There is no telling what might inspire a blog post. It might be something I see or something I hear. One blog entry came to me when I was mowing the lawn at my daughter's house. It sparked a memory of a conversation I'd had years before with my Dad about what kind of lawnmower to buy then progressed to how much I missed him and wishing I'd talked more with him. You just never know what's going to tickle my fancy.
This one, though, came to me in a little more arcane fashion. As a photographer I like to keep up with what other shooters are doing. There are several blogs I monitor regularly and a couple of those recently got me thinking. Bret Edge posted about photographing at an iconic location in the Rockies and his experience finding a marvelous image away from the crowd of photographers who were all shooting Maroon Bells near Aspen on a hum drum morning. Then another photographer named Greg Russell posted a couple of links to his blog on Bret's blog and when I started digging through his blog I found one entry about using new skills to process older images. In the midst of this all I was thinking about upcoming photo trips I may be taking including a cruise to Alaska next June that's also going to be a photo workshop cruise conducted by my old acquaintance Rick Sammon.
So where am I going with this? Well, let's see...lots of people trying to accomplish the same goal in a relatively small area...reprocessing older images....Alaska....I've got it! Combat fishing at the confluence of the Kenai and Russian Rivers in Alaska. Duh...makes perfect sense to me, hence the image. But what about the title? Be patient dear reader.
In 2005 Judy and I decided to celebrate our 30th anniversary by taking an Alaska cruise. One of the things we did was set up a trust for our special needs kid in case something should happen to us and during that process we found out that with net worth, retirement plans, and mostly life insurance, we are worth a ton of money..dead. Well me being me, I started talkling about how this would be a perfect plot for a romantic mystery novel. A couple finds out how much the other is worth dead just before a cruise and they spent the bulk of the trip trying to figure out how to do away with the other one. For the most part, Judy was unamused and for some reason when we were taking our evening walk around the Promenade deck on the cruise ship she always made sure I was closest to the rail. But that's not where the title came from.
When we were talking about some of the things we wanted to do after reaching Alaska we talked about how, during her youth, Judy's family would go fishing on the Russian River and catch lots of salmon. I started doing some research and saw some images of the Russian River Falls and salmon jumping up there but there was also a warning about bears being there. When I told Judy I wanted to see this sight she said "what if we run into a bear?" Answer? "No problem, hon...I'm pretty sure I can outrun you." The saying in bear country is "You don't need to outrun the bear, you only need to outrun one of your buddies."
Thanks Dad. You did pass on your Smartass chromosone.
So here you have it. An older image revisited. Lots of people in a small area trying to accomplish the same goal. And a trip to Alaska. Simple progression, right?
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