Posts Tagged “sunset”


It was forty years ago, in August, 1980, that a friend and I drove from Vancouver, BC, where I was living at the time, to spend a weekend at Florence, Oregon, which inspired Frank Herbert to write the famous novel Dune.
Like many at the time, I was entranced by Dune as soon as I picked it off a drug store bookshelf probably in 1965. It was sometime later that I read someplace that it was Florence that first inspired Frank Herbert to write about ecology when he originally visited back in 1953 when he was trying to write an article about a US Forest Service project to use dune grass to keep the sand in check. After all that research, as Herbert said in the collection of his essays, Frank Herbert, the Maker of Dune (1987): “Before long I had far too much for an article and far too much for a short story.. But I had an enormous amount of data, with angles shooting off at angles to gather more.” The result, of course, was the blockbuster novel, then more novels, then spinoffs by his son, a movie concept that was never made, an awful movie that was made, a pretty good miniseries and a new movie that we hope to see this Christmas (if there are movies in theatres).
That trip has been a wonderful memory for years, so to mark the anniversary, I found some of the old slides, taken on Kodak Ectachrome, with my old Minolta SRT101 and scanned them. For a some where the colour did not survive four decades, I converted to black and white.

Sand dunes and grass at Florence, Oregon, August 1980. You can see a family building a sandcastle in the distance along the shore. (Robin Rowland)

That amazing sandcastle on the beach at Florence, Oregon, that could be out of a Dune movie or perhaps a fantasy novel. (Robin Rowland)
Sand dunes are like waves in a large body of water; they are just slower. (Frank Herbert, “The Sparks Have Flown” in Frank Herbert The Maker of Dune).

Seagulls over the Pacific Ocean, the dunes and grass at Florence, Oregon, August, 1980. (Robin Rowland)
The first quarter moon chases the setting sun over Ursula Channel as we return home from a day trip on the salt chuck, August 28, 2017. (Robin Rowland)
Ursula Channel is south of Kitimat, east Gribbel Island, southeast of Hawksbury Island (part of the system of channels, passages and “canals” known collectively as The Channel. Douglas Channel itself is west of Hawksbr

An American robin, searching for bugs, tosses a pile of moss out of the way as the sun sets over Kitimat, May 27, 2015. (Robin Rowland)
The sun was setting over my yard, and this robin swoops down and stops on the fence post, looking down at a pile of moss that has grown up in one corner.
All images taken with my 1960s vintage Tele-Astranar 400mm prime, with E-mount converter and my Sony Alpha 6000.

For the past few days, a cold weather inversion has kept a layer of smoke over Kitimat, BC, the Kitimat harbour and Douglas Channel, and according to the Environment Canada weather alert, as far into the interior as Vanderhoof. This image from the park on Albatross Avenue looking out toward Douglas Channel on Friday, November 14, 2014. (Robin Rowland)
A slightly different angle, where part of the Channel can be seen through the smokey haze. (Robin Rowland)
And a stitch panorama of the whole view of the Channel, part of a project where I have been taking panoramic images of the harbour and Douglas Channel from the same spot since 2010. If this image was reproduced full size it would be 200 centimetres or about 78 inches wide. It is a bit noisy at that level and if I eventually use it, will probably be at a smaller size. (Robin Rowland)

The sun sets over the Kitimat River and the snow covered Sand Hill, in Kitimat, BC, February 20, 2014. Converted to black and white using Perfect Effects 8 to emulate Ilford FP4125, with some highlights and shadow enhancement. (Robin Rowland)
Original image. The sun sets over the Kitimat River and the snow covered Sand Hill, in Kitimat, BC, February 20, 2014. (Robin Rowland)

The falls colours along the Skeena can be fleeting. For a while the cottonwoods are changing, while the alders remain green or begin to change to yellow. A few days later, the time I drove along the Skeena in the middle of October 2013, the tall black cottonwoods have quickly lost their leaves, while the alders (and occasionally birch) along the river banks shine bright yellow in the afternoon sun.
Far from the sea, a seal (front right) swims up the Skeena, Oct. 16, 2013.
Bare black cottonwoods on a beach along the Skeena.
The sunsets on the Skeena near Terrace, BC, Oct. 16, 2013.