Hanging out on the deck
I was reading a book in my Adirondack chair on the deck the other day with this view. It was cloudy and overcast but still nice out.
Ashland Daily Photo - A picture a day from beautiful Ashland, Southern Oregon USA in the Rogue Valley
| The above will search Ashland Daily Photo. |
International Fashion Show (7 of 7)
Let’s wrap of a week of photographs from SOU’s International Show with several pictures from the International Fashion Show that took place at the end of the program.
The above picture is of Ixel, a former student of mine who ran the show (and got my kids and I in). As it turns out Ixel is not only a fantastic student and athlete, but she can also moonlight as a runway model to boot.
Belly Dancers (6 of 7)
Tiazza is another former student of mine. (Why is it that accounting majors show up in SOU’s International Show so often doing something so completely different than accounting?)
Japan – Taiko Drumming (5 of 7)
I’m looking forward to hearing Taiko drums on Japanese soil in a few months. This was the next best thing to being there.
India (4 of 7)
Neeta Singh represented India at the show. Neeta is a former student of mine who I think is back at SOU getting a master’s degree in a different subject.
Saudi Arabia (3 of 7)
I could be wrong, but I think we have more international students from Saudi Arabia now than any other country. At the end of their performance, when they unfurled Saudi and US flags side by side, the noise from the crowd was absolutely deafening.
Mexico (2 of 7)
The subplot of the show was Carmen San Diego. The audience, through the MCs, chased her around the world while enjoying performances along the way. Mexico was the first stop.
We were about 10 or 12 rows from the stage. The lighting for these kinds of performances is never good for photography. The lighting is low, artificial, and not flash based. Also, my camera doesn’t have much of a zoom lens so I wasn’t expecting great results. I tried lots of different camera settings on my Panasonic DMC-LX3 as an experiment. I used IA (automatic adjustment by the camera’s software), night portrait, night scenery, party, candle light, and high sensitivity modes. The only mode that turned out presentable images was IA.
SOU’s International Show Week (1 of 7)
Every year the International Students Association at Southern Oregon University in Ashland puts on a show. The performances are always top notch, the crowd is crazy loud, and people are turned away at the door because the demand for seats (all free) is so high. This was actually the first year I made it in since four years ago. The prior two years we didn’t get to the Music Recital Hall early enough to get one of the 440 seats. This year one of my students made sure we got in. (Thanks Ixel!)
For the next week I’ll show you some photos from the event.
After being welcomed to the show by about a dozen students in a dozen different languages, the first performance was a Native American drum circle, occasionally flanked by dozens of international students in their home country’s traditional dress.
Empty train tracks
When I was a kid growing up I could hear the train out my bedroom window every evening and morning. I loved the sound of the distant train. When we moved to Ashland in 2000 I was happy to hear the sound of the train in the distance once again. However, we soon upgraded our windows to the double-pane variety which meant no more train sounds except in the summer when we left our windows open. Now we don’t even get that as the trains have stopped rolling through town for the past few years. I don’t know why but it has been a long time since a train came through Ashland.
As I was riding my bike over the overpass in town I saw a guy walking on the train tracks playing (or pretending to anyway) an electric flying V guitar. I quickly stopped and pulled out my camera. However, I hadn’t reloaded my SD card and by the time I did so he was already under me. So I was left with the above view of empty tracks instead. No train, no guitarist. No one is even on the bike path that runs along the tracks on the left side of this photograph.
The way my camera is pointing leads to Medford, Oregon (followed by Eugene, Portland, Seattle, etc.). The way the guitarist was walking is California, which if he followed the tracks he would have ended up in about 15 miles later.
Spring view from the YMCA
A cow grazed in this pasture until last year when the old heifer died. The American flag in the center is in front of Premier West Bank. The building to the left is the Apple Cellar Bakery & Cafe. The mountains in the back are the Siskiyous. And the cherry blossoms are now gone. But they were at their peak last month when I took today’s photograph.