Welcome to My View

Hello and welome to My View for April 2, 2010.

The spring workshop season for The Mindful Eye is underway!! Craig Tanner and I have been on the road with our Inspirational Weekend seminars since mid-January. Our first full workshop was held in late February on Jekyll Island, one of the beautiful barrier islands off the coast of Georgia.

On the morning before the workshop started, I walked down to the beach behind the hotel to watch the sun rise. The image today is a motion blur of that sunrise, using my Canon 16-35mm f/2.8 zoom lens, zooming for 2 seconds. I noticed — after I captured this image — that I caught a flock of birds exiting the frame to camera right.

We do not shoot for ourselves when teaching workshops, so this was a great way to get myself started for the Jekyll Island workshop.

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.

Jekyll Island Sunrise

Larger view

Jekyll Island, GA
February, 2010

Canon EOS 5D Mark II, Canon 16-35mm 2.8L lens, ISO 800, f/22, 2 seconds, handheld

Thank you for visiting My View.

Hello and welome to My View for Monday, November 9, 2009.

Hello Everyone,

I hope you are enjoying a beautiful autumn.

I apologize for being away from My View since July. It has been an extremely busy and hectic time for me. First, I want to thank all of you who sent good healing intentions for my friend, Wes, who had by-pass surgery back in September. He is doing very well and will be attending the Big Bend National Park workshop with us later this week.

Since Wes’ surgery, I have taught three workshops with Craig Tanner — Grand Tetons National Park, Next Step in Savannah, and Zion National Park. This week, we are preparing for the last one of 2009 in Big Bend National Park, November 14-20. In addition, we’ve announced our 2010 workshop schedule and began registering participants for those workshops.

Today’s image was taken on the Grand Tetons National Park workshop back in late September. The colors were really lovely late in the week in the park and we went out one afternoon to shoot back lit trees. I was demonstrating a technique to a few participants that I use often to abstract a scene. I moved the camera while my shutter was open, bottom to top, to follow the upward direction of the trees. There were several fires in the park this year, as well as a rather large one in southern Yellowstone Park, just up the road from where we were in Jackson. The amazing back light on the stunning trees reminded me of a more beautiful use of the word “Fire” — the fire in the color of the leaves.

Thank you for your patience with me during the last few months, for your good healing thoughts for Wes and for all the sentiments sent to me on the loss of my two canine companions so close together this year. You will never know just how much those thoughts mean to me.

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.

Teton Fire

Grand Teton National Park
Jackson, Wyoming
September 2009
Canon EOS 5D Mark II, 50mm 1.4 lens, ISO 100, f/22, 1/3 second, Hand held.

Thank you for visiting My View.

Please visit us at

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.

Thank you for visiting My View.

Please visit us at

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.

Thank you for visiting My View.

Hello and welome to My View for Wednesday, January 21, 2009.

Welcome to Winter!!!

This past week, as our young new president was sworn in on a most historic occasion, we’ve had the coldest temperatures of the year here in the south. We have no right to complain, however, as our friends and families in the frigid mid-west were in extreme cold — “killin’ cold” as the old timers would say. But, for us, it was pipe-freezing cold!!

Back in 2005, a dear friend of mine and I went up in the Great Smoky Mountains for a weekend of photography. We woke up one morning to an unexpected drop in temperatures and the shivering cold of a Smokies winter. This shot was taken about an hour after sunrise on a frosty and foggy Smoky Mountain morning in Cades Cove.

I appreciate all of your comments and suggestions as they serve to make me a better photographer and person.

Thank you for visiting My View. May God bless our new president and grant him the ability to continue to inspire us and the wisdom to guide our country through such troubled times.

Winter in the Smokies

Cades Cove
Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee
Canon 5D, 16-35mm 2.8L lens at 35mm, ISO 100, 1/125 sec, f/5.6, mounted on tripod.

Please visit us on

Hello and welome to My View for Sunday, November 30, 2008.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you in the United States. I hope you all have had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend.

Here in the north Georgia area, we have had a spectacular fall. The leaves have been prettier than they have been in a number of years. This last Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, the cool rains moved in and the beautiful leaves are turning brown and falling. The weather is turning cold tonight and the remaining leaves will soon be all over my driveway, yard and roof.

As a last celebration of this colorful and lovely time of year, I found an image that I took a couple of years ago of the reflections of fall leaves in the north Georgia mountains. The trees are reflected in a small pond just off a trail. With gratitude to this beautiful fall that brighten the Atlanta area this year, I look forward to winter and the holiday season.

As always, your comments and critiques are most welcome. They serve to help make me a better photographer and a better person.

Thank you for visiting My View.

Autumn Reflections

North Georgia Mountains
Canon 5D, Canon 70-200mm 2.8L lens, ISO 100, f/2.8, 1/180 sec, tripod mounted.

Please visit us on

Hello and welome to My View for Monday, October 13, 2008.

On our way to Oxbow Bend for some personal shooting on the Sunday after the Grand Teton Workshop ended, we passed this stand of very colorful trees along the way. We had stopped at this spot earlier in the week with the class when the side light on the mountains was just spectacular. On this Sunday afternoon, the storm clouds, along with the side light on the mountains, made this spot especially appealing.

Even though the trees were in full color, I decided to try a black and white treatment for this particular image. You will have to let me know what you think.

I want to thank all the wonderful photographers who participated in the Radiant Vista Grand Teton Workshop for 2008. It was great to see old friends, meet new ones and share a beautiful autumn with you in this lovely national park.

I also want to thank Craig Tanner for giving me the opportunity to pursue one of my passions — teaching photography. Working with Craig for the past few years has been a pleasure and a terrific growing experience. I look forward to continuing to work with Craig as we transition the Radiant Vista web site, with new and exciting features.

Your comments and suggestions are always welcome. They help me grow as a photographer and a person.

Thank you for visiting My View.

NOTE: The black and white version, as well as the larger view, was replaced very early Tuesday morning. I don’t know if it made any difference to some of the monitors or not (see comments). Please try viewing the larger version.

As requested, the color version of this image is also included.

Along the Way

For a larger view.

Grand Teton National Park, October, 2008
Canon 1Ds Mark II, Canon 70-200mm 2.8L lens at 70mm, ISO 100, f/11, 1/125 second. Camera mounted on Bogen NeoTec tripod and Bogen 808 head.

Color Version:

Along the Way (In color)

Hello and welome to My View for Sunday October 5, 2008.

This past week, I had the pleasure of teaching a group of wonderful photographers in the Grand Teton National Park with Craig Tanner. We all had a great time and experienced fall colors in the park that are at the best they’ve been in a number of years.

While showing some of the participants how to capture a motion blur of some of the colors in an aspen grove one afternoon, I created this image of the lovely fall colors in the park this year. The blurring of the trees and colors was done in camera. I hope you enjoy this image as much as I enjoyed the images created by the Grand Teton National Park participants during our workshop.

I’ll be returning to Atlanta tomorrow afternoon and spend some time recovering from a cold that I managed to acquire and catch up on My View.

Thank you for visiting My View.

Grand Teton Aspens

Grand Teton National Park
October, 2008
Canon 1Ds Mark II, Canon 28-70L mm 2.8 at 70mm, f/22, 1/4 sec, ISO 100, handheld

Hello and welome to My View for Sunday September 22, 2008.

I apologize for not posting an image to My View last week. This is the first time I’ve missed a weekly posting since I started My View and I do not intend to miss another!!

While I was in Savannah recently for a week and a half teaching and working, I managed to slip away on a “morning off” to visit Wormsloe Historic Site outside of Savannah on the Isle of Hope. Wormsloe was established by Noble Jones, one of Georgias first settlers. Jones was an English physician and carpenter who came to Savannah with James Oglethorpe in 1733 and commanded a company of Marines charged with Georgias coastal defense. The avenue of moss-covered live oaks leads to the tabby ruins of the plantation.

I visited Wormsloe for the first time in the fall of 2007 while scouting for upcoming workshops. I fell in love with the place and have had little time to return to shoot for myself. As it turns out, one of the women who attended my 2008 Foundation in Photography for Women Only is a direct descendent of Noble Jones. She discovered this on her visit to Savannah for the workshop. The site has even more meaning to me now.

I do intend to return to continue to photograph this beautiful historic site.

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

Thank you for visiting My View.

Wormsloe Historic Site

Isle of Hope, GA
September, 2008
Canon 1Ds Mark II, Canon 70-200 mm 2.8L lens at 200 mm, f/6.7, 1/20 sec, ISO 100, Bogen NeoTec Tripod, Bogen 808 Tripod Head

Hello and welome to My View for Monday September 1, 2008.

As I continue work on the workshops scheduled for 2009, I reviewed a lot of images from previous trips to our venues last week. I was looking for images that showed an aspect of each venue that one doesn’t normally see in publicity photos.

I found this image of the sun setting on the cliffs above Golden Canyon in Death Valley National Park that l like. It is an image that shows something other than the salt flats and the dunes. I hope you enjoy seeing another view of this magical and exotic park.

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

Thank you for visiting My View.

Golden Canyon

From down in Golden Canyon, Death Valley National Park, November 2005
Canon 5D, 28-70 mm 2.8L lens at 28mm , f/11, 1/2 sec, ISO 100, camera mounted on tripod

Golden Canyon Alternative (see my post below)