this summer's scenic runs: Georgia, France, Spain...and back to Arizona

With the new school-year starting less than a week after our return from Europe, there hasn't been time yet to go back and finish organizing/editing the hundreds of photos on my iPhone...Each day, two or three get done in the afternoon...

As a starting point, then, for posting some of those scenes here: some of this summer's scenic runs...A while back I got one of those hand-strappy-water-bottles for running, and conveniently enough, the ID zipper pocket on the side just fits my iPhone:

(from yesterday morning in Saguaro Nat'l Park)

So, when I'm not doing my routine neighborhood-morning-run, 

my iPhone often comes with me...

...as it did along the trail between the Savannah River and the Augusta Canal, when I was in Georgia back in June:

...Spanish-moss...19th-c. architecture...and lots of water...

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In Paris, on my first morning back in 11 years,

along the Canal St.-Martin:

(some thought-provoking street-art...)

the Cité des Sciences, Europe's biggest science museum, in the Parc de la Villette

Staying with some friends on Paris' southwestern edge,

trails in the hilly forest above St.-Rémy-lès-Chevreuse:

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Down to the South of France--

running along the Canal du Midi, near Toulouse:

a Carpe-Diem-emblazoned-barge-with-a-bike--gotta love it...

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And then down to Barcelona:

--along the waterfront of the Olympic Village, Frank Gehry's "Peix" (fish) sculpture: 

ahh, the Mediterranean...

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And then, Madrid:

--starting point, in the Plaza Santa Ana, 

in front of our hotel and Hemingway's old haunt:

A statue of Federico García Lorca, in front of the Teatro Español

jogging past Goya, presiding over the entrance to The Prado

....the Parque del Buen Retiro

...the Palacio de Cristal, originally built in the 19th-c. to house

flora and fauna from the Philippines...

black swans!

across from the entrance to the Park, part of the Prado,
housed in what was once the Ballroom of the Buen Retiro Palace

storefront: Velázquez' Infanta, with a 'free the Canary Islands' slogan...

a freaky mural, while jogging back up the hill to the Plaza

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Back to Tucson and the Sonoran Desert...

This evening, I went for a quick run in the hills around Sabino Canyon...

...enjoying some of the water that the monsoon has brought...

...and hoping to time it right for sunset:

Back home.

Now--back to work, too.

in this morning's paper: a(nother) Sabino Canyon scene

In this morning's Tucson newspaper, one of my photos--published:

And here are a few more that were taken on that November morning,

as I ran with my iPhone on a wrist-strap...

iPhone + snapseed = perfect for a running-photographer 

I had my phone with me again in the canyon this past Sunday morning--so, a few springtime scenes:

Thistle in bloom; busy, happy bugs...

And the usually elusive Gila-monster:

--only the second one I've seen in the wild in the six years I've lived in AZ;

truly a treat to see...

And there's still plenty of water flowing in the creek;

some nice reflecting pools, such as this one

beneath Thimble Peak:

I keep returning to this particular texture 

using one of snapseed's 'grunge' filters;

I love way it evokes

parchment, vellum, and heavy hand-made paper...

A couple more 'ways of seeing' the landscape's reflection:

(used PicFrame and lo-mob for this mirror-strip)

One of my favorite running-words is fartlek.

Snicker if you must; it's Swedish and you can read here for a definition.

Anyway--running with my iPhone is "foto-fartlekking" in my book, and it helps keep me sane as I continue to spend my work-week-days with teenagers...

a week of symmetry and its surreal revelations...

A week ago, I took my iPhone with me on my morning run--a glorious autumn morning in Sabino Canyon, great for reflection shots...

...Later that evening I was playing around with a couple of the scenes--turned one into a black-and-white, and then thought it might be fun to 'mirror' the black and white version, lining it up with the original color photo, using the PicFrame app to place the photos side-by-side, and then 'erasing' the space between the photos by reducing the width to zero; below is the result:

A bit trippy; I was pleased with how it turned out.

So, the next day, while on my lunch break, I thought I'd play around with 'mirroring' another photo--from a recent trail-run into Bear Canyon. When I finished flipping the photo and placing it next to the original, I was surprised by what I saw staring back at me:

Symmetry brings out unforeseen patterns;

the brain wants to impose sense;

faces and anthropomorphic figures pop out.

Surreal.

So then--back to a reflective landscape from Sabino Canyon--

cottonwoods glowing under the desert sun...

I was floored by the result: 

 Whoa.

That face at the bottom...

With its enigmatic Mona-Lisa-smile--

serendipity of underwater undulations in the sand and gravel...

Onto a monsoon downpour over the desert--

 vague notions of a UFO in the sky;

weather marching ominously over the saguaros:

 From the Sonoran desert to Seoul--from landscapes to architectural details--the roof of the Throne Hall of Gyeongbok Palace--flipped on its side and mirrored:

 --fractal, almost...

And then from the traditional to the post-modern, still in Seoul--Daniel Liebeskind's "Tangent" (HQ for Hyuundai Development Company), "cubed:"

...back to landscape.
Can you recognize where this melting scene comes from?

 (Is that a rock-star's face in the middle?)

Mt. Rainier.

The idea of faces--I went back to my Sabino Canyon landscape with the eerie face--decided to triple it:

Without getting overly theological,

it's interesting to see a trinitarian head appear where,

in nature, there's nothing...

Back to Seoul:

a floating roof, 

guarded by two 'haetae:'

More architecture--the Loreto Chapel's 'miraculous' spiral staircase in Santa Fe, NM...
the spiral becomes the infinitely impossible:

 Radial symmetry can be hypnotic.

Some sculpture--the 'tree of hearts' on a jetty jutting out into the Sea of Japan,
in Sokcho, along the NE coast of S. Korea:

St. Louis' Gateway Arch becomes a gaping celestial maw:

The 18th-century San Francisco de Asis adobe church in Taos, NM
transforms into an evocation of a moai head from Easter Island, no? 

And now, back to Tucson for something from just a few hours ago. 
With some out-of-town friends, we went for an evening walk in Sabino Canyon...this time, my eye looking for shadow-and-rock jutting into the sky, wondering what symmetry will reveal...Below, a before-and-after comparison of a mountaintop:

And here's a close-up of the cropped-copied-and-rotated end-result:

 Vaguely Mayan?

A carved bar of gold?

Eagles? Foxes? Jaguar heads?

To conclude,

a couple more scenes from Seoul--

Korean architecture just seems to lend itself to 

this kaleidoscopic treatment: 

--one of the stone 'haetae' (mythical fire-eating dragon-dogs) guardian statues in front of Gwanghwamun gate, the main ceremonial entrance to the Joseon-dynasty-era Gyeongbok Palace, in the center of Seoul. 

This last one is a 'transplant'--I'd taken the photo (of Bigak pavilion, a monument on a busy intersection in Seoul) with my Canon, but then e-mailed it to my iPhone so I could play with it with PicFrame--the intricately painted eaves, coming at you from the night sky...

What's coming at you? What do you see?