Dear reader, if you have read any of my books, please take a moment to rate and review them on Amazon. (Amazon will let you do so even if you purchased the book elsewhere.) There is only one inborn error, and that is the notion that we exist in order to be happy. —Arthur Schopenhauer... Continue Reading →
The Search
Searching is everything—going beyond what you know. And the test of the search is really in the things themselves, the things you seek to understand. What is important is not what you think about them, but how they enlarge you. —Wynn Bullock Winter invites reflection. For some, such end-of-year reflection is tied with traditions or... Continue Reading →
Nature Photography Classes – Speaker Series
It is my great pleasure to join some of my talented colleagues and friends as a speakers in Nature Photography Classes' Fall Speaker Series, hosted by Nic Stover. I've had the opportunity to meet Nic in Death Valley last year and was impressed with his vision for the series. For a low price ($10 per speaker)... Continue Reading →
Meditation Before the Arrival of Autumn
Now, I believe in life, and I believe in the joy of human existence, but these things cannot be experienced except as we also face the despair, also face the anxiety that every human being has to face if he lives with any creativity at all. —Rollo May Cyril Connolly wrote, “The creative moment of... Continue Reading →
Vive la (Creative) Révolution!
Some photographic movements have had a following in America, but none has ever held sway for any length of time. The Photo-Secession, documentary photography, photo-journalism, f/64, all made valuable individual contributions, but they all had to give way to the self-assertive individual photographer. Of course, individual photographers do bind themselves to certain limiting systems of... Continue Reading →
The Element of Surprise
Nothing in the world is more exciting than a moment of sudden discovery or invention, and many more people are capable of experiencing such moments than is sometimes thought. ~Bertrand Russell I’m delighted to see various “influencers” promoting the idea of not revealing location information. Recently, even a local tourism board (in Jackson Hole, WY)... Continue Reading →
Time to Exhale
What can we do but keep on breathing in and out, modest and willing, and in our places? ~Mary Oliver It may be that the last couple of years have been the most difficult in my life. I may elaborate on the reasons in a future post, but I will say now that my recent... Continue Reading →
Experiences, Not Moments
There are no moments. Moments exist in theory alone. To live, to feel, to experience, to think, is to be in a constant state of becoming. It is the dialectic nature of living, and why experiences cannot be contained in moments any more than a movie can be contained in a single frame.
Earning Your Medals
Whether a photograph is art is less important than whether the photographer is an artist.
William Neill / Photographer – Retrospective
Searching for a respite from grief, I backpacked through the wilderness and scrambled up the peaks with a near-desperate vigor. Long, hard hikes temporarily soothed my pain and helped me to fall into exhausted sleep at night. At some deep level, the beauty of my surroundings seeped into my subconscious—the lush colors of a meadow dense... Continue Reading →