portrait #1

Photo copyright Gazelle 1993

I don't take too many close up portraits but I've snapped a few that I think came out pretty well. This image is of a friend's daughter. She was thirteen or fourteen at the time. I like this photo because she seems particularly serene and mature for her age. Her features are interesting as well, perhaps in part because of her 1/4 Polynesian ancestry.

up for air

Photo copyright Gazelle 1995

Two new jobs, plus contract work, plus new scanner I didn't know how to work = no blogging from Gazelle the last month. I'm back, though a bit frazzled.

summertime

The Wedge, Newport Beach

Day-dreaming of southern hemis and hurricanes. I hope some of them are big enough to get in up here this summer...

drive

Photo by Colvin - Summer 1997, Topanga Canyon

One my favorite feelings in surfing is the drive down the line on a sizeable wave, flying past or over a section. The board above drove well, and I miss it (cracked in two after about ten years of abuse). It was an off-the-shelf custom that somebody changed their mind on, an 8'6" Stewart thruster pintail with a concave nose, wings, and double channels. I've thought about having a copy shaped because it was just so damn FUN and versatile, and I never see boards quite like it. I occasionally took it out on head high to DOH waves and it almost performed like a shortboard when given some speed. It handled beach break barrels, floaters, gouging cutbacks, even cross-stepping nose rides - it would make a fine one-and-only desert island board.

kosmic kookiness

Pype's Palace neighborhood pipe & tobacco shop, on Lombard Ave. in North Portland

A Mom & Pop operation since 1976, these folks are a friendly bunch. Plus, their flying joint mascot in his spaceship the "Do-Be 1" freakin' rules! I am proud to have them as my neighbors. I have requested that they carry t-shirts and stickers with the mascot and spaceship...

P.S. I swear that the only thing I've bought in their store is Djarum cigarettes. Really.

baja norte

Photo by Gazelle 2004

The raw sewage, the garbage and broken glass, the broken down cars, the incomplete construction projects, the mangy stray animals, the poverty, the dust, the corruption, the gated gringovilles. Baja Norte is not for everyone. Personally, after being robbed, jailed, sickened, and generally disgusted with the stretch of coast between the border and Ensenada, I think I'm done.

winter wonderland

Photo copyright 2006 Gazelle

On the first day of summer in the northern hemisphere, I offer a contrasting image of cold beauty from last winter. Taken from the Timberline Lodge on the south slope of Mt. Hood, Oregon.