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

Who Makes the Image

Hello Everyone,

A belated Happy St. Patrick’s Day to you all!!

Later this week, Craig Tanner and I will conduct our first Next Step workshop for 2009. This is a special workshop that is all about creativity and finding the fears that hold you back as an artist, and one that Craig and I both enjoy teaching immeasurably.

As I prepare for this workshop, one of the things that came to mind was the question “Who Makes the Image?” Does your camera create the image you captured? Did you create this image? Did it come from somewhere outside of the person that is you? These are questions that artists have posed for some time now — where does the creativity come from?

As I pondered these thoughts on this beautiful spring day in Atlanta, I was reminded of an image I snapped during our recent Death Valley workshop, attended by an amazing group of photographers. We were photographing a gorgeous sunset from Dante’s View, high (5475 feet) along the crest of the Black Mountains of the Armagosa Mountain Range that form the east wall of Death Valley. From this peak, one can see the lowest point in the park, Badwater at 282 feet below sea level, to the highest point, Telescope Peak at 11,331 across the Valley in the Panamint Mountain Range.

One of our participants had been photographing this brilliant sunset and stepped away from the camera for a moment, leaving me wondering who was creating the image.

As always, your comments and critiques are most welcome.

Who Makes the Image

For a larger view

Dante’s View, Death Valley National Park
Death Valley, California
Canon 1Ds Mark II, Canon 28-70mm L lens at 38mm, ISO 1600, 1/250 sec, f/8 and a half, handheld.

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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

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