Welcome to My View

Hello and welome to My View for Monday August 25, 2008.

Last week, I continued the work of setting up our 2009 workshops. Once again I found myself looking through images for shots of our venues. On the My View image of the Jekyll Island Pier last week, TJ mentioned that he’d not seen much of anything from Jekyll Island except for the images from Driftwood Beach that are so easily identified as “Jekyll”. He was pleased to see that there was more to the island than just that one beach.

There is, indeed, more to Jekyll Island than Driftwood Beach, as beautiful as it is. There are the “cottages” — beautiful architecture — that once belonged to the rich and famous, marshes, the Jekyll Pier, grand old live oaks covered with moss, horse drawn carriages, a lovely old church — and more. The historic district is a 240 acre riverfront compound that contains cottages once belonging to families with names like Rockefeller, Crane, Gould and Vanderbilit. Faith Chapel, the church built on the island to serve the famous summer residents, contains a stained glass window made and installed personally by Louis Comfort Tiffany.

As time passed, the fortunes of the island waxed and waned. It was sold to the state of Georgia in 1947. Today, the island is administered by the Jekyll Island State Park Authority (JIA). It was designated as a National Historic Landmark District in 1978. In accordance with the restrictions of the sale of the island to the state, only 35% of the island can be developed. It is a perfect location for a photography workshop!!

With this in mind, this week’s image is another shot from Jekyll showing a few of the magnificent ancient oak trees that fill the island. This shot if from the historic district.

Your comments and suggestions are most welcome as they help me grow as a photographer and a person.

Thank you for visiting My View.

Jekyll Island Oaks

Ancient Oaks in Jekyll Historic District, May, 2007
Canon 5D, 16 - 35 mm 2.8L lens at 16mm , f/5.6, 1/125 sec, ISO 800, handheld

Hello and welome to My View for Monday August 18, 2008.

For the past two weeks, I have been hard at work setting up the 2009 workshops for Radiant Vista.

Part of the process of setting up the workshops is developing the material for advertising our workshops. I was browsing some old files to find images that we can use in the material and came across this image from a 2004 Jekyll Island Workshop that I attended. It was taken one evening after dark when we were out for some night shooting. After working on the 2009 workshop season non-stop for a couple of days, I found it rather calming and soothing.

I hope you do, too, and I welcome your comments. They only help me grow as a photographer.

Craig Tanner and I would love to see you next spring with us on beautiful Jekyll Island. Please see our workshops for 2009 for more details.

Thank you for visiting My View.

Jekyll Island Pier, October 2004
Canon 10D, ISO 100, 16 - 35 mm 2.8L lens at 35mm , f/11, 15 seconds. Camera mounted on tripod.

Larger View

Hello and welome to My View for Monday, August 11, 2008.

Even though the heat of the summer is still with us, this week our teachers returned to their classrooms to prepare for the start of school next week and the school bus drivers ran practice routes.

The start of the school year represents new beginnings, new opportunities, new friends. For so many years after graduating from college, my new year still started in late August of each year rather than January 1. I’m sure that many of you felt that and, with school aged children, still feel that.

The date of the “official start” of a new year matters little as far as the way we see our lives. We can choose any day to start fresh, clearing out the things we need to leave behind to make way for new opportunities, adventures, friends, etc.

As I watched the school bus drivers practice driving their routes earlier this week, I was reminded of this “school” that I saw last weekend while visiting the Georgia Aquarium with friends.

As always, I very much appreciate your comments and critiques. They help me grow as a photographer and a person.

Thank you for visiting My View.

“Off to School”

Georgia Aquarium; August, 2008
Atlanta Georgia
Canon 1Ds Mark II ; 50mm 1.4 lens; ISO 3200; 1/500 second; f/1.8; handheld
Combination of two images

This week, we, at Radiant Vista, also announced the start of our new school year by releasing the schedule of workshops we have planned for 2009.

Hello and welome to My View for Tuesday, August 5, 2008.

This is a post that contains no photographs. It is about a man who was an inspiration to thousands, and who has become an inspiration to millions, whom I feel that everyone who has dreams and aspires to achieve those dreams should know.

Dr. Randy Pausch was a professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburg. He was a much beloved and admired teacher who inspired all of his students. In September, 2007, Dr. Pausch delivered a lecture at Carnegie Mellon called “The Last Lecture”. The lecture was a part of a series of lectures where top academics are asked to think deeply about what matters to them, and then talk about it using the premise “what wisdom would you try to impart to the world if you knew it was your last chance?” At the time of that lecture, Dr. Pausch had just learned that the pancreatic cancer he had been fighting since 2006 was terminal.

Dr. Pausch lost his battle with pancreatic cancer on July 25, 2008. He was 47 years old.

I’ve been re-listening to his lectures since his death and just wanted all of you who do not already know about him to meet him through his legacy. He truly inspired millions and I know he will inspire you too if you take time to listen to and/or view his lecture and read the book that came out of his “The Last Lecture” entitled “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams”

You can read all about Randy and link to his lecture via YouTube or iTunes, and purchase his book and DVD through Carnegie Mellon University.

To watch Dr. Pausch’s lecture on YouTube please click here.

Thank you, Randy Pausch, for being the man you were on this earth.

Hello and welome to My View for Monday, August 4, 2008.

I hope all of you had a great weekend!

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of spending the afternoon at the Georgia Aquarium with several friends, two of whom were visiting from Savannah. If you are going to be in the Atlanta area, a trip to the Georgia Aquarium is a treat — especially on a hot summer afternoon.

Following on my “little piece of” series of Savannah, I’m posting an image that represents a little piece of the Georgia Aquarium. Photographing details, or “little pieces”, of a subject is one of the things that is “me” as a photographer. So, this is an image that represents a bit of me.

As always, I very much appreciate your comments and critiques. They help me grow as a photographer and a person.

Thank you for visiting My View.

“Waves of Color”

Georgia Aquarium; August, 2008
Atlanta Georgia
Canon 1Ds Mark II ; 50mm 1.4 lens; ISO 3200; 1/2000 second; f/1.8; handheld
Combination of two images

Hello and welome to My View for Sunday, July 27, 2008.

For the past couple of weeks on My View, the images and discussion revolved around feelings – first my feeling of missing Savannah that quickly turned to my feeling of missing a part of myself, ending with a discussion of who we are and being congruent in our lives as a way to become more creative.

After thinking about all of this, I also believe that many of my “missing” feelings came out of my “missing something” in my photography.

In a recent podcast , Craig Tanner spoke of our quests to create “more meaningful and more powerful work”. His podcast was a response to a post by Joe Reifer on Joe’s blog. Joe and I met on one of Craig’s Death Valley workshops a few years ago and I still regret not going along with him to Rhyolite one night to shoot “ghost” images – really cool images he made!

Listening to Craig and re-reading Joe’s original post, along with the discussions here, leads me to believe that one way we can create more meaningful and more powerful images is to get to the point in our lives where we are being WHO we are, and living our lives in a congruent manner – not what kind of photographer we are – but WHO we are at the core. Discovering this may be a long process. Joe spoke of the quest as to how to create more meaningful and more powerful work as “wandering around in the middle of the desert for a few days to figure out. Maybe a few weeks. Probably longer.”

In a recent post that Joe made to his blog, he asks us to define our purpose, something Craig has always encouraged us to do. Joe asks: “How many of you can clearly and concisely explain the purpose of your photographs? Two sentences maximum. No biographical information. This is not an artist statement. What do you want to communicate with your photographs and to whom? It’s a tough question. I’d love to hear your answers.”

I’ve thought about this a lot over the weekend. I wrote a purpose statement a few years ago, and revised it several times. I’m not sure that I can define my purpose in as succint a manner that Joe asks us to do right now. But, I have decided that one of the purposes of my photography is to communicate who I am to the viewer.

One of the meaningful posts to the July 24 entry came in the form of a question about the masks we wear to hide who we are. PixAlchemy asked:

“When the focus manages to shift to the lovely image inside, the mask that we have chosen for ourselves remains, even if it is diminished somewhat. What is the price of that residual?”

What is the price of our masks? Even when we think we’ve dropped wearing them, does the remaining residual affect our creativity? Does how long we’ve worn our masks affect the residual left behind? Can we ever really be free from the residual? I don’t know the answer to this question. I would love to hear your opinions.

This image is another little piece of Savannah. It is one of the lovely wrought iron gates that lead to a private garden. I immediately thought of this image when I read Flo’s post to my July 24 entry on this blog:

“So we’re better off changing our focus from the masks and the gates, and instead, focusing on the beauty that’s behind those masks and gates. And some day those masks and gates will fall by the wayside, allowing us free and unhindered passage to beauty.” Thank you, Flo!!!!

Your comments and suggestions are most welcomed and help me grow as an artist and a person.

I am so very grateful for your visit to My View. Thank you all so very much for participating in this exploration and discussion with me. Like Joe, I know you are tired of reading ramblings on creativity and the photographer. Starting next week, I hope to show more photography that reflects who I am and talk less. Thank you for your patience..

“A Little Piece of Savannah #4″

Savannah Georgia
Canon 5D; 50mm 1.4 lens; ISO 200; 1/500 second; f/4.0; handheld

Hello and welome to My View for Thursday, July 24, 2008.

Last week, I posted an image titled “A Little Piece of Savannah”. I did this because I found myself missing being in Savannah, the city that has become a second home to me. Earlier this week, I followed up with another little piece of Savannah because the “missing something” feeling was still stirring in my soul. I had a difficult time determining, and explaining, the exact nature of this feeling.

To my delight, the responses to my post from earlier this week helped me clarify this feeling. The “missing” I was feeling was for ME! — or a part of me. Those who contributed to the responses helped me greatly to focus on my feelings and determine, through our continued discussions, what it was. Usha’s post, number 9, describes what I was feeling so very accurately.

So often we all get so busy with our lives that we run on autopilot, living our lives unconsciously. It is so very easy to do. Recently, I started to do this again. I say “again” because this is something that I fall prey to every now and then in my life. And, when that happens, a longing rises up in my soul. It takes me a few days of living with that feeling, and discussing it with friends, before I realize that the longing is for a part of me that I’m giving up to whatever is going on in my life.

Recognizing who we are and how to be who we are while living our lives doing what we are doing is a life-long effort. There are very fine lines between living our life authentically, true to ourselves and to others, and living our lives being swept along with the waves washing around us. Stepping back — for me, running away to Savannah for a few days! — and taking the time to evaluate how what we are doing relates to who we are and determining if the what is preventing us from being our authentic selves is an on-going process. It requires a lot of courage for me to say “Thank you, but no thank you” to opportunities that would take me away from me — no matter how great those opportunities or how well I might perform them.

I’ve reached the point in my life where I to try and show up, to be present to all experiences, to be aware, and to be true to myself in every aspect of my life. I say “try” because it is not an easy thing to do and I fail from time to time. The “failure”, that uncomfortable feeling of missing, gives me the opportunity to learn more about myself and grow. If it were not so uncomfortable, I would do nothing to change what I am doing to be more congruent with who I am.

I encourage you all to be awake in your own lives, to show up for the experiences of every single day as your true self and to be who you are — with compassion, with love, with gratitude, with concern and with sensitivity — but strong in who you are. That, after all, is the only real way to live.

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The path to joy comes from creative expression. When you make the time and space to harness the energy in your life, you can begin to express your unique creativity. Your joy will increase. Your confidence will grow. Your life will be transformed. You will be living your life out loud.”
— from the book “Living Your Life Out Loud” by Salli Rasberry and Padi Selwyn

This image is also a little piece of Savannah. It is a potted daisy inside one of the lovely gardens of a private home. Many of Savannah’s homes use beautiful wrought iron as decorative features on gates or windows into the garden. The first image is of the lovely decorative window. I think of this as the façade – our mask that we wear when we are uncomfortable with our situation. The second is of the daisy itself as seen through the window – the alive part of us, our soul behind our masks. The difference between the two images is the point on which the camera is focused.

Your comments and suggestions are most welcomed and help me grow as an artist and a person.

Thank you for visiting My View and thank you so very much to all who participated in the discussion with me on the earlier post this week. I hope you will continue the discussion with this post..

“A Little Piece of Savannah #3″

Savannah Georgia
Canon 5D; 50mm 1.4 lens; ISO 400; 1/2000 second; f/1.4; handheld

Please take a look at the 2009 Workshops that have been announced. Watch for more soon.

Hello and welome to My View for Monday, July 22, 2008.

Last week, I posted an image titled “A Little Piece of Savannah”. I did this because I found myself missing being in Savannah, the city that has become a second home to me.

That feeling — of missing — has continued this week. Maybe I’ve gotten too busy with “things” lately, but I have a strong feeling of missing. This past Friday night, I had the pleasure of watching The Trainwrecks open a Jerry Jeff Walker concert at Atlanta Botanical Gardens. Seeing the guys and spending a little time with them and their families helped the feeling of missing. In the next couple of weeks, another friend of mine is visiting Atlanta from Savannah and we’ve planned some things to do one day. And, that will certainly help.

Isn’t it also amazing how small, seamingly insignificant actions help relieve the feeling of missing? Things like just sitting and watching the sun rise, or taking the dog for a long walk, or going for a jog, or taking the time to actually get out and do something creative with my camera. Maybe it’s not so much a specific place, like Savannah, that I’m missing. Maybe I’m just missing a part of me.

I went back through the same folder this week and found another little piece of Savannah. This one is of one of the many lovely squares that dot the city — one of the reasons that makes Savannah the beautiful and welcoming city that it is.

Maybe I need to take a little break, leave all the “things” I’ve been doing here in Atlanta for a while, gas up the car, pile in all the camera gear and head south for a week or so to see if I can find the part of me that is missing. What do you think?

May you never get so busy that you begin to miss part of yourself.

Your comments and suggestions are most welcomed and help me grow as an artist and a person.

Thank you for visiting My View.

“A Little Piece of Savannah #2″

Savannah Georgia
Canon 5D; 50mm 1.4 lens (fixed focal length); ISO 500; 1/90 second; f/2.8; handheld

Please take a look at the 2009 Workshops that have been announced. Watch for more soon.

Hello and welome to My View for Monday, July 14, 2008.

As most of you know, I spend a good bit of my time in Savannah in the spring and fall of each year teaching workshops. This lovely city has become a second home for me.

I’ve not been down for a visit since mid-May of this year. And, although it’s only been two months, I found myself sitting outside last night missing Savannah.

So many of the homes in the historic district have stairs that lead up to the front door of the home. As in most cities, sitting outside on the steps in the summer is a customary way to spend some time on a summer evening.

Looking through some images I’d taken on previous visits to Savannah last night, I found this one. I can easily imagine myself sitting outside on the steps on these summer evenings, soaking up the atmosphere that is Savannah. It’s not quite like being there, but I have an active imagination.

I hope that you are all enjoying your summer evenings on “your steps”.

Your comments and suggestions are most welcomed and help me grow as an artist and a person.

Thank you for visiting My View.

“A Little Piece of Savannah”

Historic District, Savannah Georgia
Canon 5D; 100mm 2.8 macro lens (fixed focal length); ISO 1600; 1/20 second; f/2.8; handheld

For those of you who are interested, I’ve started listing the 2009 Workshops. The Foundations in Photography for Women was such a success last year that I’m am offering it again for 2009. More listings will be posted in the next few weeks.

Hello and welome to My View for Sunday July 6, 2008.

Craig Tanner, one of my best friends and the person with whom I teach most of the workshops with which I am involved, passed an important milestone last week. He completed his first full year — 52 weeks — of posting images most every day on his photography blog, Light Diary.

Having been at this for only six months myself and posting once a week, I know what a huge time commitment this is. I want to offer my sincerest congratulations to Craig on this accomplishment and for continuing to teach and inspire all photographers with his photo blog. And, I want to personally offer my sincere gratitude to him for continuing to teach, encourage and inspire me in my career as a photographer and for giving me the enormous opportunities that he has.

Once of Craig’s mantras is that productivity = creativity. If you take the time to browse Craig’s Light Diary, you will quickly see this is true. Not only is he extremely productive, he has produced some of the most creative images I’ve seen in the last year. My most favorite of these is his series of the Port Aransas pier.

Craig, thank you for giving all of us a full year of inspiring photography. Thank you for being such a dear friend to me and for continuing to inspire me to be a better photographer — and a better person — every day.

Congratulations on your first year of Light Diary!!! I anxiously await another year of your most beautiful work.

“Craig”

Sweetwater Creek State Park, Georgia, June 2008
Canon 1Ds Mark II, 50 mm lens, f/2.5, 1/60 sec, ISO 320, handheld
Combination of two images to simplify the background

Thank you for visiting My View.