz (which requires some planning ahead these days because of the volume of tourist traffic). Even with all the visitors, and proximity to San Francisco, it still maintains an air of remote desolation.

This month's image was taken inside one of the buildings where Weiwei's work is installed, where I was drawn to the dilapidation and decay of the building, and in particular, to the panels of broken windows that divide the space.

Tied to the PastFeatured Image for April 2015 Tied To The Past

See this image in the Gallery

Weiwei's artwork is about the fate of current political prisoners but it's set in the decaying shell of a prison which last held prisoners decades ago ...the past tied to the present. I felt that this symbol of the crumbling architecture juxtaposed with modern tourists and bright colors of the art, told the story. The knotted rope was a nice bonus.