Lessons From Photography

The beauty of a thing depends almost entirely upon what perspective you choose to view it from. I am looking at an image I took of Queen’s Bath on the island of Kauai. I think it is beautiful. Lovely colors, water spilling over the rocks into a pool - the Queen’s Bath - making lovely doily like patterns on the surface. Yet, the other day I saw a picture of the same scene from a completely different angle, taken in the middle of the day in full, harsh light. From that angle in that stark light there was nothing attractive about the Queens Bath. It was kind of disappointing, and for awhile it affected my perception of this scene: which was the “real” Queens Bath? Is this it this one or the other?

I had to remind myself that I can be fooled by these things. Just because something is not so beautiful from one particular angle does not mean it isn’t beautiful from another. Same place, same person, same experience viewed just a little differently and it is transformed from not so great to wonderful. It is up to me as a photographer to find the perspective I find most beautiful, capture it with my camera, and then share the beauty I witnessed. I choose to choose the view that shows the most beauty, wonder, and enchantment; the view that lifts my spirit and deepens my appreciation of the beauty that is all around us.

My hope is that by capturing this beauty and sharing it with others, they will be able to experience some of the joy and exhilaration that I experience. We have been given such a treasure, such an amazing gift. I don’t think I will ever tire of witnessing its beauty.

You may also be interested in reading The East Side of the Sierras is Beautiful

Art Display At The Center For Spiritual Living, Santa Rosa

The Center for Spiritual Living Santa Rosa, has a wonderful program that encourages artist members to display their work. The work is hung in the Social Hall and typically has about twenty pieces hanging for two months at a time. On March 1rst I will be hanging several images taken in Iceland, along with some wildlife images, including foxes, coyotes, eagles and kites. I will also have some paintings by my mother and two of my own. I am pretty excited about this showing. One of the pictures I will have in the show is of Godafoss, a beautiful waterfall in Iceland. When I first saw pictures of this waterfall I knew I wanted to go to Iceland to take pictures of it. This composition required gettin into some very cold water.

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The Aurora Borealis, May 10, 2024

This last May, my wife, Jan, and I were on vacation in the San Juan Islands, WA. We were there for a week staying at the Trumpeter Inn, a B&B on San Juan Island. Mid way through our stay we heard there was to be a Northern Lights display and that we would likely be able to see it since we were at a latitude just north of Victoria, BC. The excitement was immediate. The conditions were just right as the sky was cloudless and the moon was in its crescent phase and would be low on the horizon (and therefore not overly bright) during the expected good viewing time between 10 pm and 2 am. The image above was taken that night and is what I was expecting to see, a green Aurora. Little did we know what was to come! Early on the was the first hint that something special was about to happen as color in addition to green began to show. I found this very exciting as I had seen green auroras before but never one with the purple/blue colors an...

Notes To My Mother

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