week and a half ago, I found myself caught in a sudden Midwest-style rainstorm. I was reading in the grass of the Portland State campus and felt the temperature suddenly drop ten degrees, saw clouds roll in and felt a cool wind pick up out of the stillness. The moment the first sprinkle of rain hit my book, I packed it up and headed for the reguge of the campus’ Millar Library. I’ve always found it to be the most interesting building on campus with its hemi-cylindrical facade of windows wrapping half-way around a beech tree. And the moment I climbed its covered steps, the downpour started.

While I was killing time inside the library, I started to get the idea to make a picture of the tree from every single one of the windows on the face of the building: 210 in total, 42 on each of five floors. The catch is that the windows are lined with study carrel and group work tables, and they’re popular places for students to work on campus.

So, I arrived in the morning as the building opened the following Monday and Tuesday — on the first days of classes of the summer session — and was able to shoot all pictures I wanted.

I’ve posted them in a panoramic view of sorts here, where each thumbnail can be enlarged. I also strung the photos together into an irregular time lapse video, below.

I’ve posted some recent additions to the personal section of the site with, perhaps, another update in store by the close of the week.

lyssa and I spent last week traveling around western Ireland and Edinburgh, Scotland. Our week of R&R led up to Rob’s wedding this past Sunday (which Alyssa worked, but was all vacation for me). The first half of the week we spent in and around Dublin, escorted by her friends Elaine and Deirdre (who, in every way, lived up to the degree of awesomeness Alyssa promised), and the tail end we spent largely in Edinburgh. I gave the camera a bit of a rest for the week, but I pulled it out a few times and have posted some photos on Flickr. Here’s a small preview.

Here are a couple of panoramas Photoshop was kind enough to stitch together for me, one from a glen outside Dublin, the other from a hill overlooking Edinburgh.

Sometimes it’s better to leave things up to a professional. Alyssa came away from the trip with some great images (she’s available for freelance assignments, too!), which I hope she doesn’t mind me showing off here.