Photo:Engage

  “ Everywhere is something which could be beautiful. You must only be able to see and to know what and how to take off, to crop from the infinity. ”  - Florin Constantinescu      This day demanded the polarizing filter to clear up the glare from the sun's light reflecting from the water. And how the blues and greens did pop! As I wrote in my post from April 1, 2023...      Driving along toward home in north central South Carolina, I began to get hungry for lunch. I had some homemade pulled pork nice and warm in my Hot Logic mini portable oven and a couple rolls and some mayo were ready. But where to stop? Quite out of nowhere, on my left suddenly was a sign for the Carolina Sandhills National Wildlife Refuge. A quick signal and brake and I was easily in the nice quiet parking lot. In fact, I was the only one there. Although the visitor center should have been open, the staff must have been elsewhere because I saw nobody else during my visit....

  “ I think of photography like therapy. ”  - Harry Gruyaert      I doubt there's ever been a time I didn't feel refreshed after spending some time in the woods. Tired? Sure. Dirty? Almost always! Hungry and thirsty? Of course. But always better. Yes, always better. Although there are those moments you wonder why you're there. As I quoted from one of my favorite authors in my post from January 7, 2023...      “There is no point in hurrying because you are not actually going anywhere. However far or long you plod, you are always in the same place: in the woods. It’s where you were yesterday, where you will be tomorrow. The woods is one boundless singularity. Every bend in the path presents a prospect indistinguishable from every other, every glimpse into the trees the same tangled mass. For all you know, your route could describe a very large, pointless circle. In a way, it would hardly matter.” - Bill Bryson, A Walk in the Woods Clicking on the im...

  “ The formula for doing a good job in photography is to think like a poet. ”  - Imogen Cunningham      This past weekend, I visited with an old friend from my time in the Navy. I had been invited to a party in his honor earlier this summer but I was unable to go because my son was in the hospital at the time. But I finally had the chance to see him and was glad I did.      My friend, an entire generation ahead of me, was an exceptionally intelligent and kind mentor to many of my peers. We all looked up to Bob with respect and no little bit of awe at his patient, easygoing nature as a senior leader in a demanding Navy program not known for its casual nature. He led his division of sailors with aplomb but also spent a lot of time trying to teach all of us many of the intricacies of our ship’s engine room and reactor design. And he was indefatigable. No matter how dense we must have seemed to him sometimes, he would explain again and again how some...

  “ When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence. ”  - Ansel Adams     For whom does the artist work? Of course, they create for themselves. But who is their actual audience? Certainly, if they have any, they work for their patrons, because supporters of this kind value the work enough to pay for it and display it. And an artist will always be grateful for their patrons. But beyond that, what separates the artist from all others with a creative impulse?      The key difference, to my mind, is that the artist puts their work out for others to see, to appreciate, and to criticize. The artist takes a chance on sharing their art knowing it might not work, and they will fail, and if they have purpose, they will improve, and try again, and again. Artists must remember the lesson taught by Thomas Edison...  "Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how cl...

  “ A great photograph is a full expression about what one feels about what is being photographed in the deepest sense and is thereby a true expression of what one feels about life in its entirety. ”  - Ansel Adams     How strange to sense the presence of love while simply observing two trees on a hillside. But then, the forest, the mountains, and the mist can fill you with a sense of wonderment you might dismiss as folly were it not for the obvious intimacy and constancy those two trees share. And what marvelous lessons we might take with us from watching them resist the wind, one tree mostly full with branches and the other less so but still hanging on, still fully engaged. We could learn much about loyalty from such trees as these. As I wrote in my post on December 18, 2021...      Out by the edge of the forest on the hill, sits a tree that radiates pure magical energy. It’s a wizened old tree, bent but never broken by the wind, backed by the clouds...

  “ The world moves fast, changing everything around us with each new day. Photography is a gift that can keep us in a moment forever, blissfully eternal. ”  - Ali Novak     I used to frequently approach life like a series of missions, tasks to complete and lists to check off as I maximized my efficiency, making the best time possible. The destination was of most importance, not the journey itself. I'm sure I picked up some of this life scripting from my father and probably learned the rest from my time in the Navy. Mission accomplishment was a Chief's job, plain and simple. But to go through life with this mindset certainly made me miss some happy moments along the way. It wasn't possible to savor the wonder of creation when I spent the journey, the real meat of the meal of life, chewing and swallowing as fast as I could so I could get to dessert, the destination.     That's not to say that I was always like this, but I did find myself in this mindset more...

  “ For me, the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity. ”  - Henri Cartier-Bresson     Sure hope the new year is starting out well for you! I thought I'd offer you a hope I have for you and a small bit of wisdom for the ages in this first post of 2022.     I want you to be happy. More specifically, I want you to choose to be happy, regardless of your circumstances.     That's a daring thing to hope for in the modern age, what with everyone's feelings controlling so much of what they are. But your feelings, if not managed properly, can really keep you from being happy.     Let me tell you a quick story... When the town I live in didn't pickup the leaves from the curb in our neighborhood like they announced they would, I was concerned about the possibility of leaves clogging our storm drains and about how the leaves were simply blowing back into our yards after many of us had spent much energy and mon...

  Photo:Engage     a photography blog you  want  to follow “ You've got to push yourself harder. You've got to start looking for pictures nobody else could take. You've got to take the tools you have and probe deeper. ”  - William Albert Allard      Changing locations is always tricky for a photographer because you don't want to confuse your audience. What kind of photographer are you? That begs the question... what kind of photographer am I? I love all types of photography, from studio work to street scenes to urban and rural studies to classic landscapes including mountains, trees, and beaches. I'll capture it all, and I try to do it with my point of view front and center.      Still, with the way photographs are displayed on an Instagram feed in a tile of images, a consistent look in the feed is the holy grail for many of my fellow photogs and I will never have that. What you will see is my work will always be high quality w...