Photo:Engage

  “ 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...

  “ Look deep into nature and then you will understand everything better. ”  - Albert Einstein     Sometimes, I think my more specific posts extolling the beauty and history of a certain location turns off part of my audience because perhaps they think they cannot relate to a place they don't personally know. But my sincere hope is that my words and images inspires you to visit the wild places close to your home and to cherish them such that you'll make choices that protect them. Love the outdoors near you! As I wrote in my post on November 5, 2022...      Gordons Pond wasn’t always just the amazing and beautiful mix of water and trees, grass and birds that we get to enjoy nowadays. In days long gone by, when European settlers first were looking around and wondering how to keep their food preserved, areas close to the sea were choice locations for getting their all important salt.       What is now Gordons Pond began as a manma...

  “ I think of photography like therapy. ”  - Harry Gruyaert      Hello everyone. My friend Bob, who I wrote about in my last post, died peacefully on October 14, 2022 after fighting brain cancer for over two years. When I wrote about my not knowing how much more time he had here, Bob had already passed away. The world was much better with him in it. I will really miss my friend. Bob is survived by his loving wife and his three children.      All profits from any sales on my website Marketplace from now until January 15, 2023 will be donated to the Glioblastoma Foundation, in remembrance of Bob. It’s a nice way to add some art to your life and contribute to an excellent charity. Peace be with all of you.     So what does the Glioblastoma Foundation do? From their own website: The Glioblastoma Foundation was created to galvanize glioblastoma drug development . Glioblastoma is the most aggressive type of tumor that arises in the brain. It ...

  “ 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...

  “ I wish that all of nature's magnificence, the emotion of the land, the living energy of place could be photographed. ”  - Annie Leibovitz     So there I was on the beach, early in the morning as always, to capture some landscape images in the lovely South Carolina Lowcountry sunrise light. As I wandered along, I was delighted with the sheer number of shorebirds along this still very natural bit of shoreline. Hilton Head Island has only been connected by road to the mainland since the mid-1950s, so the area is still quite impressively pristine. And, to my surprise, I came across this intrepid pair. As I wrote in my post from May 21, 2022...      You can’t imagine how delighted I was to witness these two wonderful horseshoe crabs crossing each other’s paths as they headed out to sea one sunrise morning. I watched them travel about the beach for quite awhile before they lined up for, pardon my pride, this spectacular composition.      A...