Lady in the wind

This was taken at the capitol building in Oklahoma City and displays the great use of landscape design to greatly help out the Indian woman statue. This picture has been distorted a bit in photoshop so it's a little more grainy then the original but the idea is the same. I really like how they used the grass to simulate her out on the prairie as it really shows off what most of Oklahoma is actually like. Once again, this was taken from my trip to Oklahoma over the summer like the last picture.

Memorial

So visiting the Oklahoma bombing memorial at night was probably one of the best things I did while in Oklahoma City over the summer. This night the weather was just perfect with the water making the area around the entire memorial really comfortable. It was probably the best possible temperature and setting to sit down and take a couple hundred time lapsed night photos. This photo is just one of the many that I took that night that really seems to capture the beautiful setting of this very well designed memorial. For those of you out there who still don't know what Landscape Architecture is this picture is probably a perfect example of the things we do. This is probably design at its best. Anyways, I'll let you all now just sit back and enjoy the great summer night in front of the reflecting pool.

When plants go bad...

So after my long break from posting on here I finally have found time to start back up again. I have recently gotten a hold of my pictures from my trip down to Oklahoma this past summer and so now I have a whole new set of pictures to draw from. In case you are wondering, the spiky palm tree thing in the picture is not native to Oklahoma, nor is it growing outdoors. This was found in an indoor tropical garden somewhere in downtown Oklahoma City. At first look I though this was a really evil version of Bamboo but it actually is a type of Palm tree that has decided to become no so friendly to tree huggers. Yes, those spikes are several inches long and no, I do not suggest touching them since they are quite sharp. However, this would probably be the perfect candidate for an ugly stick if you were ever in search for one.
Also as a side note, the spikes only seem to develop on the lower 20 ft. of this palm which seems to grow well over 50 ft tall.

Spring time in DC

So I've tried a few times this past week to upload something but it wasn't working so sorry for being so slow with it all. This is a magnolia flower from a magnolia tree in Dumbarton Oaks in DC.
Normally I don't like these trees very much because the giant but sparse flowers just seem to gaudy to me. In the spring time the tree looks like a bunch of twigs with a few giant flowers hanging off the ends of it.
However, with this picture it seems alright since you don't see the flower in its context. All you see is the lone flower in a world of Blue...no distracting bare branches, no competing flowers, not even clouds for the most part. Just the flower and the open sky. Now there is a lot of extra meaning that can be taken from this picture but I will hold off on talking about it for now and let you discover it for yourself.

Infrastructure

So I found this picture randomly in my archive and thought that it looked kind of cool. I don't really have much to say about it other than that in Japan they do not bury most of their electrical utilities. Basically, overhead power lines are just part of the everyday landscape unlike most of America. There are probably lots of reasons for this (possibly earthquake related) but I don't know them.
I don't know, there just seems to be a lot of contrast between the power lines and the cloudy blue sky that made this picture striking to me.

Morning Reflection

Well I just got back from the ASLA Expo in Minneapolis and just through that I should put up a few pictures from the trip. This one is from right outside of the convention center with a reflection of the church across the street. For some strange reason, when I look at this picture I always seem to see an eye in the reflection of the sky on the center-right side of the glass building. Some of the technical parts of this picture are not a great as I would like them to be but I took this while walking to the front door of the convention center so it didn't have time to set it up properly.

Strange plants in the grass

Ok so I have no idea what to make of this picture or what to call it so sorry about the odd name. While we were at the Olympic Youth Center in Tokyo we stopped by the garden there to sketch. Well, like a good student I am, I spent the entire time taking pictures which was quite nice since I didn't get very much time throughout the trip to really sit down and compose a few pictures. In this shoot of the garden I even was able to try out some time lapse photography which eats up a ton of time as the name implies. For this picture however, I was sitting down on the ground and found some really interesting plants growing out of the grass. I picked this picture from the set since it has the out of focus path in the background which gives that faint sense of destination. Well thats all for now so Enjoy!

Gravel Path

Why would I call this gravel path when the only element in the picture actually in focus is the rope fence? I'm not to sure but it felt fitting at the moment. Today I post an image I took at the Japanese garden of Murin-An in Kyoto. We were given time to sketch at every garden we went to and more often than not, I ended up spending most of that time taking pictures like this. It's times like these that I truly have the most fun. To me its my way of really discovering the world around me. At this garden I really fell in love with the interaction of all the materials that made up the garden from the gravel paths and their roped borders to the mossy groundcover with a sprinkling of leaves.
I chose this picture because there is a somewhat split focus between the detail of the rope and the gravel path on the left. I think that because of this mixed focus, the eye is constantly moving around the image as we try to make sense of this somewhat strange perspective of viewing the world. I think that this picture is probably best comparable to my ladybug picture that I posted a little while ago.

Who's ready for snow?

So who's ready for it to snow? Actually I really enjoy the fall but I found this picture in my archives from my old home in St. Louis and thought that it would make for a good picture to put up on here. I don't know if this picture is just right or a little on the busy side so I am putting it up to see what others think. I really like the branching pattern of the tree in the back ground and the broken down bench seems to just lean right into it. Not too much else to talk about so I'll just let you enjoy it now.

Elephant Camp

Hey everyone. It's been a little while since the last post. I just had my computer reformatted but I am back up and running now and all is well...for now. This picture I found in my picture archive while looking for a new background to replace the windows open screen. I took this in Thailand just outside the city of Chang-Mai. We are at the Mesa Elephant camp right now and I am standing on the bridge at the entrance to the camp. I think that this is the closest I have ever come to being in a tropical forest and it was just great. The painting elephant post that I put up a little while ago is from the same place. If I ever start designing zoos or resorts, you will definatly find a view like this somewhere in the plan because this is how they should look (if it is for an elephant exhibit or a tropical resort that is...)

It's Fall!!

It's Fall everyone.....well, not exactly. This was taken last year in the place where I always park my bike near studio. In about a month all the trees will be changing color in preparation for the coming winter. There is another picture up here that was from this set so check it out. I cropped the image a little since the big, pinnatly compound leaf (the big one with 7 leaflets all attached on the same stem in the center) was taking up the center of the picture and I wanted to move it to one of the corners. In real life the colors were this bright, though when I took the picture the lighting caused the original picture to fade them a bit. After a little photoshop though I brought them back up to their original color. This is one reason why I enjoy parking my bike in this particular place, the trees all around splatter it with the coolest colors in the fall.

Safety Cage

So how many of you know what this thing is? Well, the purpose of the pipe, now that I have though of it, is to keep the lake from rising to high and washing over the road that I am standing on. If that's it's purpose, why is that beg red metal cage sitting on top of it? Well from what I can figure out, the big cage is probably in place to keep big, floating objects like little children and animals from being sucked in when the lake is high. Also, I am betting that the reason it rises up in the center is to keep it a visible as long as possible for when the lake gets really high and the water is rushing in really fast, probably even making a whirlpool. It's on days like those that it's not so good to be swimming in the lake.
So talking about the picture now, this was taken shortly after a fish or something splashed the surface of the water and started the ripples. As soon as I saw it It struck me that this would make an interesting picture because of the ripples. I wanted to get the shoreline out of the picture as best I could but I was rushed on time since the ripples were fading fast.
This picture also comes from the weekend trip to Lebanon, MO and is from almost the same spot as the morning light picture below...Only looking the other way.

Firery Breath

Ok, so most of these pictures don't have very creative names but that's fine with me. To me, this picture would have been better if the other two people were not there but I was too busy trying to capture the flame in action that I was forced to manage. This picture is probably the best of the bunch in terms of clarity and sharpness. I really like the pose he has with the two flaming torches and all though. I'm happy that I am actually getting another people picture up on this site though. The vast majority of pictures here are of landscapes and I would really like to add more diversity to the bunch. The difficult part about taking pictures with people is that they are far more unpredictable than landscape. Even though it is entirely possible to capture a great moment with people, it still takes patience and time. There is also the issue of finding and getting to the places where people are actually doing something. Anyways, enough of that talk, I'll now let you sit back and enjoy the nice fire-breathing picture

A Meandering Stream

Ya know, the cool thing about water is that it naturally wants to meander back and forth. No matter how straight the channel or path its in, water will try its best to meander.
So that's just a side fact that doesn't particularly have anything to do with the picture other than the fact that the water is moving back and forth as it travels. This picture was taken in the same region of Lebanon, MO as the two pictures before. As a little bit of reference, the flowing water picture I posted before is apart of this same stream as this one, only it is further downstream and closer to the lake. What is cool about this path is that people are made to "fjord" the stream to get to the other side which is where the giant water slide is at. I think that it is a great concept since it forces the person to interact with their surroundings. As for the picture, I was standing on a little bridge that crossed over the water to take it.

Enjoy!

A New Day

This picture to me seems very surreal, more like a really good painting then an actual photograph. This was taken around 7:00 in the morning near Lebanon, MO when the sun was just coming up and it was still a little misty outside. When I took the picture I was standing on what seams to be an earthen dam since right behind be is a big misty lake (those pictures will come soon enough). I really like how this picture (and 4 others like it) came out. It was tough photographing into the sun and doing so washed out all trace of the nice blue sky. However, I believe the artistic effect of the bright sky and the sun rays in the valley made up for seeing no sky. When ever I look into this picture I can imagine the joy of walking along the path and letting it take me to where ever it leads.
Pictures like this really excite me so now I will sit back and let you admire it.
Enjoy!

Water Sprey

While I was down in Lebanon, Mo this labor day weekend I was able to find time in the morning to go around and take some pictures that I really like. Take for instance this one above, I found a cool natural looking stream (recirculating water from the nearby lake) and started taking pictures of it. Well, somehow I fell on this really cool feature where the water sprayed out in this neat pattern and was able to capture it on film. To me the picture as a whole is just cool because it creates a nice texture to look at. As a heads up, more pictures from the weekend will pop up on here.

Really cool post

So here is a close-up shot of a cool post I found at a garden in Kyoto. Once again I spent my "sketching time" taking pictures and from that batch I got this one. Now obviously the focus is the post in the middle, which normally is a no-no for composition. However, I also think that the rope trailing off the bottom right adds a pulling sensation to the post which helps. I also really like the gravel and moss around the post and how their color really pops. I spent a lot of time taking macro shots of the gravel and moss since it fascinated me so much.
I could talk a lot more about all the little things in this picture I like but I'll just let you figure them out for yourself.

Painting Elephant

Not this picture is not ment to be supper great on composition or color or anything. The reason I am putting it up is that the concept is really cool and honestly, how much better can you get than an elephant that can paint? And on top of that, the paintings are really good also. So there you have it, when in Thailand, try to make a special trip up to Chaing-Mai and visit the Mesa Elephant camp to see the elephants that paint. Also, after the show we got to ride the elephants on a trail around the mountain camp.

Water Plaza

Now this place is cool if you ask me. Located next to the Imperial Palace in Tokyo, this plaza is covered with crazy water features. I believe the plaza was built as a wedding gift from the emperor to his daughter. Now who receives a plaza for a wedding gift? Honestly. What happened to the good ol' microwave or cutlery set? Forget those things, when your Emperor, you give out plazas! Anyways, enough of that, we visited this plaza while it was drizzling rain which made it a very wet place if you ask me. Not only is their water already all over the place from all the random fountains, but it was raining at the same time which made everything else wet also. However, the rain did help out the picture since it makes the nice granite paveres very reflective and adds to the look of everything. As for the shell fountain in the picture, that's just strange if you ask me...but at the same time kinda cool. All the fountains in the plaza were also on a rotating timer so they were never all on at the same time. Well that's all for now so enjoy looking at the crazy fountains!

Ladybug

This was a fun little picture I took while we were riding the ferry boat in Tokyo. The little ladybug was flying around a lot probably trying to find a way off the boat. Of course I wasn't much better myself getting around the boat since the roof is about even with my shoulders which made walking quite awkward if you ask me. In this picture I like how you get a faint understanding on what is in the background but it is not if focus. I also like the reflection of the light off the ladybug's back.
Well that's all and it will probably be a few days until my next post since school is starting and computers are moving around.

Benchmark

This is a Japanese Benchmark. Now if you don't know what that is, it's a permanent point that surveyors and construction people use to figure out where everything should go when they build. When you construct something like a building or a road you have to start somewhere and these benchmarks are that place. What fascinated me so much about these marks is that in Japan there are just so many of them. Though I know we use a lot of them here in America, I just have never seen so many visible benchmarks all over the place until I walked around the streets of Japan. I believe that in America most benchmarks are located as to not be visible and out of the way. However in Japan these little markers were on every street corner. So as I walked I started to take pictures of some of them since I liked getting pictures of utility related things like manhole covers and other stuff since they all looked so cool and decorated in Japan. What I like about this pictures is how the paving corners cut in and out of the picture frame. So I will leave you at that as you stare endlessly into the benchmark and notice something that you normally just pass on by.

Beauty from Decay

This was taken in some famous garden in Kyoto. I don't remember what the name is now unfortunately for your sake. I titled this Beauty from Decay from the beautiful look of the natural stream that happens to have dead leaves decaying on the bottom. However, the Rock is the main focus of the picture with its strong sense of direction from the lines in it. The moss growing on it adds the perfect soft touch to such a rigid object and helps tie it to the natural stream. Well that's all the talk I have on that stuff, just sit back and enjoy the picture!

The other side of Ryoan-ji

From the amount of attention the small zen garden at Ryoan-ji in Kyoto gets, you would probably never guess that there was anything else there. In fact, the zen garden is just a tiny part of a much larger and very grand garden that I believe is more beautiful than the garden at Kinkakuji (Golden Pavilion). To the right is just one of the many pictures I took of this garden and I feel that this one best shows the sheer beauty of the place. Also, the best time to visit Japan is late May since the azaleas are all blooming and they look amazing...as can bee seen in the picture.
-Enjoy

Welcome to Japan

Nothing beats cute pictures of little Japanese kids. This was taken in Tokyo at Yoyogi park I believe on the way to the large shrine in the center of it. From a picture stand point I see this as one of my best "people" pictures that I ever remember taking. I really like the composition of the whole thing and how nothing distracts from the little kid and what he is doing. Now I would like you to enjoy this as it is the beginning of a long line of pictures taken during my trip to Japan. The count for the 3 week Japan/Thailand trip comes to just around 11,600 pictures so there should be a few good ones in that whole lot to make it on this site. Also as a side note, I slightly edited this image to remove some guy's leg in the upper left corner that was partly distracting. So tell me if I did a good enough job removing it to not notice.

Clearwater, KS

Welcome to Clearwater, KS. It is in this small town of 2,500 people I will be working on a redevelopment plan for their city park. Well...me and the two others in my group. This will be the closest to a real project than I have had before. The town even covered the travel expenses of the group for driving the 3 hours down there. Well they just recently built an aquatic center here so there is a large pool with several curvy slides that attract a lot of people during the summer months. The first thing that struck me when we drove into this town is that all of their street signs are actualy small windmills with the street names on them. (picture on Left) I think that this is the most unique thing I have ever seen a small town do. The picture on the right is one of the smaller playground sets that is in the park. Our job for this project will be to make the place look better and less of an eye sore. The town has shown with the recent construction of the water park and the windmill street signs that they want to improve their image. Hopefully my group will be able to come up with some nice ideas that they will incorborate into their final plan.

Alexandria

Welcome to the nice town of alexandria. Just across the river from DC, Alexandria is one of the 5 densest cities in america. You can't tell just by looking at it though since there are no highrise buildings and the city has that "Old Town" look to it with lots of brick and wood siding on the buildings instead of steel and concrete. This building on the left is the Masons Temple. It is not a religious building but a building for the Masons Guild, an old and very famous guild that many of our nations origional leaders like Washingtions and Jeferson and Franklin were apart of. Alexandria was the main city of the area back in the 1700's when our country was first staring off. The Picture to the right is a shot of the temple in the daytime at approximatly the same spot. The building is at the higest point in Alexandria so it goes to show how powerful the guild was back then. The great part about this city is that the atmosphere and unity of the community seems great. You walk down this street and there are shops and restaurants and everything for you to enjoy on a nice day. You may think that every city has a little part like this . But not every city is like this 5 blocks in both directions. This is what I mean by being a dense city. Take this street, King Street, and copy it over 3 or 4 times on each side with all the little streets in between and that s Alexandria for you. Oh, and the names for those other Streets: Queen, Duke, Prince... Well have a fun day here at Open House and try not to spend to much of your time looking at the pictures. Enjoy!

Stroll on the mall

For some reason I really enjoy the composition of this picture. This was taken as we were walking from the metro station to the monument to get tickets in the very early morning. I was taking pictures while I was walking like I always seem to do and came upon an interesting picture with our shadows in the picture. When I am experiencing a new space like being in DC, I tend to try to capture the fealing of space from the context of what a visitor would be seing. This is why I end up with so many pictures on my trips since I don't just take one picture of an object like the washingtion monmument and move on to the next object. What I do is take LOTS of pictures that when viewed together, give a close sense of what it really felt like to be there even though you are just looking at pictures. This is why I ended up with 2650 pictures from 5 days. Many of them will never be seen by anyone but me but at least I have an almost complete recording of everything I saw while I was there and can easily look back 2 years from now and run through the entire trip in my head. 

The best meal in DC

So this was the best meal I had in DC and if any of you know me you can guess why that is. Dispite the fact that it cost me $20 and left me wanting more, I still loved every bite of it. I believe that after eating this it just made me more excited about my upcoming Japan trip where I will get to eat all the sushi I can afford. Of couse, In Japan I will also fill up on everything else since I love most other Japanese food. 

Leaf!!

Visiting the National Arboream was definatly in the top five of things I did in DC. It is so much fun to see tropical plants and I wish that I will get the oprotunity to work on a project some day where I get to design whit these plants. I found this leaf glowing brightly from the sun on the side of the path and couldn't resist taking a picture of it. The play of light in any forest is always something that I find enjoyable and was particually cool in the "Jungle environment." 

Bamboo is Cool

I found this bamboo at the National Arboream next to the Capitol building. I think that bamboo can become a big design element when it is large like this. Using typical Japanese tequines and cutting off the lower branches, the long, slender culms (aka. the yellow stems) can meke quite a statement. For bamboo this size, the culms can reach between 50-70 feet into the air which is huge considering that each one of those poles grew in only a few months...something that would take decades for a typical tree to do. Also, there is relatively little soil required for this bamboo to grow which is a benifit since normally a tree of comparable heigth takes far more soil. The ammound of soil required comes onto play in when designing a roof garden or anything comparable since man made structures have a maximum amount of weight that they can hold. 

Stars and Stripes

This is one of the many flags that Surround the Washingtion Monument. I was inspired to take this kind of picture from my old roomate Tim who I saw took a similar picture during our trip to Washingtion DC. It is very windy up near the washingtion Monument which seems to make the flags up there always waving. I took many artistic shots of the flags up there trying to catch a great shot of the flag, or sets of flaggs, waving in the wind. I really enjoy the outcome of this picture though with the sun captured behind the flag, illuminating it and making it shine brighter. 

Weathered Chain vs Rock

This I think is one of my favoriate pictures taken in DC. Like the Last image of the Rocks, this image is a macro shot that gives no indication of its context. However, when I look at this I can almost feel the everpresent pull of the chain on the rock and the forces of the rock pulling back. The weatherd appearence of the chain seemes to indicate how long this battle has been going on with no clear winner. I will leave the decision of the winner up to you guys since I can't find one myself. 

Rocks in a line

So...after spending 5 days in Washingtion DC and taking over 2650 pictures...I decided to use this picture as the first one that I put up online. Despite the fact that this picture shows no context to the place it was taken and probably brings no thought of DC to mind, I still decided that this will be the first image to go up. This was taked in Dumbarton Oaks, a very beautiful private garden in DC that had a very interesting inlaid rock garden that was originally a tennis court. I don't have that much to say about this image so I will leave the rest of photo observations up to you guys to handle. 

My Newest Model

I have to go back and retake this picture using a tripod but I will let you guys see it just to get an idea of it. The actual length of the bridge is 2.5 inches long as a scale refrence. Also, from the front of the model to behind the cliff in the distance is just 12 inches. I made this model for my studio class as part of our planting design project. The concept of my design is based off of a trail system in a state park located somethere in southeastern Missouri. 

I LOVE SUSHI!!

This is my version of a food Blog. I like eating the food the most so I will give you all this. My stack is the center on with 17 plates. I definatly won this one since Reiko's Stack (left) only has 11. This was the last dinner I had in Japan and I think this was one of my favorite...(except for all the other dinners where I had tons of sushi and other stuff I like...but who's counting) This May I will try to go to another sushi-convayerbelt like and beat my previous record. It will be a compitition between Ethan and me and only fate will decide the winner... 

Beautiful Fukuoka City

Hey this is a picture I took while on top of Fukuoka Tower in Fukuoka City. Almost every large city in Japan has some sort of tower thats sole purpose is to look cool and act as an observation tower. Well from up here we can see a typical Japanese Highway...Something quite different from American Highways. The first thing you may notics is that it is only a 4 lane highway. the reason for this is that almost every highway in Japan has a toll on it (hence the toll booths on the exit ramp). By charging a toll to drive on the highway it promotes people to use alternative forms of transportation which REALLY helps the transportation infrastructure of a City. It causes less people to croud the highway by spreading out the commuter traffic over multiple systems like Light rail, busses, and bikeing. Also, almost every road I saw in Japan was kept in very nice condition. All the lines were very brightly painted on the road and traffic signs were very clear and easy to read. After I came back from Japan, American roads looked so blank with their fading lines and old pavement and no signs.
I know none of what I talked about has to do with the picture but it is just my observation of what I saw in Japan. I really enjoyed visiting Fukuoka this day since it was a beautiful clear day in the middle of May. Well writing about this is making me excited about getting to go back to japan this summer so I will leave you at that and let you enjoy following the highway along the Beach. 

Woodchip Garden

This is a nice close up image of the woodchips that lie under my miniture bamboo grove that I have up here at studio. I cleaned out a lot of the leaves that were on top so that I had a better view of the short Bamboo stalks from my desk chair. I decided to take some pictures after I finished and found this close up image kind of nice. I think I like it because I normally don't get time to look at the little things that are around us....that or I would like others to see the kinds of things that they never take the time to look at. Anyways, here are some woodships to look at so enjoy.