This post will be brief. It’s not about photography, but about the very real news that hit me in the face about my life partner, Jed Manwaring, who has been diagnosed with cancer. I won’t dwell on it, because he plans to ‘kick it in the butt’, but suffice it to say that my posts will be sporadic over the next two weeks as I try to get my head around all of the news and what’s to come. He is in excellent care, in Eureka, CA, for the moment but we will likely be moving him south to Marin/Sonoma or San Francisco for further treatment.

Jed’s vision as a photographer has always been guided by a celebration of the world around him. The humorous, the awesome beauty, the mysterious, abstract, and as he puts it ‘the wondrous’ things.

I used to tease him about that word, wondrous. At first I didn’t think it was a real, correct word. But that was because you just don’t hear people using it much these days. ‘awesome’ or wonderful has perhaps replaced it. Yet here’s what a search brought up about the word:

• Definition: Describes something extraordinary, magical, or amazingly delightful.

• Example: “We all stared at the wondrous view of the ocean.”

• Grammar: Primarily used as a literary adjective (/ˈwʌn.drəs/), though historically it also functioned as an adverb meaning remarkably or exceedingly.

I STAND CORRECTED! Jed has in fact been celebrating the ‘wondrous’ things of life, his whole life, and his photography is simply guided by that.

If you haven’t seen Jed’s new website, please visit it - It would give him great joy to know that his work is being seen and appreciated. He literally just had it redesigned and went live with it in July.

Our lives must be about celebration no matter what. It is truly wondrous that we exist at all, to see, to smell, the hear everything, and that we have a consciousness to appreciate it.

As always, and even more so now, your support of our creative life is so appreciated. We love teaching, and I love writing, and know that I will be back to it here as soon as possible. One of the ways we can all heal is through the arts.

I am unable to deal with comments posted here right now, but please know that at some point I will see them, and I know that those of you who know Jed and or me personally care a great deal.

Mid-August. August has always been a hard month. I lost my mom in early August, and 20 years later, my dad. My sister lost her first husband in August. While grieving has passed into fond memories of them, it is still a month that is known internally without even looking at a calendar. Whenever the crickets begin to buzz/sing, I recall my mother who always loved that sound. To her it signified the end of summer, the shift towards autumn.

It’s a month where I usually found myself abroad - or in Alaska, the past several years, busy and having fun, lots of it. This year, Jed and I spent most of our summer in the Pacific Northwest and northern California. The days have been very hazy and smoky, and landscapes have just not been manifesting with any great light no matter where we’ve been. The weeks of extreme heat in has caused things to bloom and go past earlier than usual. When I look out my van windows, everything is baked, scorched leaves and flower heads gone to seed before they should have. It’s been hard to get excited about things, if I’m honest, and while I know there are beautiful images to be made in any season, I haven’t felt very productive with my camera? And, do I have to be? I push myself hard, during the peaks of spring, early summer, autumn and winter.

Would anyone miss me if I didn’t make a great photo to post in the month of August? Doubtful, but I would miss me, I would miss the creative juice that feeds my soul. Yet perhaps it’s not meant to be.

Perhaps it’s a time for me to take a little break. I mentioned a surprise twist in the plans in my recent post about the normal post being delayed. My partner was admitted to the hospital with some pain, and all the diagnostics that came with it have left me scared, stressed, and empty of creative juice. At some point I may write more about it, but not yet, as Jed is a private kind of guy, so just send out positive healing rays in our direction.

I may not be making many photographs now, understandably, yet I can still remember August, and what it means to me: a month of the best, juicy tomatoes, and yummy ripe peaches, abundant harvests of colorful peppers. I used to love hitting up the famers markets near where we lived. Now, we find them here and there as we travel. Oh, and the sweet sound of those crickets outside my bunk window in the van at night - that’s August to me.

I can recall the sound of the brook we dipped into the day before we went to the hospital, and feel the coolness as the water moved gently over my overheated body. It felt great. I may not have photographs to show that, but trust me, I have been wanting to lay down in a stream for about a month and we finally got the chance!

Even in the hazy, lazy days of late summer, there is beauty to be found, and memories of summer to be recalled. I will hold on to those going forward.

Thank you for being here, and supporting my creative habit - I mean passion, lol! I will be sharing more helpful photography ideas and tips in the coming posts, but for now, I felt the need to share this.

Keep photographing, keep sharing your vision with the world,

Brenda

You may have heard the phrase “f/8 and be there.” It is widely accredited to the photographer known as Weegee (Arthur Fellig), and it was readily adopted by street photographers and photojournalists alike. Even nature, travel and wildlife photographers have quipped this frequently. Why? What does it really mean?

Stay to the end - this isn’t just about street/travel photography - it relates to nature, too!

Weegee was a crime and street photographer, and his thought was that it was more important to be in the right place at the right time, and that technical perfection was almost secondary to getting the moment on film. However, there was a little secret to that! In order to get his subject sharp, he would have focused somewhere around 10 feet, and the fact that he was likely using fixed focal length lenses that were in the 35mm range, he could almost be guaranteed a sharp subject just by pointing and clicking if that subject was between 7 feet to say 25 feet. (On a 35mm lens, if you set your camera to f/8, and pre-focus to about 10 feet, everything from about 6 feet to 24 feet will be sharp.)

Since most photojournalists and street photographers were working ‘in close’, meaning their subject wasn’t 20 or more feet away, this pre-focusing of the lens and using f/8 worked well. Henry Cartier Bresson, and other photo journalists used this technique in order to be ready quickly when something happened. By not having to re-focus, valuable time wasn’t lost.

Walking around steamy, hot Bangkok in April during the Songkran, aka the water festival, I had to be quick to get moments like this. Presetting the aperture and focus point helped with that, as in the moment, how do you decide which person you will auto focus on? The depth of field got them all. It also meant I could get the shot and get out of the way of stray water heading my way!

These days, with auto-focus being so quick, you might think that you don’t need it, and very often it works out fine, but I still like to work this way, with f/8 or f/9 and a focus about 10 feet, so I can point the camera and simply click the shutter. It takes some getting used to, working this way, as things may not look sharp through the lens when you are making the photo, but you learn to trust after a bit.

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Can this be applied to wildlife photography? Not entirely, however when I was going out to photograph brown (grizzly) bears in Alaska, I would set my aperture to f11 and my shutter speed to something like 1600 - 2000 sec (and auto-ISO) in order to be more prepared for a moment that might come up. Using telephoto lenses, f/8 or f/11 still gives you a nice background, depending on the distance to the subject and background, etc. It would allow me an ‘insurance’ photo in case the animal moved off quickly, or flew off! If I then had time, I’d make adjustments and work the scene.

This young cub surprised us when it suddenly appeared because it stood up in the taller grasses! With the camera set of f/11 and high shutter speed, all I had to do was focus and click the shutter.

That’s the technical part of this phrase. What about the ‘being there’ part?

In my opinion, it means two things:

1. Doing your research and planning to be in the right spot for some event, like a parade, a concert, or a religious festival. I knew the residents of this town would be coming into the church, and that many Guatemalans in the highlands held on to their traditional beliefs. All I had to do was find the church, position myself, and wait for someone to go through the ritual outside before entering the church.

In landscape photography, you can also prepare ahead for a photo. I was exploring the midway geyser basin in Yellowstone during a very stormy situation. I knew that if I could put the dark clouds behind the geysers, there was a chance that they might spout off while the sun was shining at the same time. It worked, but it took several tries due to the sun going in and out of clouds.

Likewise, knowing that the sun might break through clouds and illuminate the red cliffs, I was set up and ready - only I hadn’t counted on a rainbow to show, too. That was the reward for preparing and waiting for the light.

2. ‘Being there’ also means being totally aware of the potential that surrounds an event, paying attention to the ‘fringes’ of that event where fun things can happen - like this adorable image of two young friends at a 4th of July parade.

It means being physically present and immersed in the moment, with your senses tuned, and that works for wildlife photography, too!

I was in love with this pride of lions with cubs. There was so much potential for good photographs, and when you have that, ‘the right place and the right time’, you stay put and focus your attention and be ready for what might happen. I know that young lion cubs are spontaneously playful. You just never know when one will pounce on a sibling, but it was worth the wait! I love how you can’t see the one cub, only its paws reaching up to entice the other into playing.

The next time you hear (or use) the phrase “F/8 and be there”, hopefully it will remind you of the need to be both prepared and present.

Have a great week and ‘be there’ when you can, making photographs!

1. Beinginto the right mindset - immersing yourself in the event, the moment. It means putting yourself in front of authentic moments and paying attention.

What is it about a photograph that has a single strong subject within it that holds our attention?

A solitary subject in a landscape/scene can have such a strong presence. Free of other distracting elements within the frame, the viewer’s eye is not being forced to look at a lot of other things. The subject stands apart, strong in its singular place within the frame.

Yet when photographing nature, it’s not always that simple - no pun intended! Nature is sometimes rather chaotic, complex – and we face the challenge of simplifying our scenes to make them strong.

Here are a few ways simple can be achieved:

1. Include just one main thing. This is perhaps the easiest way to create simplicity. This leaf was floating on a very shallow pond, yet because of the angle I was to the water, I picked up mostly the blue sky and very little detail in the bottom of the pond.

   

   Another example of this, the unfolding water lily below. It helped that there was calm water in both of these.

   

2. Selective Focus. By keeping the background out of focus, the subject will stand in isolation of that background, as in this photo of a Malachite Kingfisher from Botswana. It’s not perfect, as that background left frond of papyrus is a tad distracting, but it’s acceptable to me, as the bird really pops with its colors.

3. Create space around your subject. In this image of the bison in a snowstorm, below, it was pretty easy to isolate it and have space around it so that the only thing you could ‘focus’ on is the bison. Nature helped out a lot in this case!

In the case of the snowy field and elm tree, below, there really isn’t a whole lot to study in the foreground, and certainly nothing distracting in the background. The soft snow bumps just fill in the space leading to the tree but don’t distract, leaving the composition simple. Snow is a great simplifier - it can cover up so many distractions in a landscape.

4. Use light to emphasize your subject apart from the surroundings. I call this the spotlight effect. The sun illuminated the lighthouse without adding too much to everything around it, and so the subject stands strong against and beneath that stormy sky.

Or, use contrast of light to make your subject stand out. By keeping a minimum amount of shoreline in the image below, both top and bottom, the emphasis is on this elk that was walking through Yellowstone Lake at twilight. It certainly stands out because of the lighter water color surrounding it.

If you do have a busier background that you’d like, with luck you may have smoke or fog to help minimize it and reduce the color of it. In the image below, wildfire smoke from mainland Alaska had drifted into the fjords we were exploring, making the background appear more like a serigraph to me. Soft layers, that allowed the one turquoise piece of ice to singularly stand out. Simple.

Take a look at your own collection of images to see where simplicity may have occurred without you even realizing it - or to see where by changing your approach or settings you may have been able to create more simplicity and impact.

Thank you for being here, and have a great weekend and week ahead!

I know I just posted about too much work and not enough play, and I promised to endeavor to play more. This is just a short update to that article: Yesterday morning, before we left our camp spot, I went out to play - and found delightful salsify (goatsbeard) seed heads!

The first thing I spotted though, was a stellar jay feather, just lying on a carpet of pine needles.

I took that as a sign - the proof positive that if we allow ourselves to break from our chores, take a break from our computers, etc., and go out into nature, we’ll be rewarded.

After I made the feather image, I went in search of a ‘perfect’ salsify head, like the one in the opening image – complete, without having lost some of its seeds yet, soft and dreamy.

I made a series of images surrounding that one seed head, and then I suddenly noticed the one next to it - that had lost most of its seeds. It was just as beautiful! Imperfect, and it spoke to me.

I marveled at how it paralleled life - about the need to let go and let the winds of life take you, and yet how easy it is to hang on, unsure of where it will take us.

Given my recent article, I thought these images were so appropriate for me to discover yesterday!

Have a great week,

The title of this post is a common theme amongst all of us that still work for a living. For those of us that are self-employed artists, however, it might appear to be easier - we make our own hours. Yet it can be challenging to carve out time to play - to de-stress, workout, connect with friends, family, and simply relax.And that’s what I have been trying to do lately. In the heart of the hottest days of summer, I am having a slight meltdown when it comes to working. I just want to play - to hike and photograph and swim and not work - yet alas, that isn’t possible. Or is it? Who decides my schedule?

I am of German/Austrian background, way back, coming from a line of hard-working people. I swear, the work ethic is genetic. My father was always working - at the plant, or in the yard. He ‘rested’ briefly after lunch when he got older, but mostly his break came in the evening, after dinner. He did find some time during the year to take us on vacation, only when the plant closed; and he did go backpacking about twice a year with either us kids or with some friends. But mostly he ‘stuck’ to a work schedule of some sort. His example was to always be busy working on something.

I have finally realized just how much an impact his life had on me. When I shifted into a career as a photographer, I took that work ethic with me. In some ways, it was a good thing - it kept me focused on making that career work. But I soon realized that I was working so hard to make things happen in the business, to the detriment of playing, which included creating new photographs. That was a recipe for burnout in an artistic career. I know, I was on the borderline of that risk.

You might be wondering just how someone who is living on the road full time, traveling and exploring, can be stuck in a ‘too much work’ mode. You might be thinking that I am out there everyday, making photographs, hiking, swimming, going to concerts, etc.. Yet the truth is, that more days than not this summer, I have been at work, in the van ‘office’, editing, writing, publishing, making cold calls, planning workshops, setting up presentations, writing these posts, etc., just as if I had an office in my house.

The image below is a metaphor for this. Feeling chained to the ‘desk’, yet the creativity is striving to burst out!

My life on the road seems idyllic to some, and I truly love it for all the adventures we’ve had and for those to come. Yet it still requires me to work. My ebooks and books won’t write themselves, after all. And now, I’m building a new website and very excited about it, but the work, oh, the work, to get all my images that were once on another site uploaded to this new one with necessary changes to the images is requiring huge amounts of time!

In spite of all this work, I know I have to take breaks to fill up the well of inspiration and to relax. Proof came recently when a library book I was waiting on for over 9 weeks finally came up ready to borrow. I read the entire book in a day! It was a good book, but still…it showed me how much I needed to get away from all the editing and other business stuff.

It can be easy to convince myself to work just a little harder, a little longer, and then it’s nighttime and the walk I planned, the hour by the creek I had intended, has slipped through my hands. (ah yes, but you edited 20 more images, my mind tells you)

To be honest, late Spring and Summer so far have been a visual challenge. I did several presentations, spent some wonderful time with my family that was unplanned yet great, and then when we were heading north to Vancouver Island, Jed realized his driver’s license was needing renewal and he had to go in person. Yikes! That meant heading southward to at least over the border into California again. Bye bye northwest…We met up with our friend and did some night photography for a few days, and did chores (laundry, grocery shopping) and it was so so hot! Even though we ended up in great places here and there, the conditions weren’t right (no clouds, too many clouds, foliage looking dry, either too early or a little too late for the peak of wildflowers, etc. And then the onslaught of summer fire season (again) has changed our plans yet again. Sigh.

It’s easy to resign yourself to things not working the way you intended, and getting stuck in to the work load. Yet if I am to ‘walk my talk’, I know that there are photographs to be made wherever we are. I just have to walk out the door of the van and find them. It’s as simple as convincing myself that the work I have piling up can wait another half day while I go out into a meadow or along a beach and photograph for a few hours. And then the phone rings...

What is the lesson here then? That play stimulates the brain, and creates inspiration, that play relaxes us, lowers our cortisol; that play is simply the inner child needing some time in the open. That when we insist on time for creative play, which includes photography, that good things come from it. That is how we can become an even better photographer, by allowing ourselves time for play.

There in lies my goal for the remainder of the summer. In spite of being miserably hot (at 6,000 feet it’s high 80’s right now) I will persevere, and find the time to play more while still working. There is light at the end of the tunnel, ha ha!

Thanks for being here! And although I need a break, and I’ll get it, I am still at work creating some nice benefits for all my paid subscribers, here! Coming soon…

Cheers!

My youngest sister owns a farm in Maine. (Her barn is in considerably better shape!) I often joked that she should write a book about her experiences living this farm life. She hasn’t, so I will give you very brief cliff notes here.

She always dreamt of having a farm, and living in Maine, and though it took her some time, she finally achieved that dream. The farm she and her husband bought came complete with about 32 head of bison (American Buffalo). In Maine, you say? Yes, in western Maine. I’ll spare you all the details but her husband’s cousin had decided to make the farm a bison farm, and then when he decided to quit, the opportunity to buy the farm couldn’t be passed up. I know they thought ‘how hard could it be, to raise bison’? Yet they were very willing to learn what it took. The first years were definitely challenging.

My sister, ever an achiever, also decided to put in a rather large produce garden so she and her husband would have good veggies year-round; judging by the photos I share below, she was doing something very right!!

Often, I would visit in summer - typically July, during the hottest and most humid time, and right when the harvesting of many things in the garden took place. We would sit in the kitchen shelling peas, or prepping broccoli to blanche, and we would talk. We shared memories of our youth together, reliving all the fun and the scary times. We talked about life in general, too. Whiling away the time with good conversation, laughter and tears. We were deep in the moment. Those moments have been incredibly special to me, and I hold them close to my heart.

She has lived on the farm now for many years, and her garden has grown and changed. The open plan she had, shown here, was working fine until one day the bison broke through the fence and wandered all around the upper area above the house. My sister had just gone up to get some lettuce for dinner, and came running back with eyes the size of dinner plates - really - and yelled “the bison are out!” Seriously, this happened, and it was never a good thing to have them roaming. After all, this was a small rural area in Maine, not the plains or the hills of Montana, and these bison were unpredictable animals. Needless to say, we had to work out a plan and we did, my sister, me, and I can’t remember who else that was there. (Her husband was away on business).

We learned that you do what you have to do, and in that moment it was all about ingenuity and teamwork. Every vehicle that was drivable was put deployed as a machinery ‘fence’ to keep the bison from wandering down the hill!

Bison twins were born on the farm, a very rare thing. It brought PBS out to film the farm, and indigenous people as well as many others came to see the calf.

Her farm has become a productive photo opportunity for me. Even while shelling peas and marveling at the perfect of those peas in their pods, I had to stop and make a picture of them against the bison fur of a skin she had draped over the sofa. To me, that photo represented the two large parts of her farming life, gardening and raising bison.

I wandered through the house, and the greenhouses, looking at the way the morning or afternoon light played on things. I was always relaxed there; all my busyness in my other life felt distant during my visits.

You might think that life is slowed down on a farm. Far from it! There are always chores to do - feed the chickens, gather eggs, weeding the garden, harvesting, checking on the bison, mowing the lawn. It was never ending! But that is what she loved, and I grew to love it too. There is something very special about this place where she lives. I feel it every time I’m there. The place drew my next older sister in as well. She and her husband would come to visit and stay for 3-4 weeks. It became harder for them to leave and they finally bought a house down in town.

This may seem like a rambling story, because I can’t really tell you all about everything that ‘went down’ at the farm, but it was and still is filled with wonderful rich moments. Moments that will stay with me forever. You see, everywhere you go, there are memories to be made with photography. Moments to capture.

Times when the entire family joined for the holidays, time with just me and my sisters. Time spent watching snowstorms, incredible sunsets, and sunrises; it has been one of the most magical parts of my life’s experiences.

This gallery is just a small sample of images that I’ve made while on the farm. The true reward is the memories that I have and will continue to create with each future visit!

Thank you for letting me share this with you. The take-away is that every time you use your camera, you make a moment stay. Do it, wherever you go! And thanks for being here.

I used to believe that my true worth as a photographer was photographing subjects in a very realistic way. I studied under National Geographic photographers, and nature photographers, and under them, you showed the truth, and nothing but the truth of the moment or scene. My dream that I would become a National Geographic photographer kept me on the ‘straight’ photography path. Thus my nature photography has always had a documentary, storytelling feel to it, and I’m fine with that for most photographs, because I want to celebrate the simple unaltered beauty of the world around me. Yet there is so much more to explore!

Along the way in my career I began to experiment with creating interpretive photographs of nature; multiple exposures, panning/blur, hi-key and low-key photography. I liked the results enough that I continue to think about the potential for these methods of interpretive photography wherever I am.

In the following paragraphs and photographs, I will share my ideas and broad techniques for how I make nature images that I feel are more interpretive.

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Now, on to other things! I’ve been super busy building out my new website to come soon, editing photographs, etc., and while I do I often listen to podcasts about photography and other things.

(Substack is telling me this post may be too long for your email. If it’s truncated, please just click the link to view it on your browser.)

I remember someone once saying “The trouble is, we spend 1/60 second making the photograph and the rest of our lives explaining it.” That is so often right! And one has to ask, why?

Did we not express our feelings through the image making process? Is the image not telling a story? There could be many reasons.

I love this quote by Elliott Erwitt: The whole point of taking pictures is so that you don't have to explain things with words.

It’s easy to understand how a photograph that is non-nature can tell a story; there are usually people involved, some action, or moment, etc., The following few photographs are good examples of how words aren’t really needed in editorial or travel photographs if we’ve done our work to see and capture a moment.

I think you get the story from the images above. Being journalistic in nature, they fulfill a ‘who, what, when where…’ list of things that help to tell the story. They are moments in time.

In nature photography, though, we don’t have humans involved. Although animals can certainly gesture and create moments and stories, what about other subjects? Can a landscape or small scene express a story? I believe the answer is yes.

Generally speaking, the nature photographs we create, if we are successful, should be able to stand on their own without a lot of words to support them; or any words, for that matter.

I thought about this a lot the other day, and decided that I would share photographs in this post that I feel don’t require words to explain them. I think you will either ‘get’ the story, or make up one of your own while viewing them. When I am creating art for sale as fine art prints, I want the images to express what I felt or saw. I don’t plan on including a caption along with each print. The image must stand alone.

If we think about telling a story when working on a larger landscape, we can create images that will stand on their own. Even in small scenes, the intimate landscapes, we can tell a story - perhaps by metaphor.

That’s all for this week’s post. Have a great week ahead!

If you are new to my channel, welcome! I post weekly articles with tips and insights that I hope you will find useful.

This week’s post comes about because I have been selecting/editing images for my upcoming new website, and I was in my Alaska folders. Every time I come across the bear photographs in there, I get a warm feeling and a smile spreads across my face. I have simply loved observing and photographing both coastal grizzly bears and black bears in Alaska. I have been photographing bears since about 2004, on various boat tours in southeast Alaska, and since 2007, on various photo tours on mainland Alaska, all of which I’ve led.

I have been to places where you can get rather close - scarily close, in fact, yet safely close, if the bears are habituated to human presence. Such places like Anan Creek, and Lake Clark National Park are two such locations that are terrific. Many other places exist in Alaska, too - Geographic harbor, Katmai, being just two others that come to mind.

When I enter bear territory, as I have done many times at Lake Clark, all of my senses kick in. Even though I have a naturalist/guide who is trained to assess the situation, I still have my own instinct engaged.

Photographically speaking, I look for more than just the iconic ‘bear in the meadow’ or ‘bear catching fish’. I have always taught my workshop groups to look beyond those, to become keen observers of all the other things bears do beside fish for salmon or eat sedges! There are silly bears, serious bears, bears trying to cool off in the heat, standing bears, cute bear cubs – the list goes on!

In addition to simply sharing some fun and rather cute bear photos here, I want to share some insights and photo tips in case you ever get to photograph bears, too. These tips are actually great for wildlife in general!

Pay close attention to what’s going on when you viewing bears. You never really know what they might do next, and being ready with your gear and your settings will help you seize the moment(s).

Sometimes, it can be a while before anything exciting happens. I remember one person who had her camera set on the fastest frames per second possible, and if the bear’s ear twitched, she fired off many frames! That can work, but think about all that you’d have to edit. Best to be more aware of body language, etc., and wait for something a bit more than just an ear twitch!

The above image is a black bear, at Anan Creek, who climbed a tree to take a nap. Seriously? Does this look comfortable to you?

This bear below was trying to cool off in a shallow pond, and it rolled around to get itself wet. As I saw it roll, I was ready to capture it midway. I do wish it was facing me, but it is still a fun behavioral photograph.

Anticipate Action - this may be hard if you’ve never watched bears in real time, yet if you simply pay attention, you’ll be more ready for when something surprise does happen. It means not putting the camera down in your lap, but holding it up to your eye the whole time you are watching. Believe me, the minute you put it down, that’s when something will happen!

Of course many times they are simply eating tons of sedges in the meadow, but even then you never know what action might occur. This small cub decided to climb on Mom’s back to get a better view. Its sibling could only stand up in the grasses.

These two cubs were standing on all fours on the dirt track, unsure about us, when suddenly the braver one stood up! They do this to assess danger, and had I relaxed, I would have missed it. It’s no wonder I sleep well at night, it’s a lot of hard work staying focused and holding your gear up ‘at the ready’.

Watch your background. It’s really nice to have a blurred/softer background with wildlife portraits, yet if you use too wide an aperture, the bear’s nose or eyes may be out of focus, if they are looking at you. Just how much aperture you need depends on how close you are to the bear(s), how close it is to the background, and whether it’s looking your way or at a profile angle. I typically keep my lens set at f8-f11, having learned that f5.6 often wasn’t enough. I change it as needed for each situation if given enough time. Of course, at those apertures, and fast enough shutter speeds to handhold my gear to be flexible, that means the ISO will shoot up, too. I’m not concerned about that, with current advances in noise reduction software. My goal is really to try and minimize distractions behind the animal. The softer background makes this image below more pleasing - keeping the bear the focal point.

Take a low viewpoint; getting down to bear head level creates an impact with more impact. I told my photo group to drop to the ground in a mud flat! Heck, we’re all wearing rain pants, or waders, and knee high rubber boots. Getting low allowed everyone to make images like the one below that had so much more impact. I often end up kneeling or sitting to get that low point of view.

Shoot verticals! Many images seem to work out as horizontals when bears are in the fields or on the mud flats. Yet countless times, I’d be photographing horizontally when suddenly the bear would stand up and it wouldn’t fit in the frame anymore! You have to act quickly to rotate the camera to vertical and recompose, and you often only get a few seconds before the bear starts to drop back down. This young one stood for a while, thankfully!

Shoot-shoot-shoot! If you are fortunate to have a situation where the cubs decide to play, it’s a gold mine of opportunities. They run, tumble, slap at each other, ‘dance’ in an embrace, and it’s great fun to observe and photograph them. This is where a high frames per second drive mode and continuous focus are a necessity! No matter what wildlife it is, when there are young involved, you will get interesting action.

Here’s a small gallery of young cubs interacting:

Look for unique stories and moments. Bears do more than just eat in meadows and fish for salmon, and you would do well to realize that there are many other wonderful opportunities for photographs. While waiting for the salmon to arrive in the river, they will seek clams at low tide, and the reflections can be amazing. While sows will avoid other sows and cubs, there are sometimes stories that are told in juxtaposition. This young orphaned bear in the middle image below just wanted to be friends, but as she tried to approach, momma bear didn’t trust the situation, and you can see her looking back.

Have patience! Bears live on their own schedule, not yours. The sheer fact that you can be this close to witness their daily activities is amazing enough. We waited over an hour while this mom searched the river for fish. When her cubs finally came running over mewing, she lay back and they climbed aboard. What a tender moment to witness and photograph! It’s a tough call, to know whether to wait it out or go elsewhere for perhaps a ‘better’ opportunity.

Leave breathing room - We often get so excited that we want to fill the frame with the bear - or other wildlife, but resist that urge! Leave a little breathing room, and if the bear is looking off to the side, leave room on the side it’s looking towards. Remember that habitat photographs are just as powerful as head shots, and do some wider angle photos, too.

If you get the opportunity to get up close and personal with some grizzly bears, do it – it will be a trip of a lifetime. I giggle like a kid every time I am with them - adults and cubs alike, they provide such wonderful experiences and photographs.

I hope these photographs bring a smile to your face!

Have a great weekend and week ahead,

Worthy Articles on Substack I’ve read this week:

Workshipping with a Camera - a series currently discussing the photography of small rodents, snakes and insects as ‘just as important’ as the big 5. By Gordon Illg

What Art Consultants Really Want - by Beth Young of ‘The Healing Frame’

Inspiration isn’t constant. If it were, I’d probably have doubled the size of my limited edition collection by now, finished my new website, written 5 more books, led 10 more workshops, and written all those video tutorials on the to do list!

Buy me a Coffee

Sometimes, a lack of inspiration happens simply because our own work becomes so familiar that we can grow ‘tired’ of seeing it, always wanting to create new work. Yet I have learned that you can’t force inspiration, and I’ve accepted that my muse has gone on vacation at times. When that happens, I let go, and I concentrate on other things - book projects, editing, physical activity, listening to music, cooking, reading, etc. In just a short while, my muse comes home and I feel inspired again. That re-fresh was necessary.

During a period of inspirational ‘lull’, I often turn to looking at the work of other photographers that I know and respect., looking at books, websites, social media platforms, etc. I know some of you are already asking “why do that? you don’t want to copy their work…", and you would be correct. I don’t wish to copy their work, but when viewing photography that I find inspiring, I dissect it.

What draws me to this particular image of theirs? Is it the subject matter, the composition, the angle of view, or the light? How does my eye get directed through the frame? Is it dramatic, or quiet, realistic or impressionistic? Sometimes, I don’t know what it is exactly that inspires me, I just know by the feeling I have when I view it that it struck a chord.

I know that some promote the idea of photographic celibacy. To be honest, there is merit in that after a while. Yet seeing works I consider inspirational can open me up to changes in the way I see the world around me. It influences me, perhaps to notice more, or to compose differently. It informs me about my own personal vision, about what resonates with me.

After viewing the work of some photographers who excel in wide angle landscapes, I began to push myself closer, in this case stepping into the water, to create a more engaging composition. Their work inspired me to realize that I could get even closer, with the right gear (hip boots and a very wide lens), and invite my viewer to feel like they were in my shoes - or in this base my boots!

When I look back at some of my images that were pivotal points in my vision, it’s not the gear that was important, although I must admit that sometimes, a new lens became a new tool to assist in my vision.

When I purchased my first medium range telephoto, a 100-400mm, I was so inspired! I could finally see and compose views from Yosemite’s famous Tunnel View that I couldn’t before without a heavy cropping. This mature pine that grew on a slope near the foot of El Capitan is a good example. By using my telephoto lens to scan the scene, I found scenes that were different. This was made with a 400mm lens, and what drew me to it was the scale being expressed. It’s not a small tree, and yet the rock face behind it towers over it.

That lens gave me such inspiration, and today, I use my Sony 200-600mm to extract scenes from the grand landscape that catch my eye.

It was often a location that someone had photographed that inspired me. It introduced me to places I hadn’t been. Most often, it was a not an iconic photograph, but one that simply expressed what this place was about, in the way it was framed, in the way the elements were arranged in the composition.

One of dangers of viewing others’ work for inspiration, when you are beginning your photography path, is falling into a mode of imitation. It helps you grow if you try things you saw in their photographs in order to learn the ‘how’. It also helps you grow if you ask yourself ‘what makes this photo work?’, as mentioned above. When you do this, you are learning what makes some photos work when others don’t, and you are then developing your own set of concepts about what works for you, rather than simply imitating.

If you keep imitating other’s work, you will lose sight of your own vision. At some point, the inspiration you receive from viewing other photographers’ work has to be just a springboard into developing your own way of seeing. It may be the same subject material, or location. That’s fine. Just do it in your own way.

COMPARISON, an ugly word

What about the other part of my article title, comparison? It’s easy when we are feeling a lack of inspiration to fall into a comparison trap. We look at images that ‘wow’ us, and then we look at our own images, and feel something may be lacking, or that we are missing out because our everyday experiences are not what is pictured in this or that dramatic photograph.

While I am stuck to the bench seat in my camper, working, I find that this feeling of missing out comes up a lot, because I am here and they were in that most exciting place. (My wanderlust is infinite whereas my wallet is not!)

I know I’m not alone in walking this tight rope between inspiration and comparison. It is so easy to have location envy when we see these dramatic photos of equally dramatic locations. It’s also easy to be frustrated when someone nails a photo of a subject for which you are particularly fond, like beach rocks/sand, and you have yet to create your own masterpiece(s) of that subject.

Inspiration and comparison are very close cousins, but one leaves you feeling excited and energized, the other depressed and frustrated…It’s essential you stay on the inspired track, so your person vision keeps growing.

It’s a great idea to collect books of images from photographers and artists whose work inspires you. I have bookmarked many artists’ websites that inspire and challenge me. They can be a great reference. My books are safely packed in my storage locker, awaiting the time I will settle into a brick and mortar place again, and when I do it will be best Christmas season - all those books to revisit…

Let the inspiration you have received from viewing other works push you to get out there to photograph and explore, but trust your own intuition to decide just how you will photograph what is there.

Here are just a very few names of those whose work has inspired me over time. The list of nature photographers/artists that inspire me is long…

Richard Martin, who’s work is graphically strong, simplified, full of expression and color, and great use of light/shadow.

Ian Gaston. Ian’s eye for details and simple, clean compositions is amazing. He applies that same ‘eye’ to other nature subjects as well, and his photography is very inspiring.

William Neill - from large landscapes to intimate views, Bill infuses his love for nature into every photograph.

Kavin Chawla. Kavin is inspiring with how he sees, and how he composes, his images.

Freeman Patterson - one of the first that inspired me to look beyond the thing itself!

I’d love to hear from you as to who inspires you!

Thanks for being here, have a great weekend/week ahead!

Forest bathing, or shinrin-yoku, is the Japanese practice of immersing yourself in nature to lower stress and boost well-being. Far from a strenuous hike, it is a sensory meditation where you walk slowly among the trees, taking in the forest atmosphere using all five senses.

I have done this many times, without my camera, although I must admit that sometimes still carry it with me. I can’t resist. If I see something magical, I want to make that moment stay! Yet I don’t always start out with the idea that I will photograph. I’m just ready if something speaks to me.

For me, forests represent an oasis for life. Much is nurtured here - birds, small and large animals make it their home, all sorts of plants and even flowers grow inside the protection of a forest. In the Tongass rain forest in Alaska, I discovered this Shy Maiden blooming. At only 3 inches tall, it would have been easy to walk right past it, but I wasn’t walking. I was on my knees looking closely at all the mosses, and plants, when I spotted this beauty.

I wasn’t in a rainforest for this one, but a wet, mixed hardwood and oak forest in northern California. Walking with eyes wide open, I spotted what I thought was steam coming off the wet branch. That was pretty cool to see! I quickly made the photograph, and upon closer inspection, discovered it was lichen spores being released! That was very cool indeed.

Jed and I have been in the rain forest region of Olympic National forest and park for a few days now, and I’ve taken several walks. On one of them, though, I didn’t get very far, because it was so beautiful. Two plus days of rain showers left everything saturated, and the forest was glowing. How could I not photograph that?

Psychologically, green is a color that expresses renewal, growth, vitality, and harmony. Ironically, it can also represent greed, and envy, but we’ll stay with the positive aspects as they outweigh the negative. Healthcare institutions, and healing centers make use of shades of green to create a calm, soothing and neutral space.

That being said, not all green photos would do well there! This image with moss hanging could be scary to some people. Ah well. It wasn’t scary to me. In fact it was soothing.

I felt very lucky to have this opportunity to walk in the forest while it was all freshly wet. Now, 2 days later, with temps in the mid-80s here, that magic is missing. It’s still lovely, in the shade of fresh green maples and moss-covered conifers, but I am hoping for a bit more rain to come again.

I hope you are not ‘green’ with envy from this post! If you have a forest or woods near you, try to make time for a walk in it. If not, find some greenery in an urban park - even that will give you a healthy jolt of mental well-being!

Have a great week ahead!

P.S. Coming soon for paid subscribers: A Tutorial Series on Visual Design in nature photographs

I should begin this with the truth: the ocean and beaches and I were never best friends. Growing up, I went to the beach like all other New Jersey families. (or should I say the ‘shore’, because I never called them beaches until I moved west!) I know I played in the sand, making castles, etc., but I don’t recall much about my days spent there as a child. I do recall, if only because my father filmed it on his super 8 movie camera, the time my sisters were throwing seaweed at each other, and somehow I got in the middle of one toss, and received a face full of sandy seaweed. Yuck!! I’m sure I wan’t happy about that.

We went camping to Maine, and I know we spent time on the rocky beaches, more my kind of place, full of shells, snails, and sea stars.

I learned slowly to love the sea. But I took some hard knock-downs in the process. Once, I wanted to photograph a couple having their picture made in front of a dead blue whale carcass, and since I had a wide angle on, I had to move in closer. I knew the waves were coming in, but figured I’d get the shot and get out in time. Not to be! I turned quickly, running up the slope of sand, and the water undercut my feet; I was thrown to the sand, and my only thought was to save the camera! I did manage to keep it from getting a dunking, but the last slap of sandy water hit the battery compartment and that was that. Thankfully, film compartment was safe, and I got the shot, but it was a long wet and cold walk back to the car.

Another time, I was photographing the tide pools near Ft. Point in San Francisco. I knew the rocks were slippery, honestly I did, but you know, when you are in the ‘photo zone’, it’s so easy to forget about the risks. Slip I did, and my 105mm macro lens dipped into the tide pool. Just a little bit, but enough to kill the lens!!

With all that, I still love the sea and the coast and I’ve never given up an opportunity to visit the ocean and its varied beaches. Which is just what I did today.

Today’s visit was not to be a photographic event, but simply a walk on a gorgeous stretch of flat sand, for a good bit of exercise and a refresh of my mind. I had been shown sand dollars that some young girls had collected, and I was excited that I might find some too. I took just my iPhone with me.

What I hadn’t expected was all the other beauty that was there! We’ve had rain squalls moving through the west coast of Olympic National Park for the past 5 days, mixed with sun, gorgeous clouds, and today was simply beautiful. The beach at Kalaloch is flat, wide at low tide, and a joy to walk on. Due to the rains, the beach was wet, and the outgoing tide also left water standing on the beach, and boy was it reflective!

There were bits of shells here and there, and small stones, and a whole lot of small crab shells - all empty and many of them turned ‘belly’ up. Have you ever noticed the iridescent blue inside the crab shell? I hadn’t. Clouds reflected and a bit of prism from the sun added to this composition.

There there is the sand art. Rivulets carved in receding waters, wave ripples creating patterns galore – it was wonderful!

And, as per the way the week was going, it rained a bit on us! I thought it was lovely seeing the light raindrops on the wet beach with the cloud reflections. You can hear the ocean waves, too.

And, after the rain, there was more fun with the ‘craters’ left from raindrops on wet sand.

The walk was outstanding, meditative, and rejuvenating.

Do I wish I had my big-girl camera with me? Perhaps, in some way, because it was a beautiful day and you never know what the next visit will be like. Yet honestly, the phone allowed me flexibility to move and play a bit more than a tripod and camera would. Sometimes, being free from the trappings of a large system allows you to simply be in the moment a bit more. You are not striving for the perfect photo, just trying to capture the awesome experience you’re having.

Iphone Tip: Did you know that if you stick to 1X, and don’t zoom, you will get the largest megapixel image you can? Better to do that and crop in later…My phone does 48mp at 1x, and 12 at 2x. Wow!

It’s ironic, that for all my ‘issues’ with oceans and sand, I still love walking and beach-combing. It’s hard to get me away, when I am finding treasures from the sea. I was very lucky today - several whole sand dollars, which are now drying on my picnic table in the campground. I am a rather happy camper, today!

That’s it for this week’s main post.

I’ll see you soon.

There has been a popular trend toward the intimate photograph in nature photography. Just looking at my feed on Instagram, I see a lot of intimate and abstract posts. I do also see grand landscapes, and wildlife photography, too, yet there appears to be an interest in the intimate landscape area of nature. Why would that be?

Before I try to answer this, I want to say here that I have been creating intimate landscapes for over 30 years, and continue to do so. My work is not due to a trend. It’s part of how I see and react to nature, and I also react to the grand scene if conditions are really good.

One of the people commenting on the podcast asked why a smaller extraction of a landscape was thought of as inherently more creative than the bigger landscape by the participants in this podcast. At least that is what they interpreted, when listening to the podcast; they were feeling that the emphasis on the smaller scene came across as rather elitist, even though they loved this photographer’s work. The asked ‘what makes the image of ____ any more YOU than another photo you shared?’

In the discussion, the photographer spoke of having done grand landscapes, only to finally figure out that this wasn’t where his/her passion lay. In a desire to create images that were ‘uniquely theirs’, they found themselves turning to intimate landscapes, a place where they felt they could express their visual voice.

I think the photographer’s reasons for why they turned to more intimate scenes have a lot to do with why we are seeing more or this type of photography. So much of the grand landscape has been done/copied/shared that perhaps some photographers are trying to find a niche where their visual voice might be more noticed.

I have recently given several presentations on ‘The Intimate Landscape’. In those I talk about what an intimate landscape is, and how visual design can be strong in those smaller scenes. I also give tips on how to see the potential in the smaller scene, and admittedly have said it’s an area where you can potentially create a unique image, one that hasn’t been done before.

I truly believe this. The image above was created in the early 90’s when I was still using film. I could see in my mind’s eye what might happen, and I spent an entire 36 exposure roll on trying to capture what I was imagining. I didn’t know what I had until I got the film processed. It was unique. Not many were doing slow shutters on water like this, that I knew. It took a vision in my mind to create it.

Some of my best selling and favorite photographs like this are unique scenes of nature that are definitely more ‘intimate.’ Or they were unique at the time, until it inspired someone else to look for similar subjects/compositions! We can’t control that, though.

Another reason why some have turned to the intermediate or intimate scene is that there is only so much variation one can make or get with a grand landscape. The light has to be just right, the elements have all be right, and sometimes, even then, it looks like just another photo from Tunnel View in Yosemite, for example. Unless we hit it at the perfect light/time/weather, there is no getting around the point that our Tunnel View photograph is going to look very similar to others. Sometimes it’s like a reunion, with so many of us that know each other standing there, photographing!

Yet there we are, bearing witness to the grandeur, with the hope that conditions might gift us unique moments of light, storm clouds, rainbows, etc. And, while there, many of us look beyond the grand scene to more extracted scenes, like the one below. Franka Gabler, Michael Frye, William Neill, and several others living nearby Yosemite visit Tunnel View regularly for this reason, as do, I when I visit the park.

If the podcast listener really thought about it, any trend, grand or intimate, will run its course through social media. They must look beyond that, and realize that the photographer was talking about it from his/her point of view. This listener went on to comment that there were now ‘so many people doing intimate landscapes’ that they wondered what would happen when that style became oversaturated?

I believe this person was simply responding to what they perceive as a glut of intimate scenes showing up on social media. One could say that about the abstract aerials that have overwhelmed us too. (And I do love them!)

Trends be damned! I think that intimate landscapes, and grand landscapes will never become oversaturated. Each artist builds a body of work based on his/her passion and unique vision. That’s what counts, and there is the desire for both in the fine art print world.

Still, it is rather interesting how intimate landscapes have become more popular, and I think there is a reason for that.

“Landscape photography is the supreme test of the photographer – and often the supreme disappointment.” – Ansel Adams

No truer words by Ansel! With intimate scenes, you are not dependent on the light being ‘over the top’ dramatic; you are not dependent on the perfect peak of autumn. Soft, diffused light will provide you with the perfect conditions for many intimate subjects. And rather than the entire hillside ablaze with autumn’s hues, all you need is a small section of the woods to express that. That makes it somewhat easier for people to find and create intimate nature scenes over the grand scene. (Not that any of it is easy, mind you! It still takes a marriage of vision and craft to make a great image)

I also think it could have to do with the inherent rise in costs over the recent years. Many can’t justify trips right now to far flung destinations, or even relatively near ones, for that grand landscape photograph. Yet they can afford a trip to a regional park or locations nearer that can provide them with photo opportunities. Driven by the desire to create art, we’ve adjusted our sights, perhaps.

Grand or intimate, they have both been around for a very long time.

Eliot Porter was creating intimate landscapes many years ago, and his work inspired a long list of photographers.

Just look at the life’s work of Christopher Burkett. Much of it is an intimate approach to nature. Or look at William Neill’s photographs: he a wonderful mix of the grand and the intimate landscape, all of them equal in creative expression. I too photograph both the grand and the intimate scene(s). I don’t believe that any of us think that one approach is more creative than the other, by any means. We’d all agree that it’s how we see and compose the scene that makes it ‘more creative’.

It hasn’t run its course yet and it’s certainly not a ‘trend.’

Take a look at the grand landscapes of Kurt Budliger. He is just one of a long list of photographers who use their wide angle lenses so well, to create grand landscapes, that just also happen to have great light in them! Landscape photography is certainly not underrated by any social trends.

Both have become oversaturated on social media, because there are just so many of us posting photographs! That the podcasts have trended towards one or the other, I would argue no.

Back to this idea of whether one style over the other is inherently more creative.

In the image below, of a very common sea stack known as the Wizard’s Hat on Bandon Beach, Oregon, my partner Jed Manwaring put his own ‘spin’ on it. He chose a position that was less about it being the iconic hat shape, and more about it in relationship to the rock in front of it and the water expanse around it. The 30 second exposure he made softened the clouds and the water beautifully and made the water look like liquid pewter. I’m sure there are some out there that are similar but after 5 pages of a google search, I stopped looking. The point being of course that it was his imagined vision of a grand landscape he could create out of the situation.

The image below was my reaction to being on the sand dunes as dusk settled upon us. It’s an intimate look at both the soft forms and patterns, and the soothing color of the light.

Is this intimate scene any more creative than Jed’s landscape above? I think not. Grand or intimate, it’s just us seeing in our own ways…

It’s amazing how a podcast and the comments on it can trigger deep thoughts. I think because I live in the intimate landscape world a bit more than the commenter, I was struck by his perspective.

I think if we could do a poll, we’d find an equal amount of grand landscape photographers as we would intimate landscape photographers.

Respect for all, I say!

Thanks for being here, and enjoy your weekend!

You’ve seen the write-up, now here’s the scoop! As a token of my gratitude for your support, you will receive an 8% discount off the tuition for this workshop, a $239 value.

Please contact me directly if you wish to sign up so I can send you a payment link that reflects the discount.

Read more

Death Valley has become increasing popular amongst nature and landscape photographers. It’s no surprise to me. Having conducted over 14 workshops within the valley, from October through mid-March, I have seen and photographed so many wonderful nature scenes, with such a variety of light.

While we can’t guarantee light or weather, winter typically offers up wonderful moments like this one at Zabriskie point. That morning, the sky lit up and bounced light everywhere! It was the perfect spot to capture all that reflected light in a 9 panel panorama.

Here are a few reasons for joining us in February 2027:

• You get two professional photographers with in-depth experience in the park. We’ll bring you to iconic locations as well as several areas that are off the well-beaten path. We know where to go, and when.

• You gain the benefit of two educators to assist you in making your best images. Jed and I have been teaching photography for many years, on every level, including how to see more deeply and express personal vision. We work hard to give you both an enriching and fun learning experience.

• You are in the company of like-minded enthusiasts who don’t mind staying out for the ‘last light’ or getting up early for the best first light. While we’ll have to eat, sometime, we’ll spend as much time as possible in the field, conditions permitting

• It will be just plain fun! We’ll share in the adventures of trekking in sand dunes, across the desert floor, climbing a few hills, celebrating whatever light we are given

• Winter Light! The angle of the sun is low in late January/early February, which not only adds a lovely warmth to the sunrise/sunset light, it also provides a bit more time in the field working in the predawn and golden hours.

Here’s a small gallery to whet your appetite. Please click to see larger and the vertical within it. You can also see more of mine along with Jed’s photographs on our Death Valley & Alabama Hills Workshop page on my website.

And finally,

• We will all get to share our photographs in a followup zoom.

We truly hope you’ll join us. Registration is presently open, and deposit information and a trip application are on the webpage.

For those that have a paid subscription to Visual Journeys, I am pleased to offer you a special discount, in a separate email announcing this workshop. Look for it in your inbox!

I often hear people say they aren’t very creative. Really? How so?

I believe we are all creative on some level. Making bread, tending a garden, painting, writing, woodworking, sculpting, singing, playing an instrument – these are all more obvious acts of creation.

Even the work of designing a house, or teaching, or the simple work of making lovely designs in the foam of a latte is a creative act. We often dismiss these types of acts as not being creative, perhaps because they are our work/job, or perhaps because they are simply things we do ‘everyday’. Creativity is reserved for art, we say.

But is it, really? What if we looked at making our lives our art, by acting from a mindset of abundance, joy, and appreciation in everything we do? By falling in love with life, which is a miracle, by the way, and by being so present in the moment that we notice everything, and by noticing everything, we are enriched.

Let’s take the person making the milk foam designs on lattes for example. There are those that make a simple leaf design, and then there are baristas that go way beyond that to make a floral arrangement! It may seem like a silly example, yet that person enjoys expressing themselves, and how they do it, at least at work, is by going beyond the expected to make art in the foam!

Acts of creativity are sometimes unintended by the creator, yet they are out there for us to notice, and to celebrate. Did this farmer know he/she was making an artistic scene when parking the red tractor at the end of lush green rows? I doubt it. Yet there it is. A scene full of design and color - my kind of photograph! Serendipity strikes.

Likewise, did this person knowingly purchase pink and blue pails and mops? You bet they did! They were making their home artistic, and therefore their life as their art, and it was a delight to discover this. It’s way more than just a mop and a bucket outside a home.

These clay pots were put out to dry in the sun before they get fired. It was an ordinary task for the laborer, yet when viewed from the right perspective, it was art! Did he even know how lovely it looked from the stairs above? In his desire to keep an order to it all, he was creating a wonderful pattern!

Maybe if I wasn’t ‘living in the moment’ with eyes/mind wide open, I wouldn’t have noticed these things above. Yet because I do try to regularly practice the art of noticing, I was rewarded with these views.

Making my life as art may seem easy, since I’m a photographer. Yet it’s so much more than that. It’s a mindset, a way I look at the world. Yet often I too get caught up in the day to day, the mundane, and I slide back into feeling like my muse has hopped a plane for a different country and a different host. I have to remind myself to ‘walk my talk’, to get back on the track of being more mindful.

By noticing everything, celebrating even the smallest things of wonder/beauty, we create a more open mind to the potential right where we are, even if we are just weeding the garden. While I was pulling out some rather invasive ferns, a rather mundane task, I happened to notice the spores on the back side of the frond. You might think ‘oh-oh, more ferns in the making’, but when I saw this I marveled at it. Held up to the light, it was remarkable! It made the rest of the weeding a bit more tolerable, knowing I was going to photograph it later. Right in the middle of ‘life’, I found art.

I was on my way to a photo conference I was to present at in Moab. It was a long drive from California, but as a photographer I knew I would stop here and there as I saw things. I had been up since 3:30 AM, and as I drove by this field I noticed the irrigation sprinklers going off. I remember thinking - what the heck? It’s 28° F! As I drove by, however, I noticed the sparkle of icicles and water spraying from the irrigation system. I hit the brake. Intuitively I knew there was something there to photograph. At first, I was simply taken by the overall scene of water spraying everywhere and ice forming. I made the first image, to tell the overall story, but then I began to notice more things. The second image was especially fun to see. Especially when I waited for the sprinkler to come my way, so I could get the water backlit. It took many tries to get it just right for the water to be suspended rather than too streaky; and it took several instances of backing up to not get everything wet!! Needless to say, I was having a blast with a field irrigation system! Right in the middle of ‘life’ (i.e. a long road trip), I found art, perhaps because I believed there would be creative things to see along the drive, and I was open to it.

It was such a worthwhile stop along the way to Moab. To think I almost drove by it! Something inside of me, perhaps because I have been training myself to notice things more, told me to stop.

Admittedly, I am not perfect at being present all the time. No one is. But I do try to be in the moment wherever I am, so imagine my delight when I came upon this farmhouse in Slovenia and saw this scene below! People in central Europe often make their homes so attractive with window boxes spilling with flowers. On this farm, this had functionality and beauty - the drying corn was for their livestock during the winter. But to hang it below the flowers, well, that just took someone making their life their art to do that…

In the words of poet Mary Oliver:

“Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”

I continue to work on making my life as art. A life that celebrates beauty, wonder, excitement, curiosity every chance I get. And when I get the opportunity, I’ll make photographs that express that, no matter what the subject matter.

Have a great weekend, y’all! See you soon.

This is by no means a complete collection. The coast is a place I end up at often, even though I consider myself more a ‘mountain girl’ when it comes to where I might live. Still, the ocean beckons me. Jed and I visit it often in various places. I worked for a few years as a photography instructor/naturalist on board the Lindblad/National Geographic boats in southeast Alaska (the Inside Passage) as well as led photography tours on a small boat in that same area. I am inexplicably drawn to the sea.

Many of my images have been ‘documentary’ - showing things for what they were, an intimate or close-up scene that is straightforward. Some reasons for that was submissions to stock agencies, another reason was that I wanted to tell a story, as a naturalist, about the coastal plants, or wildlife, etc.

Scenes like this anemone below ask a question of the viewer. Why is it covered with shell bits? The answers are 1) to block or slow down dehydration from the sun, 2) for some camouflage. (from the Monterey Bay Aquarium A-Z). Who knew? They also disgorge hard bits that they can’t digest…

A different type of ‘garden’. Sea stars and anemones hang tight on tidal rocks until the next high tide refreshes them.

During all the time I spend photographing, the background ‘music’ is the ocean waves - rhythmic, sometimes pounding, sometimes calm. There are infinite negative ions bouncing all around me, making me feel very positive! The sound of the sea sets the tone for my creative play.

Over time, I was drawn to abstracts and impressions of the sea and the beach and how light and water interacted with it.

I’ve also become intrigued with slowing the sea down. Slowing the water movement down creates an ethereal, mysterious feeling, one that expresses my own feelings about the sea.

Yet the sea also contains such raw power, and a fast shutter speed is needed to tell that story well. I am equally intrigued and awed by that power.

Beach art has caught my interest, too!

A sea star that had released from tidal rocks gets washed over by a wave.

My photographic journey with the sea and beach will continue. It is after all the birthplace of life, and each time I visit the sea, I feel renewed.

Thanks for being here and see you soon,

A very long moment passed, and then he walked over to me and kissed me on the cheek, saying “you did it. you pushed past the ‘postcard’ image and created something special with your vision.” I was speechless after that reaction/comment. And very proud, I must admit.

Here’s the image. August mornings in Maine are very early. Blue hour begins about 4:45 AM, and sunrise about an hour later, and I wanted to be out in the good light. Only there was no visible sunrise this morning. It was super foggy. I wandered down from my room towards the harbor. Boats in fog might be nice, I remember thinking, and they were. There was just something missing. I had a rather large empty space in the left foreground. Hmm. As I stood there, pondering what to do next, I became aware of a rhythmic sound, like water dripping, and I realized that someone was out there in that fog, rowing a boat. I waited. Luckily, he was rowing to shore. As he began to emerge, I held my breath that he’d keep coming at me, and not turn left or right. When he turned his head, with the oars poised, I knew I had something good.

Looking at the image today, I am still pleased with it, I must admit.

Sam taught us many things that week. One all important concept was to find a background – a ‘stage’, that you liked, and wait for the players to come into that space. He was a master at that, although at the time he had a rather unlimited budget and therefore the time to return to a scene again and again while on assignment, yet it still taught me the value of patience if I found a scene I liked. Sometimes, it was hard to wait, though. Just think of all the other images I might be missing while I hoped something would happen where I was! It was a fine balance between waiting to see vs moving on, to be honest.

In my travel/general photography, I often saw scenes that begged for a person to be part of them. I couldn’t wait around all the time, but when I did, it was often a ‘win’. In these Egyptian ruins, there were locals who wanted money to pose for photos. I mostly declined, preferring to capture candid moments. As I wandered around, I saw this scene, and simply waited for one of them to walk through it. I watched as his shadow hit the wall, and I was fortunate he looked sideways at that very moment. The first man to walk through there was wearing brown and the photo didn’t work as well.

I liked this scene in Bhutan, and the shop’s name “Your Size” was humorous to me. When this older man decided to walk into the shop, the photograph came together.

In the image below, when I saw this man leaning against the wall he was simply standing there, and when he saw me, he politely started to move out of my way. I called out to him to stay (in Spanish) and said I loved him against that wall, and when he leaned this time, he put his foot up! It was such a neat building, and he made the photo come alive. Not as truly candid as some, but it was initially, and I wasn’t going to let this one go!

The image below was visually busy, yet it told the story of a terracotta factory that was producing a ton of stuff! It just needed a human in there for scale and story. Fortunately, I had seen this man lugging pots back and forth so it was just a matter of waiting for the ‘next’ time.

I loved the architecture of Bhutanese Dzongs (monasteries) and when I saw this scene I knew it just needed a human figure in it. Thankfully I didn’t have to wait long for this monk to walk with purpose through that space. I may have let other photographs go in order to get this one, but that was okay with me. You can’t have them all!

In the blue city of Chefchaouen, the maze of alleys and steps creates some wonderful opportunities for photographs. I came upon this scene with just the cat, and thought “wouldn’t it be nice if someone colorful walked through that alley below?” et voilá - and she was a traditionally dressed woman at that.

You can’t always win at this, and I would be lying if I said I was successful every time I went out to photograph when I travel. Yet I believe my chances are greater because I have tuned my instincts and my eyes to see the possibilities, to always be on the lookout for interesting scenes and (hopefully) someone in them.

Imagine my joy, then, when I just happened upon this scene while walking in Juneau, Alaska one day!