January 2025

Saguaro and Cat Mountain
Tucson Mountains, Arizona
2024

We’re back in the southwest for a while, and spent time in Tucson just before and after the New Year. Cat Mountain, just west of town, has quite a movie history; because it is situated adjacent to the movie sets at Old Tucson, it has appeared in the background of many westerns filmed there since it was first built in 1939. I should probably make a climb to the top one of these days so that whenever I see it one of those old movies filmed there I can say “I’ve been on top of that mountain.”

Lives Real and Imagined #49
Chicago, Illinois
2024

Once again, life unintentionally mimics art.

Cactus Ball
Wichita, Kansas
2024

Painted Snake Charmer
Wichita, Kansas
2024

A very interesting sculpture. I more or less get the salamander and the snake but not the inclusion of the sculpted paint brush. It was in the kids area of the Botanica, the lovely botanical gardens in Wichita, but there weren’t any kids handy at the time to explain the meaning to me.

FOO Dog
Wichita, Kansas
2024

FOO Dog, including the all-caps on FOO, is the name of this sculpture according to it’s name plate. I was getting much more of a feline than canine vibe from it myself, and I have no feeling at all about whether it’s FOO or not, whatever that is.

Oh, according to Wikipedia (which I just bothered to check), it’s actually a Chinese guardian lion or imperial guardian lion, also known in colloquial English as lion dogs or foo (fu) dogs where the term foo or fu may be a transliteration of the pinyin words fó or fú. Why they decided to capitalize all the letters of foo on the sculpture’s plaque is unknown.

Quiet Contemplation
Wichita, Kansas
2024

A chimp alone with his thoughts on a quiet day at the Sedgwick County Zoo.

Slow Going
Wichita, Kansas
2024

From a human perspective you can’t be a turtle and be in a hurry, but I’m sure the turtle’s concept of speed is different than ours. At least I assume they’re not watching us thinking “I wish I could move that fast!.”

Stepping Down
Chicago, Illinois
2024

This particular afternoon I spotted another photographer making the rounds of the Chicago River Walk. He was much more burdened with his gear (a big pack with tripod attached) than I was. As is typical for me when walking around in cities anymore, all I carry is a small jacket-pocketable camera.

Rockadile
Bozeman, Montana
2024

A cool comglomerate rock we found somewhere sitting on top of an end-table covered in what I usually think of as fake alligator hike, but for the sake of the image title I decided to consider it faux crockadile hide instead. In either case I like the similar textural shapes of the two surfaces.

Magpie Walk
Bozeman, Montana
2024

Magpie tracks on the sidewalk after a light skiff of snow had fallen.