Dream Tomorrow, Live Today, Cherish Yesterday

St Patrick's Day

Is a little more fun after you have been to St Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin, Ireland.

Moody Sunrise

Sony NEX-7

Another version from our magnificent morning at Conor Pass in Ireland. I'm not sure many painters have as much imagination as Mother Nature worked up for us that cold morning.

Stained Glass

Leica M9

Here is a different take on my "going to church on Sunday" kind of posts. What do you think of this one?

Fun Friday - Getting Bored & Published!

Opening Page of the book Irish Light by Peter Cox

I believe I have mentioned before that as a kid I did a lot of fishing with my Dad and other family members. While my Dad could happily while away a few hours in the trout stream, if I'm not catching fish, I'm getting bored. So I would often do some hiking, or (even better) dirt biking to fill in the time.

With photography, we sometimes have similar moments (minutes/hours), waiting for the light or atmospheric conditions to put our subject "in the best light."

When on photo tours, I'll often fill in this time taking pictures of my friends. While I am always up for a "happy snap," that provides a memory for us, I'm more after something that shows my friends as photographers, in their landscape.

One morning up on Conor Pass we spent many cold minutes waiting for the sunrise. Which was more than worth it. Shortly before I took the shot above I had become interested in the morning glow of the grasses. They were wet and glistened with the day's first light. As I was working out how I might shoot them, our guide Peter Cox just happened to stroll right through.

Big tripod and view camera over his shoulder like a proper landscape photographer!

I quickly focused on him and fired off several frames. When we returned to breakfast at our hotel, many of us had our laptops out and were reviewing the morning's shoot. When John Barclay saw this image on my screen he got really excited, and explained that Peter was about to publish his first book, but had no picture of himself. He showed Peter my image and the rest, as they say, is history.

Here is a link to Peter Cox's website, and you can order his book there.  In addition to my picture of him, there are many other attractive landscape images! In all seriousness, it's a gorgeous work. He happily ships worldwide. Tell him you are friend of mine and he just might inscribe it for you.

Fearless Nature

Leica M9

She will not be denied!

A New Dawn

Sony NEX-7, 18-200mm, f/5.6, 1/640, iso 100

First day of 2013! 2012 was a great year for me photographically. Three big trips: Cuba, Scotland/Ireland, and NYC. I got to do a lot of street photography on these trips, which was a growing experience for me.

I defiitely realized that I'm no longer "into" regular landscape photography. For many years here on the blog I have mentioned that I don't do "stands of trees" fall color shots, for example. With landscape, I find that I want to find interesting details, and present them in a unique way, one that hasn't been seen before.

I selected this image because it's kind of straddling this philosophical fence. Ho hum, another sunrise, right? But for me, this back lit fog-cloud, raises this image up from a standard landscape shot. I also selected it because it was from one of my great trips, this being Ireland (thanks John and Dan).

Within a few minutes of this shot, I got another unique one, that ended up being published in a book about Ireland light. I'll share that one one of these days.

I met some great new people this past year, which is important to me. I had my share of struggles as well. Life. You know How It Is.

I saw an article the other day that said "forget new year's resolutions, pick one word." I like that thought. The word I selected is "health." I mentioned in my Thanksgiving post some of the health things I have been going through. Without getting into details, I'll just say I'm really on an upswing. So health applies to both my physical and mental side, and I believe that is going well, thankfully! I'm grateful to several people that have helped me in this department.

And I believe growing as a photographic artist is important to my health as well. Thankfully I have a great day job (financial health), that will keep me busy this year. I only have one big photography trip planned right now, but I'm sure I'll work some smaller trips in. And hopefully grow my photographic eye and my skills.

All the best to my friends and blog readers this coming year. Cheers to your health as well.

And... what is your "word?"

A morning for photographers

Leica M9, 35mm F/2.8, f/4, 1/2000, iso 250

By now you have probably heard that landscape photographers prefer morning or evening light. Every once in a while I like to include photographers in a landscape setting. Think these people were excited about this scene?

Morning light at the Ring of Kerry. Life is good.

Wordless Wednesday - Solo

On Wordless Wednesday, you tell the story...

Mannequin Monday

Leica M9, 50mm F/2, f/3.4, 1/350, iso 150

I'll continue the torture with more mannequin images. Look at them. Blissfully unaware of this huge storm Sandy punishing the US east coast today. I think of all my friends in that area, and hope everyone will be okay.

Step Into the Garden

Lecia M9, 50mm F/2, f/2.4, 1/2000, iso 80

Isn't this a lovely scene? Kind of sums up Ireland for me, a lot of old things, but very inviting!