Viking Cemetery, Denmark

The Lindholm Høje Viking burial ground near Aalborg, Denmark sits on a hill with distant views of the modern city. This image is one of three that will be in the mixed media exhibition Sticks and Stones in the New Marlborough Meeting House Gallery in New Marlborough, MA beginning Friday evening, July 23.

A Juniper Tree in Canyonlands

I found this juniper tree in Canyonlands National Park in southern Utah. junipers in the high desert of the southwestern United States can live for many centuries. I don’t know how long this one has been dead, but it makes me want to know its life’s story.

Black Willow Tree in Central Park

In recent years, I have photographed this black willow tree in New York’s Central Park several times, and from different angles and perspectives. Although I had tried many times before, I could not see how to transform any of these images into a photograph that came close to the one that I had in my mind. I lacked the vision to transform the raw image data that the camera captured into the photograph that expressed my feelings for the subject.

I recently returned to my photos of this tree and chose one image to work on. This time I was able to make a print that pleases me. So, I must ask myself, what changed? What caused the breakthrough that enabled me to how to process the raw image into this more personally expressive photo? I am not sure, exactly, but I think it was a combination of inspiration and improved technique. I am constantly looking at the work of other photographers, and I especially enjoy watching videos showing how photographers edit their photos to achieve their vision. Although my vision may be different, the thought processes involved can be similar, and I am sometimes inspired to try new ideas. In addition, I have also been honing my skills with my chosen editing tools, Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop.

When exploring Central Park, I often use an app called Central Park Entire on my iPad. It uses an interactive map to identify the park’s features, including most of its 20,000 trees. Here is how the app’s author, Ken Chaya, describes a black willow: “Unlike other willow species, the Black Willow is often a multi-trunked tree, crooked and somewhat disheveled in appearance. What it may lack in grace, it makes up for in girth, as it is our largest native willow.” He then cites this black willow as an “enormous and outstanding specimen.”

I hope I give it the respect and attention it deserves.

More From Bandon Beach

Rocks, Bandon Beach

Here is another image from my favorite beach in Oregon.

Update: Just a few days after I posted this photo, I received news that this image has been accepted by the PhotoPlace Gallery in Middlebury, VT to be in their exhibition, Composed. The exhibition dates are May 28 – June 18, 2021.

The Magic of Snow

This was taken last month during the last significant snowstorm of the winter. I like the way snow simplifies a composition by removing unnecessary details.

Tide Pool on the Oregon Coast

This beach in Bandon, Oregon, with its spectacular rock formations called sea stacks, is a destination for many landscape photographers. What I especially like about this place is that although it is a popular location, there were opportunities to find something that spoke to me, that resonated, in a unique way. This little tide pool on this vast beach made me stop and want to photograph it. Often in big dramatic settings like this, a subject with a quiet beauty that can easily go unnoticed is what I connect most strongly with.

Autumn Snow

I have been living in this rural environment full time during the pandemic, so when a late October snow fell and created this ephemeral scene, I was able to make this photograph.

Big Sur, Early Spring

 
 

With all the anxieties that the COVID pandemic brings, and then wondering if we would get through yesterday’s snowstorm without a power outage (we did fine), I find this image calming and somehow reassuring. Spring will come, and life will go on.

The Beat of a Different Drum

 
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This is a story about not following the crowd when your inner muse leads you elsewhere.

A few years ago, I attended a photo workshop where we spent a couple of days in Lone Pine, California. Lone Pine is near the Alabama Hills, a unique landscape of large boulders and unusual rock formations. Just west of the Alabama Hills, one can see Mt. Whitney and the Sierra Nevada Mountains. This dramatic scenery has been used as the backdrop for scores of movies, especially westerns.

One of the best times to photograph the landscape of the Alabama Hills is just at sunrise, when the sun’s rays cast long shadows and make the rock formations stand out. So, one morning we set out for the Alabama Hills, arriving before sunrise. We had a few minutes to find a location we liked and to set up our cameras and tripods before the sun rose above the horizon. Once the sun came up, we photographed for maybe an hour or so. After that, the good lighting was gone.

I couldn’t find any interesting rock formations, or at least any rock formations that I felt like photographing. I made a few exposures of some rocks that were okay but that didn’t really excite me.

There were plenty of shaded areas on the ground where large boulders blocked the sun. In one of these, I was attracted to some bushes, either dead or struggling to survive in this arid place. I spent some time photographing these bushes. This is one of the photographs I made. I find it beautiful in some strange way. It speaks to me of life, and death, in a hostile environment.

 

 

Seventy-five at Seventy-five

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I mentioned in my last post that I was making a journal of my 75 favorite photos to commemorate my 75th birthday and that I would have it available on my website in January as a free PDF download. Well, the journal, Seventy-five at Seventy-five, is now available and can be downloaded from the Digital Media page of my website.

The idea to compile a selection of favorite images was inspired by Brooks Jenson (www.brooksjensenarts.com), who published a PDF of his favorites photos when he turned sixty-six. Brooks got the idea from his friend Joe Lipka (www.joelipkaphoto.com). So, the idea is not new, but I think it’s a great way of looking back at one’s creative life.

Now I look forward to seeing where this photographic journey takes me from here.

I wish you a healthy, happy, and productive 2021.

Looking Back Fifty Years

Central Park Encounter

Sometime in the autumn of last year I passed the fifty-year mark in making photographs. This photograph, which I call Central Park Encounter, was the image that told me to seriously pursue photography.

It all started in 1969. After college, I started my first full-time job, eventually getting time off for vacation. While planning my first trip, it occurred to me that most people take a camera along to bring back pictures to show friends and family, and that I should do the same. Before that, I had never paid much attention to cameras or photography.

When I returned, I became friends with someone who had been photographing for a while. He showed me his photographs, which I thought were beautiful. So, when I showed him my vacation photos, I was quite surprised when he said I had a good eye for photography and urged me to pursue it.

He accompanied me to buy my first camera, a Nikon F with 50mm and 105mm lenses, all used. After I got my second roll of black and white film back from the developing lab, he looked at my contact sheet and pointed this image out to me as something special. What beginner’s luck, just my second roll of film!

Next year is my seventy-fifth birthday, and I plan to commemorate my photographic career with a digital publication of my 75 favorite images. Look for my announcement in January. It will be available on my website as a free PDF download.