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As you race to the edge of a precipice one MUST believe that you can find your way, there is no other option.  Be it a hang glider, skiing, diving, sailing, love or life.  If you are not racing to the edge, you are not believing in the life you have now.  Wake up, it's happening now.

Today, my photo of Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria, Germany was published in the Austin American Statesman having won their travel contest.  I am very happy with winning the contest and especially for this photo.  I have looked at it on and off for years, and at one time had it printed four feet wide and had it gracing my wall.  I think it is time to do that again!

Moments of discovery.  On the beach of Baie St. Jean, St. Barthélemy, FWI.  July 16, 2009.

The freedom to be free (with your personal watermelon) says it all. I hope everyone enjoyed the day.

An adaptation of my photograph from 1969 in Pelican Bay, Santa Cruz Island, California.  Santa Barbara 20 miles away on the horizon.  Every weekend we would come, my teenage friends and I, in my father's 29 ft. sailboat, SEA COLT.  We brought half the food we needed and spent the rest of the day in the water catching the rest.  This is now part of the Channel Islands National Park, but in the '60's this was a glorius rare day warmed by the Santa Anna winds from the mainland, crystal clear skies.... and the sea was all ours. So I remember my father on this day for his generous granting of my freedom to have this day, he reveled in such places.

I have been using the amazing COOLIRIS add-on to Firefox and Safari for quite some time, and it keeps getting better.  Being able to browse my own images on my computer's hard disk is a nice touch.  Perhaps one day it will support DNG & other RAW files.  Meanwhile, get it, you'll love the 3-D wall.

I wish I had taken the photos presented here, alas I did not.  I was just a recipient of the marvelous eye of Dwaine Gaeke via a forwarded email from a mutual friend.  Dwaine gave me permission to publish these as an example.  I just wanted to demonstrate that anyone can capture these images if you have an eye for composition and vary the exposure.  As soon as I saw them I realized that they were virtually identical in framing, just different exposures with a Panasonic Lumix point-n-shoot camera.
I aligned them in Photoshop CS4, then used Photomatix to create an HDR image, which I subsequently reimported into PS CS4 to paint the HDR image over part of the darker original to remove some parts that were too light.  I ran the Noiseware Pro filter on the result to reduce digital noise, then saved and imported into Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.3 for final tweaking.  Here is the result.... almost mystical.  Great job Dwaine.

2009 is a great time to be in photography.  The quality of the equipment and the software to process images has improved dramatically in the past 15 years.  I find that my mind coached with training of what these tools can do, has even altered my perceptions of the way I see the world.  I now look for things that often I cannot see, but that I know are there.  Very exciting stuff in that the end resulting image is often analogous to what Forrest Gump said, "it's like a box of chocolates, you don't know what you are going to get."  But usually one knows that you'll get something that you will like.  The other day I was showing some rowing images to a very experienced friend in the sport.  She saw things in the image that I could not see: wrist position, back inclination and elbow angle of the various rowers that told her information about what was going on in the boat.  Oar positions and alignments that meant nothing to me, but to her trained eye, it was a wholly different plane of observation.  It is like this for me when I photograph a subject.  Many times I have been asked "what are you photographing?" and I have difficultly explaining that I am not quite sure, well, completely anyway.  I am sure it sounds like a stupid answer to the questioner.  However the same thing has happened to me a lot with other photographers.  We'll be in the same place at the same time, and looking at our pictures later I'll think, "were we on the same trip together?"  My point is people can and do see things differently and can be trained to see them in a certain way.  Not so different from doctors studying x-rays.

One of the tools that Adobe Systems has added to the quiver of Photoshop CS4 Extended Edition in recent years has been the "stack mode" and its special filters.  If images are captured with precise alignment, Photoshop can take this "stack" of images and process the individual pixels.  A maximum filter will  yield the brightest value of that pixel position from all the images in the stack.  The minimum filter will do the opposite, while the median filter falls in between.  The latter is of great use when you want to photograph a subject that has people or objects moving within the frame.  With enough exposures, you can make them all disappear from the final output image.

These three images here are of some rocks off Point Lobos, California (near Carmel).  A series of nine images stacked together.  Everything about the images is identical, save for the TIME that they were taken.  The first is with the maximum filter applied, and all of the surf (bright white) and the white birds show up in abundance.  Remember the birds have been multiplied as they were flying, so it is likely nine times as many birds as in a single photograph.  The median filter leaves the image in a slightly more natural state but removes much of the chaos of the image.  

The minimum (bottom left) shows the darkest part of the rocks without the white surf, and a few dark birds as well.  Of the three I find this one the most interesting as brighter objects tend to be retained on our retina and memory longer than do the darker ones.  That is to say we can imagine the maximum and median images easier than the minimum, dark image.  I think it has become my "art" at this point, it is mine.

Last week I did a short "BBQ Tour" with my friend Mark to sample the spiced cuisine in the Austin region of Texas. Unfortunately we did not have the discipline required for what I am sure will become many forays in multiple compass directions. We were overcome with the aromas offered at our first stop, Smitty's Market, in Lockhart, Texas, and ordered too much.


It was only 10:30am and we had the full day before us. I was doing well up until the moment I snapped the photo of the BBQ on the butcher paper in front of me. Carnivore instincts set in and we seemed out of control for a short time. Smitty's got four greasy thumbs up in the end. The sweet ribs were our favorite. We pressed onward to Luling after walking around the heart of Lockhart.



The smoke stained sign in the interior of the Luling City Market was ominous. But our quest for food that only a cardiologist could appreciate was not over yet. We did the "usual" at this point, one link of sauage, four ribs, and a few slices of brisket. Since this was "lunch" we even threw in a Shiner beer too. The line was out the door by the time our eyes glazed over with a coating of cholesterol and we muttered the words "I'm done" and "me too." Wrapped up what was left just in case, and took it with us. Mark and I agreed it wasn't exactly fair to judge the Luling Market in our sated state, but we gave the edge to Smitty's.


"On the road again" as Willie Nelson says in his song. We stopped briefly in Gonzales to take in the local antiques, both in and outside shops. A nice place to stop and visit the Gonzales Memorial Museum, full of Texas history. It was near here that on October 2nd, 1835 the first shot was fired in the Texas war of independence from Mexico.



Our own day was running late and we had one final destination to see the K. Spoetzl Brewery, the creator of Shiner beer. We arrived about 90 seconds before the visitor center closed, but not to late for a quick sample to end our day.

More to come....

From the Heart of Texas crew races Sunday on Lady Bird Lake, Austin, Texas.

I have had a lot of discussion about this image in my Caribbean gallery so I am going to elaborate more on it.  I did an exploratory trip of the Caribbean in 1978 on an old 1930's schooner for six weeks.  I traveled from the Grenadines to Antigua.  May 15, 1978 was the first time I saw English Harbor (I kept an extensive written log so I know the dates).  There were not any boats in the outer harbor then (lower part of the image with a lot of anchored sailboats) and I took a small dinghy and rowed over to the far end of the bay.  For the next few hours I snorkeled the entire length of the shallow bay, repeatedly diving to the bottom.  The whole expanse of water was full of shimmering schools of juvenile fish, and with each plunge toward the bottom the fish would open a "hole" to let me through and then close behind me, covering my view of the surface.  It was magical.  I was 28 years old and had been free diving and SCUBA diving since my mid-teens in California, but I had never experienced anything like this.  It was an enthralling, interactive contact with nature.   I did not visit this harbor again until 1990 when it became my first landfall after sailing across the Atlantic.  Another visually intoxicating experience with the elements. This trip was only my third visit over this 31 year history.  I knew that there were steel drum bands playing on Shirley Heights on Sunday evenings, having been there before, so we set off just before sunset in Pele's Taxi, the driver a local personality.  I knew the view, I was armed with a basket full of memories and I knew exactly want I wanted to convey in an image.   Which I might add as was quite different from the throng of commotion behind me... a hundred steel drums, children & adults dancing, beer and wine flowing to the staccato of the drums... even some palm fronds being woven into baskets. 

This image was published in the March 22, 2009 issue of the Austin American Statesman as it won their "Win in a Flash" contest.

I played a bit more with my wild valentine sky and then decided it looked somewhat like ocean waves (left).  Much like the glacier ice (right) did to me in Iceland (June 2007).  Life is full of ups and downs no matter where one looks.  It just takes practice in observing.

Texas has been really dry for the past year and a half.  Austin and environs are about 24" of rainfall behind.  Here are a couple of HDR images from Dripping Springs & Johnson City, Texas.  Lastly is an image from inside the wine cellars of Pedernales Cellars (plural seems a bit of a stretch).  It's the dribble that counts.  Cheers.

Recently I have been going back and looking at some older images that I took with film.  Some of these I can photograph on a lightbox with my Canon 1Ds Mark III using a 100mm macro lens with a 12mm extension tube to get more than 1:1 and shoot within the boundaries of the slide or negative to get a "new crop".  The side benefit of this technique is I can get a RAW image of the old slide and more easily fix any color casts.  On larger transparencies I have to resort to the flat bed scanner, which isn't so bad really is the format is large enough.  The one presented here is a 50 x 120mm positive transparency from a Noblex 150.  When I took the image ten years ago I did not think much of it at the time.  However with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.1 and Photoshop CS4, I can breath new life into images such as these.  It's almost as good as going back.

I am still working on my images from the recent trip, but I was contacted today by Monsieur Gilbert Lanza, a most kind gentlemen and maître 'd of the restaurant aboard the PRINCE ALBERT II.  I had taken a few photos of him aboard ship in the harbor of Gloucester, Massachusetts.  A lovely day in the harbor.  I wish him well on his future journeys.

Commentary on blogging:  It is best done when traveling alone.  That said, I'll do a paragraph to get from St. John's Newfoundland to Halifax, Nova Scotia where we will arrive in about 10 hours.  Ramea Islands were rainy, foggy and interesting, but not very special insofar as photography of my interests.  Gros Morne was wonderful, but we had had barely enough time to do a short walk, let alone a boat ride up the fjord and a hike at the end.... so only the former was accomplished.  I'll be back without slow moving guides.  Today we were in Louisbourg, Nova Scotia... one of the last defenses of the French.  Begun in 1713 and elegantly preserved in that period.  It was a superb historical tour of the early province.

I have new life long friends from Los Angeles and Kansas City.  Who would have known.  It's just the way the stars aligned.

More from Halifax where we will have an all day tour across the island and an evening in Halifax to catch up before leaving for Lunenberg, Nova Scotia.

Aboard the Prince Albert II, leaving the Ramea Islands off the southern coast of Newfoundland.

My first update since arriving in St. John's, Newfoundland.  Upon arriving at the St. John's airport non-stop from Newark, New Jersey on Friday night we have had a lovely welcome to this maritime province.  Terry Adey who lives and works in the St. John's - Twillingate area was there to greet us just after midnight.  We did a quick tour around town in the early Saturday morning hours, even venturing to the top of Signal Hill for a splendid night time panoramic view of St. John's.  Signal Hill was the place where Marconi received his first transmissions across the Atlantic.  

The two nights in St. John's were at the Balmoral Inn (38 Queens Road).  It has a nice self serve cold breakfast available most of the morning, comfortable rooms albeit with a small bath.  The biggest drawback is the necessity of moving almost 200 lbs of luggage (video & still camera gear is more than 60% of this) up almost two full flights of stairs.  However I survived and it was an altogether pleasant stay.

Terry and his wife Debbie were exceeding gracious hosts and tour guides on the Saturday before departure.  Cape Spear, the village of Quidi Vidi, the Battery along with harbor front... all wonderful walks on a picture perfect day.  I'll annotate these days more when I am not uploading posts via satellite and can add more pictures & text easily.

We boarded the Prince Albert II about 1pm on Friday.  St. John's is in the Newfoundland time zone, and it is 1.5 hrs ahead of Eastern Time.... so 2.5 hrs ahead of Texas time.  The night before boarding it has rained for about 10 hours and for sure the weather pattern was changing.  Once upon the ship the 3pm sailing was pushed back to 8:00 pm due to the wind, and sadly our first destination, L'anse aux Meadows, was cancelled due to the high wind and north swell bearing down on our planned course.  Plan B was to turn south and do some of the itinerary in reverse.  The small port of Argentia and some historic ruins there, then then Ramea Islands followed by Gros Morne National Park in the north, and finally returning south to the French islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon before resuming our original schedule toward Nova Scotia and eventually New York City on August 25th.

The photo is of port side in Argentia of the ship and one of her moorings.

Written at noon, Sunday, August 17th, 2008.