We recently added a new gallery: Return to Disappointment. This new gallery contains images that make a longer-form project. The project captures moments as storms batter the headland, Cape Disappointment, at the mouth of the Columbia River. The storm came to Cape Disappointment, bringing tumult, turmoil and chaos. We think it turned into a wonderful project. We look at the images and feel the sting of the rain, and the taste of salt. Most of these images were originally captured in early November of 2025 and we think the gallery lives up to the line: “when the gales of November come slashin”.

Even though the project is longer than most, we have some images that didn’t fit this story of storms so well and so were excluded from the project. But we think they are worth sharing. So here are a few more images from Cape Disappointment.

If you haven’t seen enough of our photography of Cape Disappointment, scroll down in this journal to the entry for April 18, 2022 entitled “Cape without Disappointment”. That entry contains some of the history of the Cape and some more pictures we love, from the mouth of the Columbia River at Cape Disappointment.

Boyd TurnerJanuary 28, 2026Comment

Seafoam

In September 2025 we had a project published in LensWork Magazine #173. The project was called Seafoam and it spun out of the journal story we called “The Churn” that we posted in January, 2023. You can scroll down to see the Churn article. The Seafoam project is about the foam that occurs as the ocean bashes plankton against the rocky shoreline of the Oregon Coast. You can view the Seafoam project at LensWork.com but there is a paywall and it might cost you a few dollars to see the project. If you are a photographer, we believe membership is worth every penny as there is a lot of good info and interesting work to view.

September 2025 was also the last time we posted here to our journal. That is much longer than we prefer between posts. Yes, we are fine, but we have been busy. We are working on some new projects that we hope to share soon. In the meantime, here are some images from the Seafoam project that were not in the Churn journal entry.

Boyd TurnerJanuary 2, 2026Comment

Bee mine

Bumble bees. They aren’t honey bees. Bumblebees have a much more fraught social life. (Everyone but this year’s queens die off before winter.) They aren’t meat bees aka yellow jackets; yellow jackets are aggressive little minions of the devil with mostly hairless, yellow and black bodies. Bumblebees are hairy all over. Carpenter bees have hairy thoraxes (upper bodies) and smooth bottoms. Bumblebees are rumored to be poorly designed for flight. But they are definitely flying around our garden this year. Here’s a few images of these bulbous pollinators. If you want to learn more, you can visit the Bumble Bee Watch website. We know, right? Who knew there was an organization dedicated to just bumble bees.

But let’s not forget that the humble not bumble, honey bee is the important pollinator of crops and also is striped yellow and black.

And just for comparison, here’s a member of the Devil’s supporting cast, direct from Hades, the all-around nemesis of woods people, the Yellow Jacket. And did you know their stinger is smooth so they can insert it, pull it out and sting you again? And they bite. Clearly the perfect example of a malevolent evolutionary path. At least they aren’t dressed in camo.

Boyd TurnerSeptember 29, 2025Comment

Time for a refresh

Sometimes the ol’ place just needs a little work. The Image Galleries of our site had not been re-worked in a while. So we pruned the galleries down to six: Animals, Cities, Clouds, Mountains, Plants without green, Streams. We replaced almost all the images in the galleries with images you probably haven’t seen. A few of our absolute favorites remain.

We hope to add new galleries more frequently. Maybe more like projects that are too big for a story here in the Journal. And we are thinking about adding occasional limited time galleries. In short, The Images section of this site is getting some extra love.

We hope you enjoy the refresh. You can let us know by sending us a comment.

Boyd TurnerSeptember 4, 2025Comment

A Glittering

We don’t know who created the various words for groups of animals. Some group names are just generic: a herd of deer, a flock of geese. But some are quite appropriate. Maybe none more so than a glittering of hummingbirds.

Here’s a selection from our files that proves a group of these tiny birds are truly a glittering.

Rufous hummingbird and showy milkweed. Oregon

Purple-throated mountain-gem (male). Costa Rica

Purple-throated mountain-gem (female). Costa Rica

We hope you enjoyed this small bouquet (also a word for a group of hummers.) If you wish to see any of these images larger, you can click on the image for a larger pop-up version.

A technical note: You will notice many of these images are from Costa Rica. The cloud forest there has a variety of birds that are spectacular. These Costa Rica images were captured in 2012. Since then processing techniques have improved dramatically allowing more of the full potential of the digital image to come through. This allows us to present images we thought were disappointing, in a manner more true to the light in which we originally saw them.

This freshly polished group of hummers, from Costa Rica, as well as the western US, are, we think, a truly glittering group.

Boyd TurnerAugust 3, 2025Comment

An Evening to Remember

Sometimes you just have to stick it out. Maybe the game goes down to a 3-2 count with 2 outs, no runners on in the bottom of the 9th and the home team rallies to pull off the win and advance to the championship. Maybe the bird won’t move from behind the stick and then suddenly flies to a new perch next to your head. Sometimes a photographer just has to be patient. And then sometimes there is an embarrassment of riches. Maybe the evening starts with shadow rays and golden reflections.

And being a sunset you know it is going to change quickly. But you don’t anticipate it would go blue and red.

And then the light begins to fade but the last bit of light and color doesn’t seem to want to let the evening go.

And then the storm rolls in.

All the images in this entry were captured over the course of 39 minutes on July 3, 2025.

It was an evening to remember.

Boyd TurnerJuly 4, 2025Comment

Spring Saunter in Keukenhof - Part 2

Details. If you have read a few (or many) of our stories here on our Journal you will probably notice we love to photograph details and textures. With 7 million planted bulbs at Keukenhof garden in Holland, there are lots of opportunities for beautiful details. The late April flowers are incredible. Making interesting images wasn’t the hard part. Winnowing down the choices to a manageable number was. Here are some of our favorite, more detailed images. Like a broader scene? Then don’t miss Part 1. Didn’t view Part 1? Have a thing for looking at things in the “proper” order? Just scroll down to Part 1. Or you can look at Part 2 first. Dip your toe in for a feel of either one, just be sure to make it all the way through. We hope you enjoy a tiptoe through the tulips of Keukenhof.

Boyd TurnerJune 2, 2025Comment

Spring Saunter in Keukenhof

Holland, 7 million bulbs, and a spring day. Must be Keukenhof. Their brochure says they are “the most beautiful spring garden in the world.” That’s a pretty high bar. But it is a spectacular place. In the first of two stories, join us as we saunter, maybe even tiptoe, through the tulips.

Thanks for taking a stroll through the garden of Keukenhof with us. If the pictures don’t fit your device try clicking on them and they will open in individual “lightbox” versions where you can see the whole image at once (even on a phone, although bigger screens ARE better.) Check back soon for part two of a Spring Saunter in Keukenhof.

Boyd TurnerJune 1, 2025Comment

Back in Death Valley

People go to Death Valley for a variety of reasons.

Unsurprisingly, we find the landscape spectacular.

But one of the things we are always fascinated with here are the textures.

And the colors of the rock, well, forgive us, but, we are rocked by the colors.

And of course there is the night sky… Add a warm invigorating breeze and wonderful company, and the valley should be re-named Life Valley.

Boyd TurnerApril 12, 2025Comment

California Dreamin'

Snow is in the forecast, the sky is gray, it’s still a winter’s day in Central Oregon. But a few hundred miles to our south, spring has arrived. So we went for a walk, on such a winter’s day, in a place where the grass is green, the leaves are starting to appear, the birds are singing and the flowers appear. We hope, your heart soars as the dream of the California spring in the oak savannah on Mount Diablo comes to our cameras and to you. Let’s take a walk on such a spring day.

Hope you enjoyed the stroll. Time for a glass of Yorba Wines’ Tempranillo. Remember clicking on our images in the journal will open the image in its own window.

Boyd TurnerMarch 11, 2025Comment