From Pixels to Paper

January 3, 2016

This is the irony of photography in the digital age: the number of photographers has exploded and the internet is full of images, but the majority of these images are trapped on computers, tablets and smart phones and are viewed only transiently, often on a small screen. Only a tiny minority of these images ever escape from “pixel prison” and become printed, permanent things.

Canadian photographer David duChemin encourages photographers to print their work, hang it on the wall and live with it for a while. Only then, he maintains, can one gain some perspective about the enduring value of any particular photograph.

More than a year ago I decided to listen to duChemin and get more serious about printing my photos just for me, rather than the occasional print ordered as a gift for someone. For a while I was seduced by the apparent economy of print-to-order services, but I was ultimately not satisfied with how faithfully the print reflected my on-screen image. About a year ago I bought a dedicated ink-jet photo printer that will print images up to 13” x 19”. Since then I have been on a journey, fueled by ink and paper, that has led me to a greater understanding of the relationship between the digital image and the print and greater satisfaction with my own printed products. Although I am still a raw beginner with lots left to learn, my own prints now are much more satisfying that what I was able to achieve by ordering prints online.

The image above is one of my favorites from the past five years of photography. It was taken on a winter afternoon in Brooklyn, looking down Washington St. toward the Manhattan Bridge and intentionally composed to show the Empire State Building framed in the arch of the bridge tower. This photo was first printed for me by a local print-to-order business as part of a set of black-and-white images (some of mine, some of Carol’s) that we intended to display as a group, the “black-and-white wall” of our dining room.

After looking at it in this context for a while, I realized that the image needed to be both BIGGER and BETTER. Some additional post processing work solved the “better,” and my new printer took care of the “bigger.” The first image in this post is the result: printed 13x19, matted and framed 18x24. I was finally satisfied.

Recently, this image has been “on the road,” first as part of an annual exhibit of photos by members of the Finger Lakes Photography Guild in Canandaigua, NY, and currently as part of a juried show at the Image City Photography Gallery in Rochester, NY, where it was featured among the preview images for the show. The journey from pixels to paper made it possible to share this image in new ways.

Bug Shots

May 10, 2015

You'd think an entomologist would have loads of insect pictures, but I have only a handful. I found these four last week while looking for illustrations of macro and close-up photography and decided I liked them well enough to share.

Butterfly on thistleNikon D90 + Sigma 150mm f/2.8 macro; Keuka Lake Outlet trail, NY. — **Butterfly on thistle**
Nikon D90 + Sigma 150mm f/2.8 macro; Keuka Lake Outlet trail, NY.

Only the first image was taken with a true macro lens, the Sigma 150. On a crop sensor camera like the D90 it makes a great "bug stalker." Unfortunately, when I upgraded to a D7100 I found it was incompatible with the Live View autofocus system of the new camera (important for shooting on a tripod), so I sold it.

The remaining three images were "opportunity shots" taken with a variety of all-purpose zoom lenses. In each case, I got as as much as I could at the longest focal length and then I cropped afterward for the best composition. I'm surprised at how well this approach worked even with the 12-megapixel D90; with modern higher resolution digital sensors you can really throw away a lot of pixels and still come away with something.

Bumblebee on coneflowerNikon D90 + Nikon 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 VR, The High Line, New York City. — **Bumblebee on coneflower**
Nikon D90 + Nikon 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 VR, The High Line, New York City.

Bug sexNikon D90 + Nikon 16-85mm f/3.5-5.6 VR; Garden of the Gods, CO. — **Bug sex**
Nikon D90 + Nikon 16-85mm f/3.5-5.6 VR; Garden of the Gods, CO.

Hummingbird mothNikon D90 + Nikon 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR; Anthony Road Winery, Penn Yan, NY. — **Hummingbird moth**
Nikon D90 + Nikon 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR; Anthony Road Winery, Penn Yan, NY.

These images make me want to shoot more insect pictures. The first image, in particular also makes me want to get a new "bug stalker" macro lens.

“Congratulations, you are a winner!” (Huh?)

April 19, 2015

Photo contests are everywhere these days, and for the most part I ignore them. However, I recently learned that my entry to one contest was deemed a “winner.” The entire process — from the decision to enter this particular contest through multiple layers of judging — caused me to think about my photography in a different way. I’ll elaborate below…

First, some background on this particular contest and the image in question. I am a member of Nikonians, a large and diverse international community of professional and amateur photographers who use Nikon equipment. A number of Nikonians web forums hold monthly or quarterly themed competitions. The theme for the May 2014 contest in the Travel Photography forum was “carnival,” selected by the winner of a previous month’s contest. I decided that some of the images from our trip to Venice during Carnevale in 2012 fit this theme and submitted two shots of individuals in elaborate and traditional Carnevale costumes. One of these images (below) was selected as a “finalist for the month” (again, by the winner of a previous monthly contest), then selected as the monthly winner by a poll of those visiting the Travel Photography forum, and finally selected by a jury of eight experienced photographers from among more than 100 monthly/quarterly winners of the themed contests and challenges during 2014 as one of the “ten best of Nikonians 2014” images.

Venice Carnevale:  Eye Contact — Venice Carnevale: Eye Contact

What is it about this image that caused it to be selected, through three rounds of judging, from the literally hundreds of images submitted to the various Nikonian forum contests? The composition is simple, the pose is classic (thanks to the model, not to me!), and the colors are rich. However, I think it is the eyes, engaging almost confrontationally with the camera, that make the picture distinctive. (When I posted the picture to Facebook, a friend commented that it was “unnerving, but in a very cool way.”) Her eyes reach out to make, almost demand, a connection with the viewer. A more difficult question is: how can I make images of my more usual (and inanimate) subjects that also connect powerfully with the viewer?

But then, who are the “viewers” of my images? I am not a professional photographer and have no desire to be one. I got back into the photography game five years ago primarily to please myself by taking something more than just snapshots, but I would be lying if I said I did not derive satisfaction when others see and respond to my photos. Still, I have no desire to play the popularity contest game that is 500px these days or accumulate lots of superficial “likes” on Facebook or Flickr. In the end, this is the liberating beauty of being an amateur: I can make the photos I want to make, share them where and when I want to share them, be thankful if some people find value in them. Being a “winner” in a photo contest is important to me because it demonstrates I’m not just talking to myself through my photography. That’s enough for now.

Looking back, looking ahead

January 1, 2015

Here is is the first day of 2015 and I am still catching up on last year's website chores. After a break of a few months, I have now finished working through my Iceland "keepers." Here are the last five images, which also appear in my updated Iceland 2014 gallery.

Another B&W shot:

This image is another example of color detracting from impact. The bright green foreground grass and rusty red roof of the hut pulled the eye away from the strong textures of the building and surrounding rocks. Conversion to monochrome puts the emphasis back on these textures:

"Underground" church:

This peat-roofed wooden church, partially dug into the soil, was reconstructed in 1884 on the foundations of a 14th century building. It is still in use.

Another image from Fjallsarlon:

This more intimate iceberg lagoon lies below the foot of the Fjallsjokull glacier. It took me a while to find a way to process this image that yielded the subtle colors and the serenity of the reflections.

More from Jokulsarlon:

Our first visit to the famous iceberg lagoon coincided with the setting of the midsummer sun in the northern sky over the Breithamerkurjokull glacier. This intense golden sunset provided the sidelight for the other Jokulsarlon sunset image in the gallery.

The next day gave us close-up views of the icebergs, including this one containing an ice cave illuminated by sunlight transmitted through the ice.

Looking ahead...

In 2015 I hope to shoot more often, print and exhibit more of my images, and blog more frequently!

Adventures in iPhoneography

December 30, 2014

I’ve now owned three different iPhones, but I did not pay much attention to their cameras until recently. That changed, however, when I went to Iceland earlier this summer on a photo workshop led by Tony Sweet. Knowing that Tony is an “iPhone art photography” guru (he’s writing a book on it), I upgraded to the iPhone 5s before the trip and challenged myself to shoot with the iPhone as well as my camera throughout the trip. Here are some things I learned:

1) Sometimes the iPhone gave the only useful image from a location — as at the base of the triple falls at Kirkjufell, where I was unable to keep the lens on my Nikon clear of water drops no matter how often I wiped it.

2) When I pulled out the phone at a location after being “done” with my camera I found compositions with the iPhone that I had missed. For me the moral of this story is to be more diligent about working locations!

Abandoned farm near Bergamot; iPhone HDR

3) Processing images on the iPhone using the apps that Tony introduced and demonstrated gave me a chance to play with effects that I might not try (or have tools for) in my Mac-based postprocessing environment. Using the iPhone to shoot and process helped me “get loose” and become more open to a variety of creative urges. The challenge for me is to bring some of this spontaneity and sense of play back to my DSLR shooting and processing.

Svartvengi geothermal power plant; multiple effects  using Snapseed — Svartvengi geothermal power plant; multiple effects using Snapseed

4) The iPhone is a great tool to explore panorama compositions — either with the pano function of the Camera app or by stitching a series of separate images together using an app such as Autostitch — before going to the bother of setting up camera and tripod.

Hoffelsjokul panorama; multiple exposures assembled with AutoStitch.

Jokulsarlon panorama; iPhone camera pano.

Since returning from Iceland I have struggled once again to remember that the phone is also a camera (old habits die hard!), but I now know that even when the only camera I have is the iPhone I can still make images with impact.

Pike Place Market (Seattle, WA); multiple effects using Snapseed.

Lost in Iceland, Part 2: Images and challenges

August 7, 2014

Finally I've been able to work through many of the images from our Iceland trip. This new gallery contains a baker's dozen of my favorites, with more to follow as I process them. This first set represents the "low-hanging fruit" -- images that were relatively straightforward to process and for which I had a clear vision of the final product. The ones I'm still working on need more thought, more effort, or both to achieve the end result I'm looking for. The image below is a bonus -- I could have included it in the gallery, but I needed something pretty for the blog!

Putting together this gallery caused me to reflect again on the workshop experience and the various challenges I faced trying to make these images. Here are the four most significant challenges:

Challenge #1: Everything is new! This is, of course, a challenge whenever faced with photographing a new location, but Iceland is such an unusual place that the sense of novelty was enhanced. This is why making a first visit with knowledgeable local guides makes such a difference. Without Einar, Raggi and Tony to put us in good shooting locations we would have seen and done much less and missed some very cool things.

Challenge #2: So much daylight! I knew we'd have very long days so close to the Arctic Circle and just after Midsummer, but the experience was quite disorienting.

The weather for June 26 in Reykjavik.  (Photo:  Carol Soderlund) — The weather for June 26 in Reykjavik. (Photo: Carol Soderlund)

As you can see from the Weather Channel on my iPhone, we had 21 hours of daylight. During the first part of the workshop in particular we took advantage of the long days -- on one day we shot at 7 different locations over a period of 15 hours, ending up at two successive iconic waterfalls after midnight. This was one of those times when I wished I could get along with a lot less sleep.

Challenge #3: Staying on task. This challenge was the product of the novelty of Iceland and the length of some of our days in the field. To jump out of the bus, grab the tripod, and take advantage of the photographic opportunities in front of me at location after location required a degree of concentration and focus (pun intended) that I had not anticipated. It was exhausting but also very rewarding.

Challenge #4: Photographing extraordinary locations in ordinary (or even mediocre) light. It can't always be sunrise or sunset (even at Midsummer in Iceland!). How do you make the most of mid-day light or the gray and featureless skies that we encountered during the stormy second half of our workshop? For me, the answer was to think about shooting with a black-and-white image in mind. Almost half of the first 13 images in the gallery wound up being more satisfactory to me in black-and white. For example, I like the image below well enough, but I think the monochrome version in the gallery is much stronger.

Working through the "raw material" that I shot on this trip to get the first set of finished images has given me a chance to savor the whole experience again. Definitely, I'm going back to Iceland!

Lost in Iceland, Part 1: "So, what was it like?"

July 26, 2014

It has been a bit more than two weeks since Carol and I returned from our photographic adventure in Iceland, and I am still processing -- not only the images, but also the experience itself.

I have been asked the the "what was it like" question many times since returning, and I give two sorts of answers: a short one for those interested in my impressions of Iceland, and a longer one for those interested in the photography workshop experience.

Impressions of Iceland

It is now a cliché to call Iceland a "land of ice and fire." Nevertheless, my experience of Iceland was dominated by both the glaciers and the evidence of volcanic activity. The landscape is stark and treeless (the urban landscaping in Reykjavik is the "largest forest in Iceland"), with fantastically shaped cliffs and mountains punctuated by lava flows, short and swift rivers of glacial meltwater, and countless waterfalls. Outside of Reykjavik Icelanders are sparsely distributed along the narrow southern coastal plain where houses and other buildings are dwarfed by looming cliffs.

Iceland was settled by Vikings in the 9th century, and this population lived in near-isolation from the rest of the world for centuries. As a result, the Icelandic language is most directly related to Old Norse, the antecedent of modern Scandinavian languages. I was struck by how some Icelandic words seemed like they could be names of places or people in The Lord of the Rings -- not surprising given J. R. R. Tolkein's reliance on Norse and Old English sagas as inspiration for the trilogy.

In the short time we were in Iceland I was captivated by its otherworldly beauty and the sense that the landscape is dynamic with change, as if it were alive. I will definitely be going back.

The workshop experience

Our workshop was organized by FocusOnNature's Einar Erlendsson. Einar's operation is first-class in every way -- it provides a professional infrastructure and the knowledge and insight of a native Icelandic photographer as a platform for workshops led by a variety of different professional photographers, mostly from the United States.

The lead photographer was Tony Sweet, whom we knew from previous workshops. This was Tony's fourth workshop with FocusOnNature -- his blog post here provides a great summary of his perspective on the value provided by Einar's organization. One unique feature of this workshop was its timing: midsummer, with 21 hours of daylight and extended "golden hours" for photography, which made for some very long days in the field and photographs, such as the one at the top of this post, taken at or after midnight.

Tony "Captain Trips" Sweet briefing the group as the Magic Bus leaves Reykjavik for "seven days and no nights" in the field

As an added bonus, Einar arranged for the renowned Icelandic photographer Ragnar Th Sigurdsson ("Raggi") to be our local Icelandic expert and guide. Raggi, an outstanding nature photographer and a Photoshop wizard, not only made sure we found interesting and unusual locations but joined Tony in critique sessions and photo processing tutorials along the way.

Raggi apparently likes this composition...

Flexibility and adaptability are the hallmarks of a FocusOnNature workshop, and Einar's ability to deliver these was put to a severe test by the difficult weather we encountered during the second part of our workshop. Despite rain and high wind Einar, Raggi and Siggi (the driver of the "Magic Bus") kept us shooting -- often changing meal and lodging plans at the last minute.

Intrepid photographers try to ignore the rain and keep shooting  (photo:  Carol Soderlund) — Intrepid photographers try to ignore the rain and keep shooting (photo: Carol Soderlund)

Overall, it was an exhilarating -- and sometimes exhausting -- experience, with an singular and intense focus on photography. Thanks to Einar, Raggi and Tony we were able to see, do and photograph a tremendous number of things in a relatively short period of time, some of which persons traveling by themselves simply would not be able to do.

Dad's camera

June 15, 2014

My earliest memories of photography involve my dad and this camera. I remember him taking pictures -- family pictures, mostly -- but more than that I remember being allowed to join him in his darkroom. The memories are both visual and olfactory: rolls of newly- developed 620 film hanging from metal clips to dry...the smell of developer and stop bath...the red safety light...seeing negative images projected onto the enlarger table and then, later, seeing them magically emerge on paper.

I don't know how "serious" dad was about photography, but I know his interest was more than casual. For example, he used this camera to take long-exposure night photographs of the illuminated buildings and statues at the 1939 San Francisco World's Fair. I have seen prints of those images, but unfortunately I don't know where they are now. When I was 10 years old my parents sold their home in a rapidly deteriorating neighborhood in East Oakland and moved into an apartment, effectively ending dad's black-and-white photography and printmaking.

On this Father's Day, I am remembering those darkroom times with my dad. This early "exposure" to photography (pun intended -- he was good at that!) was the beginning of my current interest in making pictures.

The photo workshop experience

June 14, 2014

I recently returned from spending a weekend with 11 other photography nerds -- a "Waterfalls Boot Camp" workshop in the West Virginia highlands led by Joe Rossbach. Although we certainly photographed waterfalls (as you can see from the image below), we also shot at a number of other cool locations. We also spent time learning more about Joe's post processing workflow and techniques.

Elakala Falls, Blackwater Falls State Park, WV

I had time on the long drive home to reflect on why I value photography workshops. For me, a workshop is successful if it introduces me to a new place, teaches me new techniques, and allows me to meet new people who share my passion for photography. This workshop was a winner on all three counts. I had never been to the highlands of West Virginia before -- but I will certainly go again. Given the title of the workshop I thought I might learn some new things about waterfall photography, but the real technical benefit for me was learning about Joe's exposure blending techniques. The image below is a "classroom exercise" in applying his techniques to blend two different exposures of the same scene.

Evening light at Lindy Point, Blackwater Falls State Park, WV

Finally, it was just a great group of people to spend a couple of loooong days with.

The "firing line" -- early morning shoot at Spruce Knob Lake, WV

Of course, the instructor is the key to the success of a workshop. Joe Rossbach has shot and led workshops in this area many times, and he was able to adjust the schedule each day to take advantage of weather that ranged from (boring) clear blue skies to thunderstorms. He delivered a quality workshop experience for a group that varied in both photographic expertise and physical ability. He is definitely on my list of instructors for future workshops!

Morning reflections, Spruce Knob Lake, WV

The last trolleys in Brooklyn

May 3, 2014

When I visited the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn for the first time last summer I was surprised to find these dilapidated trolley cars, apparently abandoned many years ago between the front of an old warehouse (now home to the Fairway Market) and the bay. I was thrilled! More rusting abandoned stuff to photograph!

A bit of subsequent research revealed that they were the remains of a failed effort to revive trolley service in Red Hook more than 10 years ago. Since then they have been exposed to the elements, vandals, and – most recently – to the floods of Hurricane Sandy.

Don't bother to look for these relics if you find yourself in Red Hook. They were spirited away on flatbed trucks one night in February to a trolley graveyard in Connecticut – I think they really were the last trolleys in Brooklyn!

The lure of abandoned places

April 8, 2014

After seeing Bodie, I was hooked -- I needed to find more opportunities to photograph places where civilization has been abandoned to the elements. In the summer of 2012 we took a workshop with Tony Sweet that provided a chance to shoot inside Eastern State Penitentiary, an abandoned prison in Philadelphia, plus an early morning "bonus shoot" at another Philadelphia location.

The bonus location turned out to be a place known locally as the "Graffiti Underground," a pier jutting out into the Delaware River that had been used to transfer coal from trains to ships. This site had been abandoned and subsequently appropriated by graffiti artists, paintball players -- and photographers.

The early morning light, reflected off of the water on all sides, brought an ethereal beauty to the heavily tagged and paint-splattered concrete pillars. This gallery contains a few of my favorite images from that morning.

Eastern State Penitentiary, hospital wing corridor

I could have spent the entire morning at the Coal Pier, but the main event of the workshop lay ahead. Eastern State Penitentiary, in urban Philadelphia, was established in 1820 as the world's first true penitentiary -- designed to inspire regret or penitence in criminals rather than solely for inflicting punishment. It was used continuously, first as a penitentiary and then as a more conventional prison, until it was abandoned in 1971. Notable inmates included "Slick Willie" Sutton and Al Capone. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1966 and was opened to the public for tours in 1994.

Our photography workshop gave us access to parts of the decaying building -- including the hospital wing -- that are off-limits to most visitors. The photography was challenging because the original philosophy of the penitentiary included bringing natural light from windows and skylights into the cell blocks and individual cells. The broad dynamic range of light, from deep shadows to direct sunlight, provided an opportunity to work on HDR (high dynamic range) photographic and processing techniques. My favorite images from Eastern State Penitentiary are in this gallery.

Blame it on Watkins Glen

March 22, 2014

April 29, 2010: the day I decided I needed a new camera.

We were giving visiting west coast relatives a tour of our area, with an obligatory stop at Watkins Glen State Park to see the gorge and waterfalls that are iconic features of the Finger Lakes. My camera at the time was a Nikon Coolpix P5700, a glorified digital point-and-shoot with some DSLR-like features. As I tried to take pictures of the water flowing through the Glen I became increasingly frustrated -- I could envision the image, but I could not make the camera capture it.

I had been researching cameras, intending to upgrade to a DSLR before a planned trip to Glacier National Park later in the year, but my frustration in Watkins Glen was the last straw -- I ordered a new Nikon D90 the next week.

Of course, a new camera by itself was not the whole answer. The images I wanted to capture were long exposures of moving water, which required a few additional items: tripod, ball head, remote release, and various neutral density filters (think sunglasses for the camera lens, reducing the amount of light that reaches the sensor). By the time we went to Glacier I was sufficiently equipped to try my hand at "slowing down the water."

The image at the left, from the Glacier trip, was literally my very first effort to put the new equipment to work. Although there are things that I would do differently now, I still like this one a lot. However, this image must have been beginner's luck. I obviously underestimated the height and steepness of this particular learning curve, and it was a long time before I was able to make the camera output approach my vision with any consistency. I have collected some of my favorite waterfall pictures in this gallery -- judge for yourself if I'm making progress.

I did not return to Watkins Glen again until last October, when I spent a couple of hours early one morning walking the Glen in relative solitude and looking at it, for the first time, through photographer's eyes. Although my primary objective was to scout for future photography trips, I stopped to shoot in three locations. I didn't think I had captured much of value, but I kept returning to one image (below). After some post-processing work it has become one of my top 5 favorite images of 2013.

Carnevale in Venice

March 15, 2014

Recent news about Mardi Gras celebrations led me to look back in my photo library for images from our visit to Venice during Carnevale in 2012. We used an international conference in Rome as an excuse to take a few days to see Venice for the first time, not realizing that our visit coincided with the last week of Carnevale!

The crowds were unbelievable! Of course, one of the main attractions was the people in elaborate costumes -- generally surrounded by photographers. The image below shows the "Queen of Hearts" on the move across Piazza San Marco, stalked by photographers. We joined the party, and I was able to get several good images of elaborate costumes that are posted in this gallery.

Even diners in the restaurants lining Piazza San Marco got into the act...

...as did the locals. We found a local family taking pictures along the Grand Canal, and they graciously allowed me to photograph their children in costume.

And, if you forgot a costume you could always visit one of the shops, perhaps for something like this:

To beat the Carnevale crowds in Venice, we took a vaporetto to Burano, one of the "suburban" islands in the lagoon that is known for lace-making and its colorful houses.

Unplanned visit to a ghost town

January 20, 2014

November 2011: We were in Reno, combining work-related travel and a family visit. I had the bright idea to drive down to Mono Lake to shoot the tufa formations in the dawn light. We left our hotel at "zero-dark-thirty" and headed down US395, but it soon became apparent that we were going to be too late for sunrise. When we arrived the tufa formations were bathed in harsh morning light against a cloudless blue sky -- not exactly optimal for landscape photography. The image below is indicative of the conditions and only partly rescued by conversion to B&W.

On the way to Mono Lake I had seen the turnoff to Bodie. I remembered reading that that Bodie is a ghost town -- an abandoned gold-mining town located above 8,000 ft elevation near the Nevada border. Founded in the late 1800s as a "company town" for the Standard Mine, Bodie was abandoned when the mine closed in the 1940s. It is now kept in a state of "arrested decay" as a California State Historic Park.

We decided to check it out on our way back to Reno -- a detour along 10 miles of winding mountain road, the last 3 miles of which are rutted gravel (no doubt voiding our rental car contract). The view of Bodie on approach is pretty desolate: the dark brown of unpainted wooden buildings and rusty corrugated metal sheets against the lighter brown of the treeless eastern Sierra landscape.

It was a cold November Monday, and there were fewer than 20 people there when we arrived. The light was even less forgiving than at Mono Lake, but I nevertheless was able to find a number of exterior and interior subjects to shoot. The exterior shots were garish unless converted to some sort of monochrome, and many of the interior scenes, sometimes shot through window glass, required HDR processing of multiple images to capture the wide dynamic range from deep shadows to brilliant light streaming through windows. My favorite images from this trip to Bodie can be found in this gallery.

Balloons!

January 5, 2014

In September 2010 I visited son Matt and daughter-in-law Jen in Reno, NV on the way to a work-related meeting in Las Vegas. My visit coincided with the Great Reno Balloon Race, and a search on the web for images from prior years turned up pictures of a pre-dawn ascent of a group of illuminated balloons called the "Dawn Patrol." I had to see it – and shoot it – for myself! I dragged my dubious hosts out in chilly pre-dawn darkness, and we managed to find a good location (cleverly marked by lots of tripods!) to photograph the Dawn Patrol ascent. This image and the ones in the Balloon Race gallery are the result of those efforts.

I have been working with some of these images on the computer for more than three years, but in putting together this web gallery I took a fresh look at everything and identified a couple of "keepers" that I'd overlooked before.

I guess a bit of "photo library bloat" can be a good thing.

Tentative steps...

January 1, 2014

On the Highline Trail, Glacier National Park

Just what the world needs: another blog!

This website and blog are a new venture – a way to share my images and my random reflections on photography. We'll see how that works out...

This image and the first gallery are from three glorious days in Glacier National Park in July, 2010 with our son Dru and daughter-in-law Shannon. With a new camera, new lenses, and new tripod it's a wonder that anything worth keeping and sharing came out of it!