Posting here sometimes I feel guilty - like going to a confessional. Father, its been 6 months, 12 days since I last made a post. During the lifetime of this blog, I go on spurts where it gets absolutely no love from me. And then I will post something to kick it off, and then try to revive the blog a little bit. So far, it hasn't really worked that way, and I haven't been able to figure out why. This spurt of posting comes and goes, and for whatever reason I just cannot sustain it. I also spend a lot less time in front of the computer these days, and so just haven't been processing enough images (more on that below). Lets try one more time - I hope you're still with me...

I have been doing a lot of travelling recently, and the highlight was a cross country road trip for 3 weeks across the United States. Only one thing to say in short: the landspace of this country is gorgeous. I amassed about 8000+ pictures from the trip, and going through it has been a daunting task. I went through it once to just check the pictures, but the thought of going through it with a fine tooth comb has scares me, and I've had a mental block. After 6 months, I finally started and decided not to go chronologically, as it felt too restrictive. So here is the first shot, from Portland, Oregon, almost the tail end of the trip.

This is the Japanese Maple Tree at the Portland Japanese Garden. The Portland Japanese garden has been proclaimed the most authentic Japanese Garden outside of Japan, and a short walk around the garden will tell you why. The maple tree has greater symbolism among Japanese culture, embodying grace and serenity, among other things. This maple tree is pretty famous in the US amongst photographers, and is heavily photographed. I told myself before visiting that I wouldn't make a cliche photograph of the tree, but I couldn't help admire this famous angle once I saw it. The leaves turn really cool colors in spring, and I imagine the red leaves of the maple tree in the fall (I was lucky to get a few) must be absolutely beautiful. My only regret is that I couldn't get this shot with my medium format.