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February 7, 2023 Timothy Connor 2 Comments

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•May 2, Glimpses of an unfolding spring (photo feature)

•April 30, The rupture of Republican democracy

•April 26, The elixir of my sister’s humor

•April 18, A trail of blossoms, and a sin in search of a name

•March 6, A (brief) Rhubarb retreat

•March 5, Pacing the twilight zones…

•March 4, Stormy Mondays (photo feature)

•March 2, Vortex of the patriarchy

•February 28, The Swan Lakes (photo feature)

•February 23, How I met Strom Thurmond

•February 22, The Herons of February (photo feature)

•February 21, A major milestone on the West Plains

•February 20, American Koyaanisqatsi

•February 16, Navalny

•February 15, Ecology gives the Spokane airport one last try…

•February 14, History’s next lesson, from the drought in Panama

•February 11, From Victims to Victories

•February 8, A Year of the (almost) Daily Rhubarb

•February 6, Blind in the Worst Way, at the Worst Time

•February 4, Postscript on “The Preposterous Spokane Flood”

•January 31, Knee-deep in Bretzland

•January 28, A 17-ton “erratic” from the cosmos

•January 26, Your invitation to a live presentation of ‘The Preposterous Spokane Flood (February 2nd)

•January 25, the Ballad of E. Jean Carroll

•January 24, Larry Kudlow’s Ice Age

•January 21, Why Brian Stelter Still Matters

•January 18, Freezing Fingers (photo feature)

•January 17, A Hunger for a Different Sort of News

•January 15, MLK Jr. Day, and a riveting, new local documentary

•January 14, Close Encounters with the Mirror World, Part 3, Destination Coexistence

•January 13, Saturday’s postcard, and frozen field notes

•January 12, Close Encounters with the Mirror World, Part 2, The Offramp

•January 11, Close Encounters with the Mirror World, Part 1, The Photograph

•January 10, A daughter on the brink

•January 7, The insurrection that is still being televised

•January 4, West Plains, ‘forever chemicals’ series, to date

•January 3, How Joe Biden Lost Our Kids

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Photography

Illuminations

September 11, 2022 tjccamas@comcast.net 1 Comment

The medicine of ethereal light, for the long nights of winter

Some dates I don’t have to write down. One is whatever day it is in early spring that I get my first glimpse of a wild balsamroot bud about to burst open, like an exploding kernel of popcorn. From the inception of erupting balsamroot, spring in the inland Northwest unfolds, operatically, as green replaces brown, and yellows, purples, and cremes come into bloom, often in riots of color. All other things being equal, it’s a happier time to be here, all the more so if you’re a photographer.

On the back end, another date I don’t write down is November 1st, a day that (at least for me) brings an icy gust announcing the coming darkness of winter, with mats of fallen leaves damming the storm drains. The outdoor swimmer in me has to leave the water to avert hypothermia, the cook in me turns to soups, the writer to wistful messages like this one, and the photographer sulks, cleans the refrigerator and tries to catch up on his reading.

But.

There are antidotes and among them are the images that follow—the dances of solar light on the Ice Age-deposited cobbles and boulders strewn on the bed of the Spokane River. Honestly, they’re not just in the river. They’re all around us in Spokane. It’s just that most are hidden beneath a thin blanket of Holocene topsoil. In some places, the current of the river cleans both the grit and the algae—exposing the colors of the ancient mudstones, gneisses, schists, and granites that originate in the mountains of British Columbia, Idaho, and Montana. To be sure, there are lumps of home-grown, black basalt in the mix—but not as many as you’d expect. The epic imports of great flood cobbles dominate. Add sunlight and a camera and, voila!— an over-the-counter antidote to the long, dark nights ahead. (For purchase inquiries, send inquiries to me through the comment panel or at tjconnor56@gmail.com)