Trips

Here's an idea. Look at all the pictures you've taken on trips, starting at the most recent and going backwards. Choose one picture from each trip, maybe one you like, maybe one you overlooked. Touch it up, reprocess it, reimagine it, make it new again. Apply what you know to make a picture as you see it now, with fresh eyes, what you saw with younger eyes years ago. What stands out? How does it change the further back you go? Starting with the latest one just last week...

Boulder, Colorado

And proceeding to the one before that, your next most recent out-of-town stay, and the one before that, and so on all the way back.

Seattle, Washington

Austin, Texas

Yosemite National Park

Some destinations are so close it almost feels like cheating, so you have to decide what the cut-off point is for a reasonably big enough to be memorable trip. What constitutes a vacation when you have an entire summer in wine country?

Napa, California

If it involves climbing a mountain, that qualifies. For sure.

Lassen Volcanic National Park (and Mt Shasta)

Or celestial events.

Madras, Oregon

Mostly, of course, it's your standard issue vacation activities. Easy to spot in the wild.

Kirkwood Ski Resort, California

Washington, D.C.

Guerneville, California

Grand Canyon National Park

Bryce Canyon, Utah

Los Barriles, Mexico

Austin, Texas

Yosemite

Portland, Oregon

Gjáin, Iceland

Yosemite yet again, this time Clouds' Rest

Wow, I go to Yosemite a lot, don't I

Napa, where the summer nights are so incredible

Mt Nebo State Park, Arkansas

Death Valley, California

Moro Bay, California

Austin, Texas

Napa, California

Yosemite, backpacking the high country

Tanzania

London, England

Hawaii

Monaco

The pictures get worse from here, now that we're going back to the early days of digital photography.

Big Sur, California

and

Las Vegas, Nevada (Roger Waters concert)

Lake Shasta, California

The Spanish Pyrennes

Galway, Ireland at my favorite fish and chip shop

Munich, Germany

Kauai

Somewhere in the Nevada desert

Any further back and we're talking about film cameras. Those scanned prints are not as sharp, but still I like to think I got some pretty good shots now and then.

Especially with that Nikon Pronea S, that small format film, sleek SLR, I loved that little camera.

Somewhere else in that same Nevada desert

Irish Wedding!

Irish Reception!

Lifting a pint somewhere in Ireland

And that's it. Maybe I missed some, maybe there's more in a box somewhere, and there were times when I didn't take any pictures. But the process of going through them all, a photographed life, and if you had to choose... It's an interesting exercise, nothing more. It stirs up some memories, it inspires some sharing, moments of friendship when you see each other and say look at this, remember us? That time we were?