[Go to Full Screen, on the lower right]
To Dare – Jón Kalman Stefánsson
“What does it mean to betray yourself?
* * *
To dare not. To dare not speak. To dare not be afraid. To attempt not to overcome . . . the dark storm inside you. If you do nothing, you betray everyone who matters. … Nor should you betray those who are dead; we should live for them, as well, they mustn’t be left in the dark and cold, and they mustn’t be forgotten at the bottom of the sea.”
Twin Lakes Backpack – Baker County, OR
[All photos 
Max Vollmer, Click on any image to enlarge]
Son Rompe Pera – Cumbia Algarrobera
From Columbia. [Watch in Full Screen, lower right]
Flowing Water – the Chinese Gugin
The gugin is an ancient Chinese seven-string harp. [Watch in Full Screen, lower right]
Emerald Drifter – Cig Harvey
NEW YORKER Magazine Newsletter April 19, 2025, article by Ocean Vuong about the photography of Cig Harvey in Emerald Drifter [Click on either image to enlarge]
“. . . Emerald Drifter is a rallying cry to exist in our bodies, where all the senses encounter the world. Viewing these images brings to mind an anecdote I once heard and think of often in relation to art: French colonizers, upon arriving in Vietnam in the nineteenth century, were aghast to see gold-clad Buddhas and stupas, porcelain and jade vases and statues, left in the open air, for anyone, even beggars, to touch. How can a people’s finest enaction of craft be left so unguarded, they wondered. Quickly, the conquerors dislodged these treasures and locked them in vaults to be sent back to the empire’s capital and displayed in museums as “relics.” What does it mean to be so frightened by beauty’s power that it must then be plundered and removed, caged? I’ve seen psychological research suggesting that, for some communities in Asia, the touching of religious artifacts has medicinal results that rival the effects of psychotropic drugs. In other words, it reaffirms what artists have known for centuries, and what Harvey so deftly reveals to us here: that beauty, despite being degraded by commerce, or shunned as merely decorous, feminine fussing, heals.”
Mastery – Tao Te Ching
My View – Eugene, Oregon
[Photos Max Vollmer, Click on any image to enlarge]
Japanese Garden – Portland, Oregon
[All photos Max Vollmer, Click on any image to enlarge]
Refuge Hot Springs – Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge, Nevada
The Sheldon NWR sits on the Nevada side of the OR-NV border and is accessed by OR and NV Hwy 140. The Reserve is vast and home to antelope, big horn sheep, elk, deer, mountain lion, wild horses and burros that were set loose years ago. The Refuge Hot Springs was developed by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930’s by building a wall on the low side of the hot spring runoff. The CCC built a shower house that is free and open to the public, fed by the hot spring water. There is a great free campground surrounding the pool. [All photos Max Vollmer, Click on any image to enlarge]
The road to the hot springs passes an active opal mine which offers tours in season. There is also an old homestead with a stone barn and a corral with a fence woven with willow branches.
