Welcome to My View

Hello and welome to My View for Sunday, June 28, 2009.

Hello Everyone,

I hope you are having a nice weekend.

Today’s image is a shot I took one night in Savannah in March a few days after our Next Step workshop. It had been raining most of the day, making every surface reflective. This is a view of Congress Street. I was on my way to Molly MacPherson’s for dinner. If you are familiar with Savannah, you’ll recognize the yellow and red flag of Scotland flying over Molly’s. I racked my 50mm 1.4 lens out of focus and took several shots, some more in or out of focus. This was my favorite from the series.

As always, your comments and critiques are most welcome.

Congress Street

Savannah, GA
Canon 1Ds Mark II, Canon 50mm 1.4 lens, ISO 400, f/2.8, 1/20 sec, handheld.

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Hello and welome to My View for Monday, June 23, 2009.

Hello Everyone,

I hope you had a great weekend.

Craig Tanner, a fantastic teacher and great friend with whom I work teaching workshops and on The Mindful Eye, and I spent the weekend with a great group of people here in Atlanta at our first Inspirational Weekend with The Mindful Eye. It was a lot of fun, we saw many old friends and made some new ones. Thank you to all who participated!!

Today’s image is a whimsical shot I took in Death Valley earlier this year in the days after the Death Valley Workshop when I was out shooting for myself. I came across this piece of wood in the desert near the Devil’s Corn Field area and immediately laughed out loud when I saw it — crazy woman, standing in the middle of the desert, laughing to herself!!

I keep coming back to this image as I scan images for preparing workshop presentations or for My View. Today, I’m in a lighthearted mood and decided to post it for your amusement.

As always, your comments and critiques are most welcome.

Death Valley Dragon

Death Valley, CA
Canon 1Ds Mark II, Canon 16-35 2.8L lens at 16mm, ISO 100, f/8, 1/45 sec, Bogen Neotec tripod.

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Hello and welome to My View for Sunday, June 14, 2009.

Hello Everyone,

I hope you had a great weekend.

Today’s image is from one of the marsh areas on Jekyll Island. It was taken late in the afternoon as the sun was getting to be low in the sky. The image was created by moving the camera as the shutter was open. I converted the image out of a RAW file in both daylight and tungsten white balance and blended the two conversions.

As always, your comments and critiques are most welcome.

Colors of the Marsh

Jekyll Island, GA
Canon 1Ds Mark II, Canon 50mm 1.4 lens, ISO 100, f/22, 1/3 sec, handheld.
Composite of two RAW conversions of the same file

A Larger view.

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Hello and welome to My View for Friday, June 12, 2009.

Hello Everyone,

Happy Friday!!

I feel as though I’m getting caught up on My View and will go back to posting once a week starting on Sunday evening. Thank you for your patience with me during the hectic spring workshop season.

One of the great things that came out of the March, April, May series of workshops is that my teaching partner and friend, Craig Tanner, took a “next step” with his music. A long-time guitarist, he finally worked up the courage to play in front of other people and began playing at some of the open mic nights in Savannah. Today’s image is one that I took late one night as Craig and two new musician friends were just jamming in Franklin Square.

Here are Adam, Craig and Jeff making beautiful music in Franklin Square just after midnight on a lovely Friday night during the Street Portraiture workshop.

As always, your comments and critiques are most welcome.

Franklin Square Musicians

Savannah, GA
Canon 5D, Lensbaby Composer lens, f/2.0, ISO 3200, 1/30 sec, handheld.
Composite of three images

A Larger view.

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Hello and welome to My View for Saturday, June 6, 2009.

Hello Everyone,

I hope your summer is getting off to a great start.

Today’s image is another from the spring road trip of teaching photography workshops just over a month ago. This is the pier on Jekyll Island. The Jekyll Island workshop ended at noon on this day and it was about 45 hours before the Street Portraiture Workshop was scheduled to begin back up the road in Savannah. I went out on this evening by myself to do some personal shooting and for some alone time to re-energize for the next workshop.

As always, your comments and critiques are most welcome.

A Quiet Moment

Jekyll Island, GA
Canon 1Ds Mark II, Canon 28-70mm 2.8L lens at 70mm,
ISO 100, 30 secs, f/8.0, Bogen Neotec Tripod.

A Larger view.

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Hello and welome to My View for Monday, June 1, 2009.

Hello Everyone,

Today’s image is another from my almost two-month long road trip this spring. This one was taken in a favorite spot in Savannah for breakfast, the State Street Cafe just off Telfair Square. I love this place for a lot of reasons and one is the bright colors with which the interior is painted. It can cheer you up on even the stormiest of days.

As I was waiting for breakfast to be served, and contemplating all that had happened in the last few weeks of my life, I was staring at a table in a corner by a window. As I stared, my eyes began to lose focus of the scene in front of me. It seemed a great metaphor for my mood at the time — losing focus on all that that was around me for just a while. I took three shots of the image — one in focus, one just out and one way out of focus.

Losing focus on our reality happens from time to time. By the end of the long road trip and five workshops, I’d really lost focus — mainly due to exhaustion and the “Savannah bug” that caught me twice. With proper rest, sleeping in my own bed, and getting rid of the “bug”, I’m back in focus once again and ready to tackle the world.

As always, your comments and critiques are most welcome.

Losing Focus

Savannah, GA
Canon 1Ds Mark II, Canon 50mm 1.4 lens, ISO 1600, 1/20 sec, f/4.0, handheld.

A Larger view.

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Hello and welome to My View for Saturday, May 30, 2009.

Hello Everyone,

Today’s image is another from my spring-time road trip. This one was also taken just after the Next Step workshop in March of this year. As most of you know, I lost my friend and canine companion, Riley, in an accident just before I left to go to Savannah to teach the Next Step workshop with Craig. And, as most of you know, Craig had to rush back to Atlanta on the Monday following the workshop to be there with his friend and companion, Shadow, as Shadow left this world and those who loved him.

This image was taken on the Tuesday morning after Shadow’s departure, and Craig’s return to Savannah, when Craig and I ventured out into the still-wet streets of the city in search of breakfast. We were passing Paula Dean’s on our way to a favorite breakfast place, the State Street Cafe, when Craig noticed that the window in Paula Dean’s gift shop was almost like a mirror, due to the overcast conditions and wet streets. He suggested we stop and photograph ourselves — something to add a bit of lightness to the day, I think. Of all the ones I snapped before we continued on to breakfast, this is my favorite. It shows the people across the street from us getting their day started and going about their business. Even as they did, each of our worlds was still reeling from the losses we felt in our lives. The loss of our canine companions, combined with the wonderful feelings that came out of the Next Step workshop, prompted each of us to begin to make some changes in our own personal lives.

But, on this morning, the world was still off-kilter for both of us.

As always, your comments and critiques are most welcome.

Off-Kilter

Savannah, GA
Canon 1Ds Mark II, Canon 50mm 1.4 lens, ISO 800, 1/90 sec, f/4.0, handheld.
Composite of two images.

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Hello and welome to My View for Monday, May 25, 2009.

Hello Everyone,

Happy Memorial Day to all of you celebrating this day in the USA.

It’s been almost a month since I posted anything to My View. I appreciate your patience and your support while I was so very busy with teaching and with The Mindful Eye.

Last Thursday, I returned home to Atlanta after two months on the road, except for one stretch of 7 days and a couple of other days. It’s been an amazing two months and I’m not sure that I can describe all the things that have happened accurately — or that I’ll even try. What I will do is to post as many images as I can from the extended road trip and talk about those. I started posting some images from this marathon road trip on the two previous posts to My View.

This image is one that I took after the end of the absolutely amazing Next Step Workshop in Savannah that was held from March 22 - 28. Every day during the abnormally cool week-long workshop, dark clouds loomed and rain threatened. But, it held off — until the Saturday evening after the workshop ended. And, then — it rained, and rained, and rained. Rained so that streets of Savannah flooded.

Today’s image was taken on Sunday night after the workshop from the upstairs dining porch of Fiddler’s Crab House down on River Street. The fantastic photographer and photography teacher with whom I work, Craig Tanner, and I had stayed over in Savannah for a few days in order to get some work done for The Mindful Eye. It had been storming for most of the day that Sunday, but the rain slacked off enough for a few hours so that we could walk from our hotel down to River Street for dinner. As we were waiting for dinner to be served, I noticed all the lights and colors reflecting from a wet River Street.

As always, your comments and critiques are most welcome.

Rainy Night on River Street

Savannah, GA
Canon 1Ds Mark II, Canon 50mm 1.4 lens, ISO 1600, 1/45 sec, f/1.4, handheld.

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Hello and welome to My View for Thursday, April 23, 2009.

Hello Everyone,

I hope this finds you enjoying Spring.

I finished the Foundation in Photography for Women Workshop in Savannah last Sunday with a group of wonderful and awesome women. It is always courageous to say “I’m a beginner” and dive right in to a world of new terminology and technology to learn a new craft just because you love it. These ladies were just great. I thank each and every one of them for the opportunity they gave me to do something I love — teaching.

On Wednesday, Craig Tanner and I began the Jekyll Island Workshop on this beautiful island with another group of great people. We finish this workshop at noon tomorrow. On Tuesday of next week, Craig and I will be back in Savannah for the Street Portraiture Workshop.

Today’s image is one of someone that I’ve gotten to know in Savannah over the past few years who is one of the most amazing people I’ve ever known. If you’ve followed The Mindful Eye for a while, you will recognize him. This is Isaac Heyward. He is one of the most positive people I’ve ever met in my life. He has been blind for 47 years, yet never mentions his blindness as being a problem. Craig was recording Heyward’s answer to a question, standing near him with the recorder. Craig’s reflection is in the window.

As always, your comments and critiques are most welcome.

Isaac Heyward

Savannah, GA
Canon 1Ds Mark II, Canon 50mm 1.4 lens, ISO 100, 1/350 sec, f/1.4, handheld.

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Hello and welome to My View for Wednesday, March 18, 2009.

Hello Everyone,

I hope you all had a beautiful Easter Sunday yesterday!!

I apologize for my absence from My View for the past month. My “day job” — that is, preparing for upcoming workshops for The Mindful Eye and working on things for workshops later in the year — caught up with me this past month. I have three workshops in a row coming up!!

Also, the sudden death of my American Eskimo Dog, Riley, whom I wrote about on March 11, has impacted me a great deal. Riley was struck by a truck in front of my house on March 5. When I got to the bottom of the driveway, where he was sitting, he appeared OK. He just could not stand up on his hind legs. He was in no pain and very alert. I rushed him to my vet and, after extensive examination, we learned that the impact had broken his back and severed his spinal cord at a point below his waist. Thus, the reason for his lack of pain. After consultation, I had to make the heart breaking decision to let him go on to his next home. He was such an active and energetic dog. I could not imagine him being happy when paralyzed and unable to run and play and chase his squirrels in the backyard. It was so hard to let him go. I’m so grateful that I was with him and had the chance to hold him and tell him how much he meant to me as he went on to whatever comes next. Thank you, Riley, for spending 9 of your 10 years on this earth with me. I was so lucky to have found you!!

After that, I went to Savannah with Craig Tanner to teach our first Next Step workshop of this year. It was an amazing workshop, attended by an amazing group of photographers!! I thank all of the participants for their part in making it so meaningful. Rain threatened all week while we were there, but waited until after the workshop to move in. It seemed to reflect my mood as I was able to stay busy and not think too much about Riley — until the workshop was over. More tears came with the rain.

This image was taken on the Saturday night after the workshop ended earlier in the day. It was taken from the third floor walkway right outside the hotel room of a palm tree in the rain. The various colors in the tree were caused by the different types of lights on the walkway, from the parking lot and a little spill-over from the lights on River Street.

As always, your comments and critiques are most welcome.

Rainy Days and Mondays …

Savannah, GA
Canon 1Ds Mark II, Canon 50mm 1.4 lens, ISO 3200, 1/15 sec, f/1.4, handheld.

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