If only Life was like this..............

These photos were the results of my first dabbling in black and white photography, I'm sure there are several rookie mistakes!

We know just how smart these birds are, good ol' Corvus corax.  I've always been a little thankful that they don't have hands and opposable thumbs, we humans have enough difficulty staying a step ahead of them as it is!  This one came over to check me out as I sat in my truck on the city dock.  I was in a place that is not uncommon for people to do exactly what I was doing and where there are people, there is a chance for food.  This raven flew down from its previous perch on a streetlight to see what I had to offer.  I also had to wonder if it remembered my truck from back in November when I had a deer carcass in the back for a few days and had ravens following me until I disposed of it.  They are really just that smart!

                                  

This cropped version is a little blurry but it looks like it has human shoulders and arms this way.  An Egyptian god, Horus, or maybe Corvus.

Only a raven knows what this one is saying.  Was it getting impatient and hungry and telling me to help a brother out or was it calling some friends and family for some assistance?  "Hey!  That black truck from deer season is down here!"
When I looked at this photo on the computer, I zoomed in on its eye and could see a reflection of my truck in it.

This white rock on the beach seemed to be glowing in the murky light of a drizzly cloudy day.  It caught my attention out of the corner of my eye and I liked the pair of barnacles on it.

Barnacles on a beach cobble.  These were about 3" tall and made me think of the towering and crumbling ice of the face of a tidewater glacier.

 Some lines that looked interesting on a rotting stump in the mid day light of a sunny winter day.

Morning light on a beach rock that looks like it has some small bumps that were probably the beginnings of tiny garnets.

OK, not a black and white but pretty close.  The sun rising on a clear winter day with some low lying fog over Zimovia Strait and some ice crystals sparkling on the trees.

Not black and white either.  More early morning light glowing in the ice and snow on an alder twig.  I like the miniature sun glowing in the bottom of the photo.

This photo made me understand as a new photographer how a photo can tell a story.  This was another sunrise over Wrangell Island on another beautiful clear winter day and a "right time right place" moment.  So, the story......       The crane in the bottom right is part of the remnants of Wrangell's last timber mill that closed for good 8 years ago (?) or so.  There were two sawmills in Wrangell in the 1980s and 90s when the timber industry was the primary industry of SE AK.  The one in town is now completely gone and has become a shipyard while this one about 6 miles out of town has been slowly being dismantled and decaying.  The clear, snowy area just above the crane is a more modern example of the timber industry of today, a much smaller harvest located adjacent to an existing road.  And then over them both, the ancient and pristine primeval forest of this land.  It makes me think of the primacy of nature and our fleeting but impactful time in it.

A raven skull that I came across in a cemetery.

No story here, just thought this strange fire hydrant might make a cool black and white.