Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Rock

@rjrock.bsky.social

1.2K followers 1.3K following 1.3K posts

I’m an Army veteran, tech exec, and East Coast Kin member. Photography is presence--a way for me to connect with this amazing world and the wonderful people in it. I enjoy shooting landscape, street, and architecture, but love exploring all milieus.

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Rock @rjrock.bsky.social · Aug 8

"Primal Light"

Before names, before paths, before forests—there was just earth, fire, ice, and water becoming the world. Iceland is still that beginning. It was like nothing I'd felt before.

#Scape #Photography #LandscapePhotography #EastCoastKin #Iceland #Fujifilm

A wide panoramic view of Iceland’s highlands at dusk, evoking the feeling of a primordial Earth. In the foreground, a dark crater rim surrounds a deep blue lake. A steep volcanic cone rises just beyond, its green and ochre slopes illuminated by the warm light of sunset. Black lava plains stretch across the middle distance, cut with braided meltwater streams and dotted with patches of snow. Soft bands of pink and orange color the horizon, while the sky above deepens into twilight blue. The scene feels untouched—elemental, ancient, and yet alive with the sense that the world is still forming.

6 12 110

Rock @rjrock.bsky.social · 8h

Thank so much!

Rock @rjrock.bsky.social · 9h

“Vertical Silence”

A grid of glass and steel climbs into emptiness—geometry becoming quiet, space becoming thought.

#EastCoastKin #Photography #UrbanGaze #ClassicMono #Fujifilm #Minimalism

The photograph looks straight up along the façade of a modern high-rise, its mirrored windows forming clean, parallel lines that narrow toward the vanishing point. The composition is stark and minimalist: a play of rectangles and reflections, of light glancing across metal and glass. The sky is pale and featureless, amplifying the building’s ascent and the photograph’s graphic tension. There are no people, no clouds, no distractions—just the rhythm of form reaching toward infinity.
This image turns architecture into abstraction, where structure becomes meditation. It captures that quiet moment when the urban world sheds its noise, leaving only line, pattern, and the weightless pull of open air.

1 24

Rock @rjrock.bsky.social · 9h

“Star Treatment”

A car wash built like a stage set—bold reds, spotlights, and the promise of transformation. All it’s missing is the applause.

#EastCoastKin #Photography #UrbanGaze #Fujifilm #PhotographersofBlueSky

The image centers on the entrance of a car wash framed by a large circular arch painted in black, gray, and red. Above the opening, a cheerful slogan reads, “You’ll look like a star in your clean car!” Two large red spheres rest on either side of the concrete entryway, echoing the theme of theatrical spectacle. Inside, red bristle curtains and rollers glow under fluorescent and LED lighting, creating a tunnel that feels more like a sci-fi set than a service bay. Reflections of light ripple across the wet floor, amplifying the saturated color palette.
Visually, the photo transforms a mundane commercial site into a surreal stage—where cleanliness meets performance, and consumer ritual takes on cinematic flair. The composition invites the viewer to question what kind of “star” we become when even our cars are cast for the spotlight.

Rock @rjrock.bsky.social · 9h

“After the Rain”

A student jogs by in the rain-slicked night at DU.

#EastCoastKin #Photography #UrbanGaze #HumansofBlueSky #Fujifilm #Denver #Colorado #StreetPhotography #PhotographersofBlueSky

The photograph shows a wet brick walkway glistening beneath streetlights after a rainstorm. A single person walks away into the distance toward a tall, illuminated tower with a steep, golden spire that pierces the night sky. Damp grass and ornamental grasses frame the scene on the left, while trees and a building wall darken the right edge. The streetlight glow creates a soft rhythm of reflections across the ground, leading the viewer’s eye toward the tower’s light.
This image captures a moment of solitude and transition—between wet and dry, shadow and illumination, departure and arrival. The walker becomes a symbol of quiet persistence, moving toward warmth through the lingering shimmer of rain.

Rock @rjrock.bsky.social · 16h

“Window with a Green Vase”

A quiet story framed in glass—plastic flowers, a pixel-pink dog, and ferns guarding a stranger’s sill.
#EastCoastKin #Photography #UrbanGaze #WindowsonWednesday #Fujifilm

A single window is set into a pale cream metal wall with vertical ridges. Its wooden trim is painted a deep brown-violet, cracked and weathered at the corners. The window’s lower sash holds a sheer, bluish curtain that softens the light and partly reflects the greenery outside. A bright green glass vase stands centered on the sill, containing two artificial flowers—one yellow and red, one white—secured with a purple ribbon. Beside it, two small white cups flank the scene. A tiny pink pixel-art poodle clings to the upper left pane, and a red sticker sits opposite on the right. In the foreground, lush green ferns rise toward the frame, their fronds sharp against the smooth siding. A still life of domestic quiet and private whimsy: a home’s small attempt to face the world with color, humor, and care.

Rock @rjrock.bsky.social · 16h

Thanks!

Reposted by Rock

Fred Bergman Photography @fbergmanphoto.bsky.social · 21h

Cumberland Falls water fall in Tennessee

#WaterfallWednesday

#landscape #landscapephotography #travel #travelphotography #nature #naturephotography #photography #photos #photoart #EastCoastKin

Water fall at Cumberland Falls with the water appearing silky smooth due to long exposure with ND filter

9 70

Rock @rjrock.bsky.social · 23h

Thanks JBC! It was a crazy day.

Rock @rjrock.bsky.social · 23h

“Panes of Performance”

Two windows on yellow walls, two minds with different calls—one restless, one ordered—each revealing the same longing: the need to speak, to be known, to leave something of oneself facing the world.

#EastCoastKin #Photography #WindowsonWednesday #StreetPhotography #Fujifilm

A yellow stucco wall holds a single window with cracked, paint-smudged glass. The windowpane is covered in overlapping graffiti: crude faces, looping signatures, arrows, and scattered words half-erased by weather. A metal streetlamp leans in from the left edge, its pole slightly rusted, echoing the lines of spray paint on the wall. The sill below is chipped, and the paint around the frame has begun to peel. No light comes from inside; the glass reflects only a dull gray sky. The surface feels layered and chaotic, as if every passerby left a trace of thought or emotion on the glass.
This window reads like a visual diary written over itself—a public performance of frustration and presence. Each mark competes for attention, a chorus of small rebellions against silence. You can imagine the hand that made them: hurried, restless, moving before dawn. The graffiti becomes both noise and confession, a reminder that the desire to be seen often begins with the impulse to make a mark on what’s near.

Another yellow wall, but this one is neater and framed in dark red trim. Behind the clear glass sit small figurines: a porcelain sailor in a blue cap and a pair of dolphins leaping beside him. Lace curtains fall in soft pleats, casting delicate shadows across the sill. Two intersecting blue street signs—Vilastígur and Njálsgata—mark the corner of the building outside. The light is muted but even, revealing careful dusting and quiet upkeep; nothing is out of place.
This window feels like an interior monologue made visible—a life ordered by routine and care. It suggests someone who tends their surroundings as a form of meaning-making, curating what faces the street. Where the graffiti window shouts, this one whispers; both speak of the same need to connect. The sailor and dolphins become stand-ins for travel, memory, and continuity, held still in the gentle theater of domestic order.

Rock @rjrock.bsky.social · 23h

“Gravity in Rebellion”

Wind so fierce it sent the waterfalls back skyward on the Snæfellsnes Peninsula

#EastCoastKin #Photography #LandscapePhotography #WaterfallWednesday #Iceland #Fujifilm #PhotographersofBlueSky #PhotographersUnited

The image shows a windswept Icelandic mountainside on the Snæfellsnes Peninsula. Sheets of water spill from the cliffs but are violently whipped upward by 70-mph gusts, dissolving into mist that streaks sideways across the sky. The grass glows a saturated green beneath a brooding gray cloud deck, where low light and rain blur the ridges into atmospheric haze. At the base of the slope, a small white farmhouse and a dark patch of trees provide scale and stillness — the only signs of shelter in an otherwise untamed landscape. The scene feels both magnificent and precarious, capturing nature in open defiance of its own rules.

1 2 32

Rock @rjrock.bsky.social · 1d

Thanks for taking the time to share feedback! Totally appreciate it.

Rock @rjrock.bsky.social · 2d

"Fault Line"

Quietest place I've ever been.

#EastCoastKin #Photography #LandscapePhotography #RockinTuesday #Fujifilm #Iceland #PhotographersofBlueSky #ColorADay #BlueTue

A high volcanic ridge in Iceland stretches diagonally across the frame beneath a clear blue sky streaked with wispy clouds. The near slope is composed of dark, reddish-brown lava rock, scattered with patches of pale green moss. To the left, a deep blue crater lake curves tightly against the hillside, its shoreline lined with a thin strip of bright green grass and sulfur-stained rock. Beyond the ridge, the landscape opens into a vast plateau of rolling volcanic hills, punctuated by smaller lakes shimmering in the distance. The scene is bright and wind-swept, the textures of rock and moss alternating like woven fabric.
The image captures a tension between stillness and movement—ancient rock holding memory of fire, water collecting where the earth once split. It feels like the world paused mid-creation.

2 2 36

Rock @rjrock.bsky.social · 2d

"Veins of Stone"

Where lava flowed, water wanders — slow, opaque, and ancient.

#EastCoastKin #Photography #LandscapePhotography #RockinTuesday #Fujifilm #Iceland #PhotographersofBlueSky #PhotographersUnited

$A rugged Icelandic gorge filled with pale turquoise glacial water winding through massive, dark volcanic rock formations. The rocks are coated in vivid green moss and scattered lichens, their surfaces rough and fractured. The water, opaque and milky from glacial silt, forms quiet pools and narrow channels that curve between the stone walls. Low green hills frame the horizon under a canopy of heavy gray clouds that hint at distant rain. Small wildflowers and tufts of grass soften the rocky foreground, marking a narrow path that leads toward the central bend in the water. This landscape feels like a slow exhale of the earth—ancient lava reshaped by meltwater, time turning violence into calm. The muted light deepens the sense of reverence, as if the land itself remembers its making.$

1 28

Rock @rjrock.bsky.social · 2d

“Have a Seat”

An empty bench between light and shadow—waiting for company that never comes.

#EastCoastKin #Photography #StreetPhotography #ClassicMono #31DaysofHalloween #Fujifilm #PhotographersofBlueSky

A darkened storefront porch illuminated by two soft light sources—a window and a doorway—frames an empty bench at center. The bench’s slats catch a narrow band of light, casting striped shadows that stretch across the porch floorboards. Pumpkins rest on the step below, one leaning slightly, their faint sheen the only warmth in an otherwise cool scene. Wreaths and garlands hang overhead, but their details fade into black, suggesting the season without declaring it. Inside the windows, faint glimmers of light trace outlines of festive decorations, almost ghostlike through the glass.
This is an image of pause and presence—an invitation and an absence at once. The title’s simplicity carries a double edge: “Have a Seat” as comfort, but also as reckoning, the moment one stops moving and the night finally catches up.

1 2 30

Rock @rjrock.bsky.social · 2d

“Happy Meal”

I swatted a fly and this jumping spider took the opportunity to grab some take out—hunger meeting color.

#MacroMonday #Fujifilm #PhotographersofBlueSky #EastCoastKin #Photography #NaturePhotography

A close-up photograph of a jumping spider holding a metallic green fly on a white windowsill. The spider’s body is covered in dense, iridescent hairs ranging from golden brown to black, with faint blue highlights along its legs. Its front legs are wrapped around the fly, which glimmers with vivid green and blue hues under soft window light. The background fades into dark gray glass streaked with faint smudges and cobweb threads, suggesting a domestic setting. The shallow depth of field isolates the two creatures against the muted surface, emphasizing the tension between motion and stillness.
The image documents a small drama of life and death with precision and restraint, capturing beauty in an act that is both violent and necessary.

2 11

Rock @rjrock.bsky.social · 2d

Thanks. It’s a wild place

1 1

Rock @rjrock.bsky.social · 2d

“Kerlingarfjöll”

Steam rises from Iceland’s highlands where snow, clay, and moss meet in shifting light and your boots suffer the consequences.

#MountainMonday #BlueSkyMonday #Fujifilm #PhotographersofBlueSky #Iceland #LandscapePhotography #EastCoastKin #Photography

A geothermal landscape in Iceland’s Kerlingarfjöll mountains, photographed under a sky of fast-moving clouds. Brown and ochre hills rise in sculpted folds, streaked with pale pathways and white snow patches that cling to the higher ridges. Wisps of steam drift from vents in the earth, softening the rugged terrain and catching light that filters through gaps in the clouds. In the lower left, a stream carves through mineral-colored soil before disappearing into shadow. Across the slopes, patches of bright green moss break through the volcanic clay, bringing a jolt of color to the scene. Above it all, a partly veiled summit looms, its top lost in mist.
The photograph captures the tension of geothermal energy and fragile surface life, showing how the Icelandic highlands exist in constant negotiation between heat, ice, and air.

2 1 27

Reposted by Rock

John Meyer @johnme23.bsky.social · 2d

Red Mountain - s. of Ouray, CO

#oldmine #ouray #colorado #mountainmonday #EastCoastKin #mountains #landscapephotography #canon10d
#aspens #fall

A reddish-tinted mountain peak towers over this autumn scene, with aspens just beginning to turn while pines maintain their dark green hue. At center right is an old mine building, still standing proudly after all these years. The sky is blue with puffy white clouds interspersed.

3 60

Rock @rjrock.bsky.social · 2d

Thanks Marjan. I appreciate you letting me know!

1 1

Reposted by Rock

Melissa D Jones @rouxroamer.bsky.social · 2d

Are you having a good #mountainmonday

#art #nature #photography #photographersunited #PhotographersofBluesky #eastcoastkin

A girl in a red cape looking at a mountain across a green vineyard

2 34

Rock @rjrock.bsky.social · 2d

🙏🙏🙏

Rock @rjrock.bsky.social · 2d

“Over the Divide”

Morning light gathers over the Continental Divide from Independence Pass.

#MountainMonday
#Fujifilm #PhotographersofBlueSky #Colorado #LandscapePhotography #EastCoastKin #Photography

A sweeping mountain view at dawn from near the summit of Independence Pass, looking west across the Continental Divide. The foreground slopes are covered in dense pine forest, their dark green tones contrasting with the muted browns of alpine tundra below. A winding mountain road cuts through the valley floor, its pale ribbon glinting faintly in the early light. Beyond it, ridges rise in soft layers of blue and gray toward a distant snow-capped peak. Overhead, a blanket of heavy clouds breaks open along the horizon, allowing thin bands of pale light to edge the mountains and reveal the texture of the terrain. The air feels cold, clear, and still—an hour when sound carries far and the light begins to claim the peaks.
The photograph captures the quiet emergence of day in the high Rockies, where the first light traces form across the divide.

2 45

Rock @rjrock.bsky.social · 3d

It's #MountainMonday! And here is my contribution.

“Crossing Tennessee Pass”

A green arch bridge carries Highway 24 over the gorge below, framed by fall color and shifting light.

#BlueSkyMonday #Fujifilm #PhotographersofBlueSky #Colorado #LandscapePhotography #EastCoastKin #Photography

A vivid landscape photograph of a tall green steel-arch bridge spanning a deep mountain gorge on Tennessee Pass in Colorado. The bridge stretches between rocky cliffs, its mint-green supports glowing against the dark pine forest that fills the valley below. A small stream winds through the canyon floor, while a cluster of buildings with teal roofs sits near the base of the slope. A winding road climbs through dense evergreens and golden aspens toward distant mountains, their slopes touched by early autumn color. Overhead, a sky of turbulent gray clouds breaks open to reveal streaks of vivid blue and shafts of sunlight that illuminate sections of the hillsides, creating a rhythm of shadow and brilliance across the frame.
The image evokes the feeling of transition and endurance—the way human engineering both defies and harmonizes with the vastness of nature. The bridge becomes a metaphorical crossing between calm and chaos, solitude and connection, echoing the restless stillness of the mountain air.

1 23

Rock @rjrock.bsky.social · 3d

🙏🙏🙏

Rock @rjrock.bsky.social · 3d

🙏🙏🙏