What’s New

September 2011

In July my wife and I spent 2 weeks in Alaska. We combined a week in Denali National Park with a week exploring the coastal wilderness along the Inside Passage. Both expeditions were organized by Lindblad Expeditions and National Geographic. In Denali we stayed in North Face Lodge deep inside the park. From there we made daily hikes in different directions. The second week we were aboard the Sea Lion, a small expedition ship with 30 cabins, 4 zodiacs and lots of kayaks. Naturalists guided us on hikes and explained the features of the landscape, the birds and animals.

Together we snapped around 2500 pictures! It took a while to make a selection. These are vacation pictures not art, but I wanted to share them with you because the landscape in Alaska is stunning and the animals are intriguing. The thing that struck me most was the enormous expanse of the terrain. The experience gave me a sense of what a wilderness is – nature dominates and we are more like ants than rulers of the earth; a pleasantly humbling experience.

I have organized the pictures in 2 folders – Denali Park and Inside Passage under the heading Alaska 2011. There are a number of plant pictures. I am not an amateur botanist so I don’t know their names. If you know the name of any of them, please send me an email with the no. of the picture and I will update the caption. Thanks in advance.

July 2010

Of the 17 images I have posted so far this year there are 3 landscapes and 14 bird images. No, I am not turning into a birdwatcher. Taking pictures of birds has been a very frustrating activity. Taking good pictures of birds is very difficult. Taking artistic pictures of birds is even more difficult. On top of that handling a 600mm telephoto lens is a chore. You have to keep it steady and in focus on a subject that doesn’t often sit still in a photogenic spot. There have been many times that I have thought of selling my long lens and focus only on landscapes. I haven’t done this yet. It is exciting to look for birds and it is a great challenge to get a good shot. I guess I am a sucker for challenges. And once in a while the image comes out just right. Then the frustrations evaporate and I try again. We’ll see where it goes.

In early July I was in Jonesport, Maine and went on a puffin trip on “The Chief” of “Norton of Jonesport”. This company has a landing license for Machias Seal Island (only 30 visitors are allowed per day). It was a great experience to watch the Atlantic Puffins and you can see the results under “2010”.

February 2009

I have just posted some new images taken at the end of 2008 and edited recently. I have removed some folders from my website to simplify my life. You will still be able to see all the pictures under the year headings.

I visited Paris in December and took over 800 pictures with my little Panasonic LX3 camera. I enjoyed working with a 24mm wide angle lens. I had set the image format to 16:9 (the format on a wide-screen TV) so all images are almost panoramic. You can see these images under the heading “Paris 2008”.

I work in spurts. The ‘dead time’ is not a period of inactivity but of reflection and experimentation. I am about ready to start taking photographs again and we’ll see what happens.

December 2009

I just added 9 images to the website. There are reasons for the low output. My long 600mm lens took some getting used to. Animals and birds are exciting to photograph. Just to get a good sharp picture already feels like an accomplishment, but it is not enough. I want to show the animals in their landscape and have the image be a beautiful image. I have discovered that that is asking a lot and it will take dedicated time to learn how to do this well. I need patience!

The last two images under 2009 are photo-montages. Each of them consists of about a dozen pictures carefully assembled into a new and impossible image. Downtown Maudslay can only be understood by people who know Newburyport well. The river scene has no houses and no seals. The houses are historic houses borrowed from the center of the town. The seals were taken from the mouth of the river. This image was my first serious attempt at a montage. I discovered how meticulous the fit needs to be and how difficult it is to get the overall light right. My “Once Upon a Time” image was even more ambitious. I needed reflections in the water and even more careful fitting of the different pictures. I have yet to decide where these montage experiences lead to.

Among the nine new pictures are four that I took with an 18mm wide-angle lens. I love the sense that you can walk right into the image and then capture so much of the scene. As with any new lens it takes time to train one’s eyes to see these wide images. I am expecting some payback in 2010 for all the experimentation of this year.