My Photographs of the Day

The Featured Photo of the Day is a collection of my photographs which I have taken, processed, and uploaded to my on-line sales gallery at RedBubble.com. If you click on the blue title of the photograph, the system should open a new tab showing you my RedBubble page with the current image showing.

Directly below the image title, you will see the words “Available Products.” When you click that box, the page changes to show you all the various ways you can purchase my photograph, whether that be on a t-shirt, a laptop skin, home decor, etc. RedBubble does a good job of transferring my images to a variety of goods, and please do not hesitate to send me a note if you are at all confused by the choices available.

Beginning in 2022, I opened an Etsy shop devoted to my photography. I named that shop www.lightintoart.com, as photography is literally taking light and turning it into art.

My Photographs sold in 2023

Wednesday, November 8th, 2023

Coffee Mugs featuring a photo of a 1964 Rambler Classic
                                                                                  1964 Rambler Classic Coffee Mugs

Thank you to RG in California who bought two 15-oz ceramic coffee mugs featuring this 1964 Rambler Classic on November 7th, 2023

Tuesday, November 7th, 2023

Hood Ornament on a 1936 Nash LaFayette

This image, one of my photographs taken at the 2011 Ignite the Nights car show in Libby, Montana, was purchased on November 7th, 2023 by someone in California in the form of a poster.

Photographs from 2020

Sunday, December 27th, 2020

Saturday, December 26th, 2020

Saturday, December 19th, 2020

1989 Saab 900S Convertible
My First Saab

Tuesday, December 15th, 2020

Today’s blog post looks at Bonner County, Idaho, home to Idaho’s largest lake. Lake Pend Oreille stretches 43 miles long and has 111 miles of shoreline. It is the 4th deepest lake in the United States. The city of Sandpoint is located on the northwestern edge of the Lake.

Saturday, December 12th, 2020

A bright green 1971 Mercury Cougar Convertible
1971 Mercury Cougar

Today’s car show blog post looks at Ford Motor Company’s Mercury models. For 73 years, Ford produced cars with the Mercury name on them, including this beautiful 1971 Mercury Cougar Convertible. I had my own 1971 Mercury, but not a convertible, and more of an avocado green color. It was a great road car.

Thursday, November 19th, 2020

Skamokawa Slough, Wahkiakum County, Washington
Docks along the Skamokawa Slough, Skamokawa, Washington

Today’s blog post looks at Wahkiakum County, Washington. Most of the residents of Wahkiakum County live very near to the Columbia River or its tributaries, northwest of Portland/Vancouver, and along Washington Highway 4. I took this photo on September 5th, 2016 in Skamokawa, Wahkiakum County, Washington.

Wednesday, November 18th, 2020

Adams County, Idaho, Farmland
Driving Across Adams County Farmland

Today’s blog post looks at Adams County, Idaho. US Highway 95 bisects Adams County and Idaho Highway 55 takes off from 95 at New Meadows. This photograph, which I took on April 21st, 2016, shows the spring green of Adams County farmland while snow still covers the mountains.

Wednesday, May 20th, 2020

Today’s Guest Site of the Day talks about ways to take beautiful photographs when the sky doesn’t want to play along. I took this shot of Wes’s American Cream Draft Horses on just such a day, with the Mission Mountains as a backdrop.

Thursday, April 30th, 2020

One of the daffodils blooming in my flower beds, caught in the cage designed to keep the pups out of the flower beds. This was a good capture to show the benefits of bracketing image shots, or HDR photography.

Friday, April 24th, 2020

In an attempt to try focus stacking, I took three shots of the fog in the trees to the west of our home. Not sure that the focus stacking actually worked, as I couldn’t get Photoshop to co-operate with me, but still, I like this image enough to make it my Photo Of The Day.

Wednesday, April 22nd, 2020

By the time this car was first built, Ransom E. Olds had been building cars for fifteen years. Until GM pulled the plug in 2004, Oldsmobile was one of the oldest makes in the world.

Monday, April 20th, 2020

A view of downtown Seattle taken from South and West of Safeco Field. The white building just right of center, with the pointed pyramid on top, is the Smith Tower. Built in 1914, it was Seattle’s tallest building until 1962 when the Space Needle surpassed it by over 100 feet. Today, both look small in comparison to the newer skyscrapers that have been built, mostly as office space, downtown.

Sunday, April 19th, 2020

Junior Year I played bass drum in the El Cerrito Gaucho Band--just one of my El Cerrito Gaucho Years
And what did you do your Junior Year in High School?

I played trombone all through junior high and high school, but for some reason, my junior year I ended up carrying the bass drum around. Boom, Boom, Boom. Yes, that’s me in that heavy wool uniform. Can’t complain, I got my own page in the school yearbook, El Camino 1966.

Saturday, April 18th, 2020

They just won’t stay still (Digger, Taz & Simon)

The three dogs now sharing our home. Digger is the oldest. We have had him since 2015. He is diabetic and blind, which means he’s not quite sure what the other two are up to at any given moment. Taz (the red and white) and Simon have been with us less than a month. They are both year old Chihuahua crosses which we got from a private shelter in Polson, Montana.

Friday, April 17th, 2020

One of my favorite humorous poets is Hillaire Belloc, a prodigious writer who wrote The Bad Child’s Book of Beasts in 1897. He followed with More Beasts for Worse Children in 1898. The Crocodile comes from the second collection.

The Crocodile
Whatever our faults, we can always engage
That no fancy or fable shall sully our page,
   So take note of what follows, I beg.
This creature so grand and august in its age,
   In its youth is hatched out of an egg.

And oft in some far Coptic town
The Missionary sits him down
   To breakfast by the Nile:
The heart beneath his priestly gown
   Is innocent of guile;
When suddenly the rigid frown
Of Panic is observed to drown
   His customary smile.

Why does he start and leap amain,
And scour the sandy Libyan plain
Like one that wants to catch a train
Or wrestles with internal pain?

Because he finds his egg contain--
Green, Hungry, horrible and plain--
   An Infant Crocodile.

--Hilaire Belloc
More Beasts for Worse Children

Thursday, April 16th, 2020

Heading for the Bay Bridge, then crossing the Pacific by Freighter
The San Francisco Bay Bridge

Scanned from a slide Poppa took in 1965, in this shot, we are on board the President Lincoln, having pulled away from our berth at Pier 50, and headed for Yokohama. But first, we have to cross under the Bay Bridge, then under the Golden Gate. As Momma did not go with us, I know Poppa left his heart in San Francisco.

Wednesday, April 15th, 2020

Hood ornament for a 1937 Plymouth--Everyone Knows the Name Plymouth
The Hood Ornament of a 1937 Plymouth

The Mayflower has always served as the symbol of Plymouth automobiles, even though the car’s name comes from baler twine, not anything related to the Pilgrims. Hey, it’s a catchy name.

Easter Sunday, April 12th, 2020

The El Cerrito Methodist Church
The El Cerrito Methodist Church
Photo by Kathy Gregovich

Saturday, April 11th, 2020

Four individual photos of male MinPin (Miniature Pinscher) dogs  Four More MinPins
The boys

A composite I made of our male MinPins at home. (Note: Grover was the name the shelter gave our boy. We renamed him Digger.) All but Digger are now at the Rainbow Bridge.

Wednesday, April 8th, 2020

Badge and grill from a 1937 Nash Ambassador--
The Badge and Grill of a 1937 Nash Ambassador

Charles W. Nash, stepped down from the role of President of General Motors to build cars with name on them. In 1917, he purchased the Thomas B. Jeffrey Company which had been building cars since 1902. One of the first Jeffrey cars was called Rambler. When Nash took over, he changed the name of the company to Nash Motors, keeping the company in Kenosha, Wisconsin. In 1932, he introduced a model named Ambassador, which continued to serve as the company’s flagship right up to 1974. Today’s blog post looks at one of America’s independents, the Nash.

Tuesday, April 7th, 2020

a ranch in a snowy landscape
What a difference a day makes

Springtime in the Rockies. I took these two photos two days apart. The early days in April had us waking up to snow–seems like more snow than we saw all winter. Now, just a couple of days later, the snow has gone from the lower hills and valleys. This ranch is approximatly 2 miles from home, and I drive by it every time I go to town.

Monday, April 6th, 2020

The Washington State Capitol Complex sits atop a hill in central Olympia, allowing views like this from below through the trees.

Sunday, April 5th, 2020

Trinity United Methodist Church, Colusa, California
Trinity United Methodist Church, Colusa, California

The church Poppa served 1960-62, when I was in 6th and 7th grade.

Saturday, April 4th, 2020

A cozy mystery most folk my age know is the TV series Murder, She Wrote, starring Angela Lansbury as mystery writer Jessica Fletcher. Ms. Fletcher lived in Cabot Cove, Maine. The coastal town of Mendocino, California played the part of Cabot Cove. The photo above looks across the bay at the town of Mendocino, 155 miles north of San Francisco, if you take the short way. Last December (2019), someone in Oregon bought this image as an acrylic block. You can have it in your home too. Just follow the blue lettered caption under the photograph.

Man holding miniature pinscher (MinPin) at Kootenai Falls Montana
Kevin and Harley at Kootenai Falls, Montana

One of my favorite shots of my partner Kevin and our Harley taken in front of Kootenai Falls, near Libby, Montana. Kootenai Falls was the cascade that Leonardo DiCaprio went over in the movie The Revenant.

Friday, April 3rd, 2020

Thursday, April 2nd, 2020

Yesterday, I had the privilege to watch a master farrier shoe a neighbor’s bay horse. The day started out cold (27 degrees Fahrenheit) and then Mother Nature decided to play April Fools! By the time the farrier finished (and he worked quickly), we were all cold, and my camera was quite wet from the falling snow.

Wednesday, April 1st, 2020

The pedestrian bridge seen here crosses U.S. Highway 93 and connects the Confederated Salish-Kootenai Tribal Offices with Salish-Kootenai College. This is the west end of the bridge. The east end has matching stylized tipi pole supports. It’s my favorite structure to photograpn on the Flathead Reservation.

Tuesday, March 31st, 2020

Driving U.S. Highway 212 in southeastern Montana’s Powder River County, I stopped to take some landscape photos. I parked in a pull out right by this pond, and as soon as I opened the door to the car, the sound of the frogs was apparent. Loud, even. As with any of my photos with a blue caption, this image is available in a variety of forms at my RedBubble online sales gallery. Just click on the blue lettered caption to open a new tab.

Monday, March 30th, 2020

The Long Beach Peninsula is one of the longest beaches in the United States. It stretches 28 miles north to south and is one of Washington’s 156 state parks. In the summer, you’ll find many people flying kites on the sand. You may see a few brave souls daring the cold water of the Pacific. But rest assured, with 28 miles of beach, you’ll certainly find a private patch to claim for yourself.

Sunday, March 29th, 2020

Hawai'ian Ukulele on hand woven lap rug
Poppa’s Gift from Honolulu

While we lived in Stockton, California, Poppa’s work had him traveling all around the state–and elsewhere. One of the first trips he took for the University of the Pacific was to Honolulu. He brought me back this ukulele which I played regularly until I got my first guitar. At that point I put the uke away as an abandonned toy. Fast foward to 2005, and people are now playing the ukulele. Visiting my mother, I went into the garage, and sure enough, there it was, packed away.

I brought the instrument back to Missoula where I asked Peter Barberio of the String Instrument Division if I should spend the money to repair it. Peter called me back a week later and gave me a quote. I jumped at his offer, which, I think, surprised him. This photo shows the repaired ukulele posed on a hand-woven lap rug I made for Poppa. It’s the “U” in my first hard-bound photography book, The Alphabet, ©2006.

Saturday, March 28th, 2020

A mother, child and small dog
Momma, Dinah and Me on the Rimrocks near Laurel, Montana.

Poppa took this photo in the very early 1950s. It combines four of my loves, and the themes of my blog. You see me holding a toy truck (looks like a Divco Milk Delivery Truck), and Momma in the red holding Dinah, the first MinPin in my life. My dad took the photo outdoors (one of my loves) in the rimrocks near Laurel, Montana. Combine all that in one photograph, and you have the story of my life: dogs, classic cars, the outdoors, family life (with dogs), and photography. What more can I say? (I apologize for the quality of the photo. Poppa took slides, and I scanned this from one of his slides.)

Friday, March 27th, 2020

Kevin and I at the Black and White Ball--Gay Male Romance
Kevin and I at the 2009 Black and White Ball

Kevin and I have been a couple since March 2008. A friend took this photo in March 2009, after one year together. It’s now been 12 years that we’ve been together, through thick and thin, and he’s still the man for me. (I’m the one in the white, in case you didn’t know.) I cannot imagine living without this man in my life, and I can’t think of a better Photo of the Day when writing about gay male romance.

Thursday, March 26th, 2020

The music of Jean Sibelius instilled a deep desire to visit Finland, and in 1985 I was fortunate to fulfill that dream. While traveling from Helsinki to Rovaniemi in Finnish Lappland, I stopped in Hämeenlinna, Sibelius’ home town where I found this statue in a city park. Taken September, 1985, in Hämeenlinna, Finland. 

Wednesday, March 25th, 2020

This 1969 Pontiac GTO was on display at the 2016 Old School House Rock Car Show in Superior, Montana. You can get your own version of this image at my RedBubble online sales gallery. (Note, this is NOT the Classic Car of the Day.)

Tuesday, March 24th, 2020

My father served several rural churches, including the Lavina (Montana) Methodist Church while he worked at Rocky Mountain College in Billings, Montana. Lavina is a small town in Golden Valley County, approximately 45 miles north of Billings. The church was yoked to the Ryegate Methodist Church at the time, and Poppa served both as interim pastor. You can find this image in my RedBubble online sales gallery.

Sunday, March 21st, 2020

Home Address Sign
Welcome to our Bear Cave

The blue and brown address sign depicts two bears fishing in a flowing mountain stream. Our dear friends Michael and Tom had it made and painted, and then they delivered it and installed it on Labor Day, 2019. I smile every time I pass this sign alongside our driveway.

Monday, March 16th, 2020

The Montana Horses Tapestry
Montana Horses Rya Tapestry

Designed by UM faculty member Rudy Autio (October 8, 1926 – June 20, 2007), woven by master weaver Anneli Hartikainen of the Friends of Finnish Handicraft in Helsinki, the Montana Horses tapestry is the largest of its kind in the world. Over 30 feet across at the top and more than 20 feet long in the center, the tapestry, woven in seven panels, hangs in the lobby stairwell in the Performing Arts Radio-TV building on the University of Montana campus, Missoula. Photo taken November 11th, 2019.

Sunday, March 15th, 2020

The house at 315 N. Montana Street
315 N. Montana Street

This house, located at 315 N. Montana Street, Butte, Montana, served as the parsonage for the Mountain View United Methodist Church (the side of which you can see on the left). It was my family’s home from June, 1954 till January, 1956. Today it is part of the National Register’s Butte Historic District. Taken July 17, 2016.

Saturday, March 14th, 2020

Driving across Grants Pass, Oregon, you pass a lot where several classic windmills are on display. Most sport paint in bright colors. At ground level there is a collection of antique farm equipment. It makes for a colorful view. Taken March 4th, 2007, in Grants Pass, Josephine County, Oregon

Friday, March 13th, 2020

Western Montana in March

Sorry, but I have no idea where I grabbed this shot. My guess is from Highway 93 in Lake County, but I can’t guarantee that. Taken March 6th, 2017.

Thursday, March 12th, 2020

One of my favorite views, taken at Montana Highway 200 Mile Marker 102 on March 12th, 2018.

Wednesday, March 11th, 2020

The Flathead River flowing west through the canyon at Mile Marker 93 on Montana Highway 200 in rural Sanders County.

Tuesday, March 10th, 2020

A view taken inside the homesteader’s cabin, or what’s left of it, at mile marker 97 on Montana Highway 200 in Sanders County. Seven bracketed shots combine to create a single HDR (High Dynamic Range) photo showing both the light and the dark. Taken Sunday, March 8th, 2020.

Monday, March 9th, 2020

I have no idea why this collection of upright and fallen poles exists. It may have started out as a corral. Or maybe it’s rancher’s view of what Stonehenge should look like. In any event, I took this photo in the Little Bitterroot River Valley, Sanders County, Montana, on Sunday, March 8th, 2020.

Sunday, March 8th, 2020

The Laurel Montana United Methodist Church
The Laurel, Montana, United Methodist Church

In June, 1949, when Bishop Phillips appointed my father as pastor of the yoked parish of Laurel and Park City, Montana, this building did not exist. In October, 1949, I was born. Five years later, in 1954, when the bishop appointed Father to Mountain View Church in Butte, Montana, this building not only was in place, but was paid for. And the parish was no longer yoked to Park City, but stood on its own.

Saturday, March 7th, 2020

Located near Two Medicine Lake in Glacier National Park, Montana, USA, Running Eagle Falls is actually two waterfalls in one, with the vast majority of the water pouring out of the side of the falls, having gone underground upstream. For this reason, it also bears the name Trick Falls.

Taken July 4th, 2017, in Glacier National Park, Montana, USA.

Nikon D7100 DSLR, Nikkor 16-85 mm lens set at 32 mm. ISO 125, f /16, 1/13th second. Shot in RAW format, finished in Photoshop CC2015 then run through a Nik HDR Efex Pro filter.

This photo featured in three RedBubble groups: America the Beautiful, July 8th, 2017;
Farm and Country, July 13th, 2017; and Tuesday Afternoon, July 16th, 2017.

Friday, March 6th, 2020

What better place to spend the 4th of July but America’s Crown of the Continent, Glacier National Park. You can see just how tourists have overrun the place. I took this photo at the south end of the Lake, at Apgar Village. Lake McDonald is the largest lake in the Park. At just under 10 miles in length, the lake covers 10.66 square miles. The surface elevation is 3,153 feet above sea level, and its maximum depth is 472 feet (144 m). It’s located in the western section of the Park, just north of West Glacier. Going-to-the-Sun Highway follows the lake on the right side, as we look at this photo.

Thursday, March 5th, 2020

When the Northern Pacific Railroad came through western Montana in the mid 1880s, a large number of Chinese came to build the iron highway. Paradise, Montana, a major center for the railroad, had a plant set up nearby to build the wooden ties on which the iron rails rest. For some reason, no doubt racist, the Chinese were not allowed within the town of Paradise, and had to camp outside the town’s limits. As is common with large groups of men (of any ethnicity), there were often fights or other altercations which ended up with the men jailed or otherwise separated.

In the case of the Chinese, should any of them get into trouble with the railroad bosses, the rairoad authorities would take them across the Clark Fork River and left in this small cabin at least overnight. There were no bridges in those days. The cabin sits on the south side of the River and the railroad runs along the north side. Another sad story of how the West was won.

I do not know exactly when the railroad built thiscabin, most likely 1880-1885, but around 2000, after the building had fallen into disrepair, a local artisan, Orville Kuester, rebuilt it from the ground up using the original materials he found on the site.

Taken March 4th, 2020 near Paradise, Sanders County, Montana, USA.

Wednesday, March 4th, 2020

Yes, there are Amish folk in Montana. This buggy is parked outside the Mission General Store (an Amish run business) at St. Ignatius, Montana—the heart of the Salish Kootenai (Flathead) Indian Reservation.

Taken 3/11/14 near St. Ignatius, Lake County, Montana

Featured in the Preserving History group, 3/21/14.
Featured in Old Things are Vintage, 3/21/14.

Tuesday, March 3rd, 2020

The Road to Glasgow

Montana Highway 24 runs north-south from the Saskatchewan, Canada border crossing at the Port of Opheim, through Valley County, Montana, crossing the Fort Peck Dam and entering McCone County, only to end at its junction with Montana Highway 200 between the towns of Jordan and Circle, a distance of 134 miles. In its course, it passes through two towns, Opheim, population 85 and Fort Peck, population 233. It just misses Glasgow, the Valley County Seat with a 2010 population of 3,250 and passes by the modern ghost town of St Marie (264 residents on 23 square miles of what used to be the Glasgow Air Force Base).

This view is such an iconic view of eastern Montana highways that I used the image as the cover of my Glory of the West, Volume 2 coffee table photo book which showcased Montana Counties 15 to 28. (Valley County is Number 20 in Montana’s numbering system.)

Taken August 27, 2011, near St. Marie, Valley County, Montana, USA.

Monday, March 2nd, 2020

U.S. Highway 6 between Spanish Fork and Soldier Summit is an incredibly beautiful drive, between the red rock, the green pine, and, on a good day, the blue sky above it all. Highway 6 crosses the Wasatch Mountains as it connects the Great Basin to the west with the Green River Valley. I captured this view in late August.

Taken August 31st, 2013, east of Spanish Fork, Utah County, Utah, USA.

Sunday, March 1st, 2020

Built in 1885 to serve as the community’s grade school, The building grew in 1906 with the addition of two classrooms. In 1910, a full high school curriculum was offered, and by the 1920s, the community’s needs had outgrown the building.

In 1928, when the Methodist church in the US was still split by slavery, the Stevensville Methodist Episcopal congregation (as the church was known until 1939) and the Methodist Episcopal Church, South congregation united, bought the building, and it has continued to serve as a Methodist Church and now, since 1968, the United Methodist Church. Through a rural compact in Montana, while always served by United Methodist pastors and tied fully into the United Methodist connection, the church also serves as home for Presbyterians and Congregationalists (United Church of Christ) living in central Ravalli County. As of 2017, the estimated population of Stevensville was 1,988.

In 1946, my father, just graduated from Boston University School of Theology, a man who had never been west of Columbus, Ohio, moved with my mother to western Montana to serve as pastor of this church, where my parents remained until June 1949, four months before I was born.

Taken February 29th, 2020 in Stevensville, Ravalli County, Montana, USA.

Saturday, February 29th, 2020

Actually, the house doesn’t look too bad for 160 years old. Actually, I don’t know exactly how old this house is. It’s located in Bannack, Montana’s first Territorial Capital, which was a booming gold rush town in the 1860s. As with so many such places, the town eventually died. The last residents were gone by the 1970s. Today, Bannack is preserved by the State of Montana as a State Park.

Taken June 6th, 2009, in Bannack, Beaverhead County, Montana, USA

Friday, February 28th, 2020

According to Wikipedia, “Rising Sun is a wayside area that has a National Park Service campground, a camp store and gift shop, picnic area, restaurant, as well as a motel and guest cabins which are managed by the park’s concessionaire, Xanterra Parks & Resorts. In the immediate area, there is also a boat dock as well as sightseeing boats which allow visitors to tour Saint Mary Lake, the second largest lake in the park.” The article then quotes Linda DuVal saying “The most popular spot for [Glacier] tourists is Rising Sun,….” I’m not sure if Ms. DuVal is correct in that assessment, but Rising Sun is a beautiful spot to visit while passing through the Park.

Taken July 20th, 2019 at Rising Sun, Glacier National Park, Glacier County, Montana, USA.

Thursday, February 27th, 2020

Montana Highway 200’s Mile Marker 102 is one of my favorite spots to stop and capture the scenery. As seen here, the Flathead River is in the foreground and the Mission Mountains form the backdrop. Both the river and the mountains are located on the Flathead Indian Reservation, Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes.

Taken April 25th, 2019 at Mile Marker 102, Montana Highway 200, Sanders County, Montana, USA.

Wednesday, February 26th, 2020

Island County, Washington, consists of nine islands in Puget Sound, the two largest of which are Whidbey and Camano. Standing on the northwestern “corner” of Camano Island, and looking out over the water, you catch glimpses of other islands as well as the mainland in the distance.

Taken Oct. 25th, 2016 on Camano Island, as part of my coffee table book project Evergreen: A Photographic Portrait of Washington’s Thirty-Nine Counties.

Tuesday, February 25th, 2020

The Littlerock United Methodist Church

The Littlerock United Methodist Church

Hard to believe that this small country church (congregation size 30) is just a few miles away from busy Interstate Highway 5 and the Washington State Capitol building in Olympia. When I asked about the history of the church, Pastor Laurie Sardinia replied:

The present church sanctuary was originally built in 1885 at the site of a Methodist camp meeting on the other side of beaver creek. In 1905, it was decided that the church should be moved to the center of population (its current location). The church could not be moved across the creek in one piece, so it was carefully dismantled and then rebuilt in the current location. All of the old lumber was used except for the roofing shingles. An annex and the bell tower were added at a later date, around 1911, maybe.

Taken Oct. 3rd, 2016 in Littlerock, Thurston County, Washington, USA.

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