The Photography of Dr. Jeff Harper

Our new neighborhood in Aberdeen, Scotland.

We spent the last five day in Bangkok high up in the Grand Centara Hotel . . . thanks Marc for the upgrade!  The view from our 51st floor room was beautiful in the daylight . . .

. . . beautiful in the evening . . .

. . . and beautiful at night.  Good-bye Bangkok, it has been a fantastic 17 years!  I'll be back in Thailand for retirement one day . . . but first . . . a summer vacation in:

The Pacific Northwest, USA

Olympia Washington: My sister-in-law Mary is a great gardener.  She grows everything.  It is always a treat to go from the steaming tropics of Thailand directly to to cool climes of the American Pacific Northwest.

I still had Internet access, so I had fun with my big camera in the Mary's garden.

Very sweet.

We all took several long nature walks along the shores of Puget Sound.  The blackberries were not ripe yet . . .

. . . but the salmon berries looked inviting.

The essence of the Pacific Northwest.

New life everywhere under the forest canopy.

A nice morning to row about on one of the arms of Puget Sound. An old log loading pier still stands.

It Doesn't Get More American Than This: The Monmouth, Oregon 4th of July Parade.The Monmouth, Oregon Parade is open to anybody from the community who wants to 'parade' themselves.

It's a great opportunity to crank up that old tractor you lovingly restored, and drive it down Main Street. I love this little town: I attended two years of univesity here.

An old Mac Truck.  Nice.  Brought back memories of El Paso, Texas at 3:00am in 1958 for me.

As is my personal tradition, I ingest The National Dish on the 4th of July every year.  Yep, it was great.

What would a parade be without a car show?  I met my Hot Rod photo quota for the year.

I LOVE these flames!

I prefer the 4-door fat fender hot rods . . . you can take your friends. 

Silver Creek Falls, Oregon My good friends Jeff & Sharon under Silver Creek Falls.  It was a good day for a trail walk in the foothills of the Oregon Cascades.

Oregon.

Delicate new growth.

More ripe salmon berries.

A beautiful trail through the forest along Silver Creek.

A serene mountain stream.

Upper Silver Creek Falls is somewhat unique because the trail takes you under and behind the falls, making for unusual photo opportunities.

Loud and beautiful.

You can judge the scale in this photo by noticing the size of the hikers on the trail.

A perfect day.

Looking out from behind Upper Silver Creek Falls.

Philadelphia, PennsylvaniaI visited my daughter near Valley Forge.

We all went to the Longwood Botanical Gardens for a morning stroll with my new grandson, Torin.

Scrumptious cacti!

Lovely flowers everywhere.

Touching.

Longwood had formal Italian gardens too.

The tropical greenhouses were interesting.

I remember seeing these same lotus pads in Jogjakarta, Indonesia a few years ago.

I had to laugh when I saw these wax flowers . . . I came half way around the planet to see a flower that was growing in my back yard in Bangkok!

Lovely early summer day in Pennsylvania.

Ocean City, New JerseyA strangly cold summer in Ocean City New Jersey.  We took a walk with our freinds, Bud, Gaile,  in the gathering gloom . . .

Night falling over Ocean City.

Last Light.

New England VillageI won't reveal the exact location of this village in New England, except to say that it was the perfect New England village.  Our good friends from Bangkok, Joe and Nancy, recently retired there.

A dream . . . more like a living calendar!  Just too perfect.

Rural Colonial New England.

Mmmmm.

House Proud New Englanders sure know how to spruce a place up.

Around Nancy's garden.

A friend's home.

More old barns than I had time to photograph . . .

I could have stopped a hundred times . . . but Bud and I had more important things to do . . . .

NASCAR at New Hampshire SpeedwayYep, Bud and I joined 40,000 of our best friend and at the New Hampshire 300.  Bud commented that the people watching here was like looking through a 1920s physiology text book, so varied were the physiognomies of the gathered throng.

We rooted for Juan Pablo Montoya . . . . and I think we were the only ones who were.  We rooted for him when we saw him at the Chinese F1 race in Shanghai years ago too.

It was an unseasonably hot day with the threat of rain that never materialized. It was a good, tight race with surprising results.  Loud and fast . . . just the way I like it.

Loudoun, New Hampshire.  Pre-race ceremonies were colorful, to say the least.

At exactly 9:01 this morning the movers arrived in their little truck.  We're moving to Scotland!

The packers got right to work.  They seemed to know what they were doing . . . imagine doing this every day.

Everything, big and small, was wrapped in paper . . .

. . . and then in bubble-wrap.

Sometimes the wrappage seemed excessive.  I would have thrown these in a box and forgot about them . . .

Lots of keepsakes and mementos of Thailand nicely packed and awaiting their trip to Aberdeen, Scotland.

As the morning wore on, the boxes started to accumulate.

We do have some warm weather clothes to pack from our "winter" vacations out of Bangkok . . . but not too much.

We have had to pare down our home altar.  We are only allowed to export five Buddha images from Thailand.  We have competed all the applications and submitted the paperwork for legal exportation of Buddha items and old Thai artifacts.  All travellers out of Thailand are required to do this.  It is a good thing.  We will have  new home altar in Aberdeen.

This is our shipment ready to go.

And away it goes!

The truck is loaded.

Loading our possessions . . .

. . . see you in six weeks.

Our Transpo/Asian Tigers packing crew.

And off it all goes, June 10, 2013.

I was back down at the Saxophone Pub on Victory Monument Circle in Bangkok last Sunday night for a big blues show featuring my old friend, Khun Chai, perhaps one of the greatest blues guitar players on earth . . . and I do not exaggerate.  I sat in front with my good camera and f1.4 lens.  Magic.

I took 563 photos that night.  Decisions, decisions, decisions.

Khun Chai has a great blues singer in his band . . . I cannot remember hearing a better version of "Wang Dang Doodle."

Chai's band is great in it's own right, but an incredible 15 year old sax player sat in . . . WOW! . . . this kid is FANTASTIC!

Khun Chai in action.

If you have never heard Khun Chai play the blues you are REALLY missing something special.

Saxophone has the perfect environment for listening to the blues . . .

Khun Chai singin' dem blues.

I hope I make friends in Scotland as cool as Khun Chai . . . but I don't think that is possible.

Until we meet again . . .

Play on, Khun Chai . . .  play on.

So, I added a couple of extension tubes to my Canon 5D Mark II and put on my favorite macro lens, the Sigma 70mm f2.8 EX DG, and headed to the back yard.

We are just now at the beginning of the "damn hot and damn wet" season, so there were new buds coming out all over.

Depth of field is an issue with macro photography.  I decided not to use a tri-pod, as there seemed to be a lot of light.  Of course, I needed f16 for some of these shots . . . but couldn't because of camera shake.  Still, I used the lack of depth to my advantage . . . I think.

These tiny red blooms coming up out of the green mist is a nice effect.

Some flowers I only see once a year, like these arbor blooms.

These pink wax flowers seem more animal than plant when the come out . . .

. . . they eventually produce these thick, waxy pedals . . .

. . . and look like this when they have been through their cycle.  Always beautiful.

We have orchids all year round.

My super macro study (with the extension tubes) did not really work out all that well.  I will need a completely calm afternoon with lots of bright sunlight and a tripod to do this right.  More to come.