Welcome to My View

After being absent from My View of a few weeks, I hope that I’m back on a regular weekly basis. It has been an extremely busy winter and spring with Inspirational Weekend and regular workshop schedules of The Mindful Eye.

During the last couple of days that I was in Savannah, after our Composition Intensive Workshop, I met a young man at B&B Ale House. His amazing smile and presence, as well as the light in which he was sitting, attracted me. I talked to him for a few seconds and asked if I could photograph him. He was gracious enough to sit for me for a few minutes. His name is Matt and he is stationed at Hunter Army Airfield, located on Ft. Stewart, just outside Savannah.

I always worry about the young soldiers that I meet or see coming and going in airports. No matter what our individual political beliefs, I know we all are concerned about the soldiers. I always send a little prayer for their safety when I see them. Matt, where ever you are and wherever you go, stay safe out there. And, thank you for being so gracious.

As always, your comments and critiques are most welcome. They make me a better photographer, aid my growth as a person and offer me new experiences.

A Young Soldier

Click here for larger image.

Savannah, GA
B&B Ale House
May 2, 2010

Canon EOS 5D Mark II, Canon 50 mm 1.4 lens, f/1.8, 1/90 sec, ISO 5000, handheld

Thank you for visiting My View.

Hello and welome to My View for Saturday, July 11, 2009.

Hello Everyone,

I hope you are having a nice weekend.

Today’s image is a another from Savannah taken in April of this year. After many days of rain in March and April, this beautiful sunset materialized over the Talmadge Memorial Bridge right outside of my hotel room. I’ve not seen such a lovely sunset from downtown Savannah before and ran out and down the street — barefoot — in order to capture a few shots before it disappeared.

It was a soft sunset. I followed the mood already set and softened it even more with use of the clarity slider in Camera Raw.

As always, your comments and critiques are most welcome. They make me a better photographer, aid my growth as a person and offer me new experiences.

Soft Savannah Sunset

Savannah, GA
April 2009
Canon 5D Mark II, Canon 28-70 f/2.8 L lens at 70mm, ISO 400, f/5.6, 1/20 sec, handheld.

Thank you for visiting My View.

Please visit us at

Hello and welome to My View for Sunday, July 5, 2009.

Hello Everyone,

I hope you are having a nice weekend and that those of you celebrating July 4th had a great day yesterday.

Today’s image is a another from Savannah during the time after the Next Step workshop when it rained for several days. The streets of the city were still wet on this morning, but the rain had stopped and I was out walking. I saw the alley with the markings on the street and took a few shots of the empty alley when, as luck — or synchronicity, if your beliefs are like mine — would have it, a young lady walked right through my shot!! I did not even stop to look up and see her face — just kept shooting.

I have my own interpretation of this shot, but I would love to hear yours.

As always, your comments and critiques are most welcome. They make me a better photographer, aid my growth as a person and offer me new experiences.

Which Way?

Savannah, GA
Canon 1Ds Mark II, Canon 50mm 1.4 lens, ISO 400, f/4.0, 1/500 sec, handheld.

Thank you for visiting My View.

**  FILLED **  The Mindful Eye has an unexpected opening in our Zion National Park workshop. If you are interested please contact me.  *** FILLED ***

Please visit us at

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.

Thank you for visiting My View.

Please visit us at

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.

Thank you for visiting My View.

Please visit us at

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.

Thank you for visiting My View.

Please visit us at

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.

Thank you for visiting My View.

Please visit us at

Hello and welome to My View for Tuesday, March 11, 2009.

In a Moment, Everything Changes

Hello Everyone,

I apologize for my long absence from My View. Since I last posted back in January, I have been extremely busy and much has happened.

First, I have been busy with The Mindful Eye as we launched our 2009 workshop season with the Death Valley National Park workshop in late February. We had a great group of participants and, once again, a great workshop in this exotic and other worldly place. I will show some images from this national park in the next few posts to My View. I’ve also been working on getting us ready for the rest of our spring workshops coming up. And, I’ve started a series of tutorials, posted on The Mindful Eye, for the beginning user of Lightroom.

The image today is not from Death Valley, but is an image that I took from the valet parking area in front of the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas, where we stayed on the night before we flew out of Las Vegas on our way back to Atlanta. I had the Lensbaby Composer on my camera and the moon was just over the hotel on the horizon to the left of a spot light that was beaming up from the hotel. The blue of the background night sky and the yellow of the part of the hotel that was in my image made this such an “other worldly” image and seemed most appropriate after coming out of the other-worldly Death Valley National Park. It is always a bit of a shock to me to drive out of Death Valley and back to Vegas where one’s view of reality changes in just a few hours.

As always, your comments and critiques are most welcome.

Altered View of Reality

Outside of the Luxor Hotel
Las Vegas, Nevada
Canon 1Ds Mark II, Lensbaby Composer with 2.8 ring, ISO 1600, 1/15 sec, handheld.

Another change to my reality came last Thursday morning when my American Eskimo Dog and loyal friend and companion of nine years was killed in an accident in front of my house. Everything changed in an instant. I felt as if I had been hit by the truck that took my Riley’s life. After a few days, the earth has stopped shaking so violently, but my reality has been altered and I’ve not quite adjusted to it yet. This image of Riley was taken a while back as he slept on one of his favorite places, the back of my sofa. I so appreciate all the messages of support that I received from my family, friends, neighbors and those posted to The Mindful Eye community.

Go hug your family, including your pets, today, let them know how much you love them. Everything can change in a instant.

My Riley

Thank you for visiting My View.

Please visit us on

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.