Category Archives: Photography

Rhubarb Skies Photography Store

Frameless prints fitted for wall mount available on metal (aluminum) or reinforced paper. Most prints available in 2×3 (i.e. 12″x18″) or 4×5 (i.e. 16″x20″) configuration with wide prints available in 1×2 format (i.e. 12″x24″). Base cost for metal prints is $1 per square inch with discounts available for multiple purchases and for paying subscribers to The Daily Rhubarb. Orders, questions to Tim Connor tjconnor56@gmail.com, or (509) 838-4580. Reproductions and use of images by permission only.

Paleosoils, John Day Fossil beds, Painted Hills Unit

Paleosoils, (ancient oxidized soils) at the John Day Fossil Beds, Painted Hills unit, central Oregon

Who Knows where we’ve been. Ice Age flood cobbles, Spokane River

Showtime, Great Blue Heron, Lower Latah Creek

Geese flotilla at the Granite Dells near Prescott, Arizona

A Dark Note. A fist of basalt amidst Ice Age flood cobbles, Spokane River

Branch hopping Northern Flicker in the pines west of Spokane.

High Tide at Beach 4. Pacific shore, Olympic National Park

Silverhead. Current overflowing metamorphic boulder, Spokane River

You Again? Bull moose in a thicket

The blue underworld. Spokane River, west of Spokane

The Sisters. The landmark, twin basalt spires at Wallula Gap, east of Pasco, Washington

Oscar & company. Native redband trout feeding beneath rapids in the Spokane River

Monarch butterfly, Denver Botanic Gardens

Ferns in the light, Quinault Rain Forest, Olympia Peninsula

Sea of Palouse. Wild grasses and cultivated wheat in loessial Palouse dunes, western Whitman County, WA

Yellow warbler on a basalt perch.

Schnebly Hill limestone formations at Sedona, Arizona

Old blue eyes. Crawfish in the rocks, Spokane River

Preternaturally Orange, lichens on basalt at Amphitheater Crater near Odessa, WA

Male pileated woodpecker

Painted Hills unit, John Day Fossil beds in central Oregon

Calliope hummingbird, North America’s tiniest bird

Lyons formation sandstone at the southern entrance to the Garden of the Gods near Colorado Springs, CO

Whence it Came. Ice Age flood cobbles in the Spokane River

Western Kingbird along the road to Lamont, WA

Upon Arrival. Canyon sunrise in the Drumheller Channels north of Othello, WA

Silkstream. Autumnal colors along the Spokane River east of Spokane

Young mule deer buck in morning light

Meadow on Elder Road, north of Rockford, WA

Bubbles to the sky. Turning maple photographed from the water column, Spokane River, west of Spokane.

Ornately weathered sandstone at Beach 3, Olympic National Park, part of the Hoh rock assemblage along Washington’s Pacific coast

Sticking the landing. Male Violet-green Swallow on a cliff above the Bowl & Pitcher in west Spokane

Ice Notes. Refreezing snow along Latah Creek

Mount Tahoma through the clouds. Washington’s signature volcano (aka Mt. Rainier)

Autumn at Tumwater Canyon. Along the Wenatchee River, West of Leavenworth, WA

Rufous hummingbird feeding on Penstemon at the Denver Botanic Garden

Steamboat in sage. Steamboat Rock in upper Grand Coulee, a remnant of the former landscape that survived the Ice Age floods

Yellow warbler flitting among Serviceberry blossoms

Juvenile native Redband trout in the Spokane River, west Spokane

Wahclella Falls in the Columbia River gorge south of Bonneville, OR

Bull Moose in early winter, Riverside State Park

Saguaro cactus in the Sonoran Desert near Phoenix, AZ

Turning maple leaves photographed from the water column, Spokane River in west Spokane

September Blue

Elephant Mountain basalt & sage at the Drumheller Channels

Skyfall

Joyful Noise

Desert sunset at the Granite Dells near Prescott, AZ

Touch the sky

Touch the Sky, upright sandstone pillars at the Garden of the Gods near Colorado Springs, CO

A crimson tide, water rushing over willow roots

Sage, Juniper and exposed paleosoils at the Painted Hills unit of the John Day Fossil beds in central Oregon

The Violet-Green Acrobats

I hear them before I seem them. It’s a rapid, squeaky chirp, sometimes so raspy that it sounds like the snaps from a overhead power line. A sound of spring, because that’s when Violet-green swallows return from Mexico or even further south. They’re plentiful near water where they comb the sky for bugs, and also along cliffs where they find nesting cavities.

They’re not much afraid of people. I actually had one get stuck, momentarily, behind my back a few weeks ago. It swooped in quickly and burrowed in as I was sitting on the edge of the rimrock above the river. On a regular basis, they’ll playfully streak within inches of my head, chirping in my ear.

They’re incredibly fast, true to this note from Cornell Ornithology Lab’s on-line bird guide: “It can be difficult to get a good look at flying Violet-green Swallows, but you might have an easier time following one with your binoculars if you spot one a little bit further away.”

Photographing them is a different sort of challenge. They do perch at times but it’s only when the male swallows are in flight that the bright, violet patches on their rumps become visible. Getting those shots, takes calculation, patience, practice, and more patience. It’s worth it though. Take a look…

Male, perching cliffside
Female, briefly perched on a limb
taking flight, 1
taking flight, 2
the plunge
and the double plunge
female, at liftoff
male taking flight from a tree
the swoop
the turn
pair, in flight together
female, bringing nesting material
the glide
the fly-by
female, briefly hovering
male, briefly hovering
sticking the landing
almost sticking the landing
male, flexing at perch
male, at perch below cliff
female at mossy perch

Living Colors

Metamorphosis
River cobbles nesting in the cracks of a shoreline metamorphic boulder.
Translucent spider on sunflower pedals
Interstellar
photographer’s water shoe amid submerged ice age boulders and cobbles in Spokane River.
Ice age flood cobbles on the Spokane River shoreline.
Air bubbles rising to the surface in fast flowing current over metamorphic rock.
Naturally sculpted ice on a creek bed where water is receding after a hard freeze.

Illuminations

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)

Ellis
A Blue Note
Who Knows Where We’ve Been
Silverhead
Synergy
The Brilliant Resilience
Whence it Came
Mirth
Rainbow Salad
The Nursery
The Cosmos