National and regional award-winning journalist, photographer, and activist (Hanford, Spokane River, regional clean air issues, national nuclear weapons and waste policy). Former senior editor Camas Magazine, former client and communications director, Center for Justice, Spokane.
My father and I met when he was barely 24. It was 1957 and he’d just returned from active duty in Korea.
The last leg of his long trip was a flight that no longer exists, from Moses Lake to Pasco. The plane was already fully booked but, the way he tells the story, he pled with the gate agent and she found a way to squeeze him aboard. Within an hour or so, he arrived at the Hartman home in east Pasco, much to the surprise of my mother, my sister, and my mother’s sister. It is a staple of our family story that dad’s surprise worked better than he expected, and some merry bedlam ensued, with screams and laughter. Of course, I have no recollection of this. Continue reading A Eulogy for my Father→
Sixty favorite images from The Devil’s Toenail to the Cascade crest, and sometimes over the edge.
Click on photograph for details and pricing. Shipping costs (typically $8 to $10) are not included. Tim Connor photography (c)2013-2017. All images are copyright protected and may only be republished with permission. For additional info and orders: tjccamas@comcast.net
The beauty of experienceearthwaveswhat she says when I callSilk stream on the north forkCurrently jadeThe heron holds its groundIn memory of Marcia DewinterOak leaf arteriesEpiphanyThe talus gardenPeter and the apostles at dawnThe Boulder on the BumpingWater and the WillowEntropyRock Creek searches for the oceanmountains and the mountainThe root of itSea of PalouseDelugeThe sky you and I shareOn the road to Mt. HopeRising from the talusUnreasonably orangeThe light within the grovePrecariousGrace is also ephemeralWenatchee River near LeavenworthfarewellThe falls below Judith PoolHow rocks get wetWishing you were hereAspen and red twig in Northrup CanyonPath through the marshTreelineSeventeen ways to blueFluctuationThe Meadow off Elder RoadPeter and the Apostles, a wider viewThe flame in the parkleaves in the multiverseThe west wallA woodpecker’s place
In a timeless cataract at Frenchman Coulee the future clings to the past.
For the 13,000 or so years before Frenchman Coulee became wildly popular among humans who like to climb rocks, a striking formation of basalt spires near its core stood merely as a graceful monument to the astonishing power of water and ice. The massive pillars are still here. It’s just that on any warm day, and many cold ones as well, fit and well-equipped people are attaching themselves to forty-foot walls of stone. The climbers’ resolve and athleticism offer what is, at least, a touch of poetry and elan to one of Washington’s lesser known natural wonders.
Woman on the edge of The Feathers
At first sight—as you look up beneath the rim of the coulee’s central alcove—it’s hard to trust what you’re seeing. Known as “The Feathers” it is a formation of exposed basalt crystals that barely withstood a succession of devastating floods. From the air, it looks as though a creature with jaws the size of the Rose Bowl has taken two bites from coulee’s upper terrace. The Feathers somehow survived as a gently curving causeway between the bite marks. There are places where you can easily walk from one side to the other, stepping through gaps between the massive crystals.
A decent camera can take the picture, capturing the nearby rock faces as well as the distant giant blades of the Wild Horse wind farm, straddling the flanks of Whiskey Dick Mountain on the far side of the river. But only a soul can register the deeper dimensions such a scene evokes.
