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 The Mindful Eye, 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