My online journal where I share my interests in photography, nature, journaling, fountain pens, bicycling, coffee life, spirituality and asking deep questions.
My sister and I head for the Texas Panhandle for a funeral this morning. My mothers youngest sister suffered a series of seizures, causing her to take a fall and add bodily injuries. As usual things like this do bring families together, share hugs and our loss. We will also, make promises to see each other more often. If only we would. So, I will not be on line for a while.
A favorite coffeehouse is called Mug’s. They have two locations, one in Old Town and one just across the street from the the Oval on the campus of Colorado State University. I’m closer to the one near campus. They make these really awesome breakfast burritos, sandwiches and pastries. Because the food and coffee is good and the kids working there are awesome, you can easily drop $8 in the blink of an eye. And feel good about it. It’s a gathering place for students finishing homework assignments with a latte and bagel before heading off to class. Students gather for study sessions and faculty have meetings.
In this image I was taken by the window light and his intensity. I processed it with Silver Efex Pro using one of their presets then a couple tweaks in Lightroom.
“Manifest plainness,
Embrace simplicity,
Reduce selfishness,
Have few desires.”
― Lao Tzu
Found this article on twitter about how to become a better photographer and wanted to share it with you.
“The solution of the problem of life is life itself. Life is not attained by reasoning and analysis, but first of all by living. For until we have begun to live our prudence has no material to work on. And until we have begun to fail we have no way of working out our success.”
Thomas Merton
Well, I guess that means I need to take a few more bad images. I posted this image previously in color. For this image I converted it to black and white with Silver Efex Pro.
Images will appear before us all the time and sometimes unexpectedly. The task is to be there with a camera and observe. We don’t want to miss an opportunity. And, make sure the kitchen is clean! 
Back in 2004 I made a road trip on my motorcycle to the west coast. During the 3 week trip I road 4200 miles. I drove down the northwest coast of Washington into Oregon, ate seafood in Seattle and tried to cover as many National Parks as I could fit into the schedule. I camped along the road except for 4 four nights, setting up camp primarily in National Parks.
I only scheduled one afternoon and night in Glacier National Park which is not near enough time to really see the park. I setup camp in one of the campgrounds near Lake McDonald but for the life of me can’t remember which one. The previous year was one of the worst seasons of fire in Glacier National Park. A 136,00 acres were burned that year. One of the largest fires was the Roberts Fire, which burned 57,570 acres, that is near the lake. I could see the barren and naked landscape across the lake. There was a fire burning nearby, causing a haze to settle into the lower valleys of the park.
It’s cold outside this evening so I’m going through my archives and found this image that caused me to remember the trip. I wrote about this trip before and have a color image or the lake, if you care to check it out. I converted this image to black and white with Silver Efex Pro using one of the presets then making a few simple adjustments in Lightroom 4.
A final thought : I have in the past wished we had more respect for nature but I think I would rather we understood that “we are nature.”
I have several images of this farm at sunrise. It is a place I enjoy going to and is not that far from home. Here is a link to one of my favorite images of it.
I decided last night to drive out there in the morning and prepared everything before going to bed. I woke before the alarm to the sound of blowing wind. Discovered later those winds were gusting up to 30 mph. I made a mocha latte, put it in my mug and headed out.
Needless to say, way too many images were not usable as it was difficult to keep the camera and tripod steady. For the image of fence below I parked the car on the west side of me as a wind block and then placed my tripod low to the ground to reduce as much shake as possible. I’m down low in the snow, in a bar ditch where most landscape photographers hang out.
Even with nylon wind pants, the wind found ways to penetrate and, as usual, it did not take long for my hands to get cold. I shot everything prior to sunrise and then headed home to warm up, shower and download images. These are the two images I think best represented the morning.
I also seem to have a rather large dust spot on my Fujifilm 18-55mm lens. It’s not a drastic spot and is almost impossible to see it. Only noticeable on light open skies and when you look for it. It has shown up that last few times I’ve used it and gone through the process of cleaning it. This morning I spent more time trying to make sure I have it cleaned. If not I may have to take it in. Stay warm and hang on to your hat.