Friends
-
-
Lost in Thoughts
This was taken at a family gathering and it looks like she is overwhelmed with too many faces and names.
-
From the Heart
Clingmans Dome “Vision comes from shooting from the heart,
Darwin Wigget
from making images more about how you feel than what you see.”About a week ago Paul made the suggestion in his comment to my comment to I let him use my Nikon 80-400m lens so he could find out for himself if it was any good. Well, I would but first there’s a story about that lens that has to do with this image. Another photographer and I spent a week in the Smoky Mountains back in October of 2003. I think it was day 4 that I picked up my tripod and dropped my camera and the lens to the forested floor. That happens when you get excited and forget to lock it on the tripod. The front of the lens took the impact and buckled which saved the camera body. As I picked it up the lens and camera I quickly realized I now had a tilt-shift lens that would not focus. Total trash! I had to shoot the rest of the trip with a 24-85mm, an 18-35mm and 105mm macro and still had a great time using what I had. Even though I destroyed a $1,400 lens I brought home images I enjoyed. More importantly the experience of shooting those mountains will stay with me for many years. I took images with what I had and with my heart.Heck, Paul, if I still had that lens I’d just give it to you. There were no lose parts rattling around, solid as a rock and no scratches on the glass. 🙂
-
From the Archives
Reeds in Ice Looking into our archives is a great way to see the direction our photography is moving. I feel my craft, pre visualization, and post processing are always improving and in some cases much better. So, whatever gut feeling or intuition prompted me to frame and press my shutter button for this image back in 2005 is still working today. Some of my older images speak to me just as some of my present work. What I think I see in my present work is more personal enjoyment and maybe a higher keeper ratio. One from the archives.
-
Spiritual Vitality
Holy Saturday Sunset “Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time. The mind that responds to the intellectual and spiritual values that lie hidden in a poem, a painting, or a piece of music, discovers a spiritual vitality that lifts it above itself, takes it out if itself, and makes it present to itself on a level of being that it did not know it could ever achieve.”
No Man Is An Island by Thomas MertonI sat on the ground for almost an hour watching the sun set on the Rocky Mountains, trying to be present to the moment and every once in a while pressing my shutter button. I listened to Meadowlarks sing in the distance. I watched two hawks sweep in and perch on the row of trees just behind these. I watched 8-10 white tail deer feed in the field to my right with a watchful eye on me. We were all just being present.
-
Our Passport
Homework at Coffeehouse – Burlington, Vermont “My life is shaped by the urgent need to wander and observe, and my camera is my passport.”
Steve McCurry -
Where’d it go?
Blossoms 
Sausage sandwich and a coffee I took this a couple days ago when it was Spring. This morning I have about an inch of snow on my car and they’re are predicting a total of 3-5 inches before the day is over. So, off to a coffee shop for a a breakfast sandwich and a hot coffee, Where’d Spring go? I want the Spring weather back!!!!!
-
Natures Music
Western Meadowlark, Colorado 
American Robin This post is a continuation of the thoughts generated from Earls post on Embracing Chaos and from Tom Dills post on Noise. We all pretty much agree there is visual chaos within nature. I would like to suggest that for some people the sounds of nature may be considered chaos while for others it can be “exalting” music. Music has been an intragel part of man early on. Man has made musical instruments from pounding on hollow logs, carving wooden flutes and violins to our modern mp3 players. Man has chanted and sang for years. Some of us have rhythm and some us struggle to keep the beat. Some can carry a tune and some can’t. I lean more towards the latter of both. When younger I took guitar lessons with aspirations of being a rock star. Due to my lack of musical talent, and dad wouldn’t let me grow my hair long, the reality of that dream quickly faded. Over the past few years listening to rock and roll, country or jazz music no longer appeals for me. I’ve moved away from listening to music or even being around it, choosing quiet or the sounds of nature. So much more enjoyment in the sounds of nature for me.
For me the sounds of nature offers a quiet where the chaotic noise of our society can’t. When March Madness started a couple of my crew members asked me to join them at Buffalo Wild Wings to eat and watch the earlier games. However, attempting to have a conversation with them over the man-made chaos of 20-30 strategically placed televisions is no longer appealing. That is chaos to me. For me the sound of wind blowing through the leaves, the meadowlarks morning song, the cadence of falling rain, or the clap of thunder from a passing storm, or the quiet of a snowfall is a soothing sound to me. Maybe I’m just getting old but it’s natures music that stirs me inside not the beat if a drum.
