Colors of the Eastgate Mall, Johannesburg

For dinner, we took a taxi from the hotel to the Eastgate Mall. The mall is a major presence in this part of Johannesburg: large, modern, and colorful. It evoked my propensity to make photos that are inspired by geometrical abstract paintings.

Johannesburg Scenes: Bruma Parklands

We arrived in Johannesburg, South Africa late in the evening of Thursday, July 12, after an exhausting 22-hour, 10,600 mile sequence of flights from Portland through Amsterdam to Johannesburg. We were met at the JNB airport and driven to the Courtyard Hotel Eastgate, where our Road Scholar Intergenerational Program "African Wildlife Encounters With Your Grandchild" would begin on July 14. After an exhausted but restorative sleep, we awoke on Friday the 13th and spent several hours viewing the Bruma parklands and hills behind the hotel. The birdlife was particularly interesting, including sacred ibis and Egyptian goose.

Road Scholar Intergenerational Program: Zambezi River Evening Cruise

My wife and I just returned from a two-week trip to Southern Africa with our granddaughter on a Road Scholar Intergenerational Program (grandchildren and grandparents). The program included locations in South Africa, Botswana, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Over the next several weeks I'll be posting photos from all these countries, but I'll start with this set from the last day of our trip, when we took a sunset cruise on the Zambezi River. By doing so, I want to emphasize the fun that was had by the kids (and their grandparents) as well as the hippos in the river and the beautiful evening light.

Our wonderful tour leader, Lisa Reed

Portland Scenes

These have some formal visual similarities, in color or horizontal structure, that attracted me to post them together.

Downtown Portland Cafe

Interior and doors of a downtown Portland bistro, encountered on a recent walk.

Historic Portland Bank

A corner, with reflection, of a historic bank building in downtown Portland, which doesn't have very many such classic buildings. The vertical columns remind me of the tall, straight old fir trees in Forest Park.

Forest Park Horizontals and Verticals

The fir trees in Forest Park tend to grow straight and tall. Some have no branches until very high up, but others have branches that start low and are almost horizontal.

Ferns in Forest Park, part 2

Yesterday's photos were vertical, today's are horizontal. These emphasize the ferns themselves, rather than their partnership with the trees.

Ferns in Forest Park

One of the pleasures of hiking in Forest Park in the late spring is the profusion of intensely green ferns, bathing the bases of the trees.

Vines on a Yellow Wall

In Slabtown there are quite a few buildings whose walls (often stucco) are covered with vines that have lost their leaves. I usually photograph the patterns in black and white, but the bright yellow of this wall, in the sun and shadow, was too vivid to resist.

Slabtown Signs, Part 7

Make your own connections.

Slabtown Signs, Part 6

In a word