New York Town
I caught the subway and went downtown. Helvetica lettering pointed the way. Passenger cars rocked, rattled, and clanked in the dark, and a platform musician sang Country Roads. People smiled on the boat to the Statue of Liberty, and Manhattan’s mountains rose above the harbor, where I later walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, picturing it as I would in a dry, dusty town.
The Bigger Picture
There are many things to learn. The point of the arts isn’t to make a living doing art. Instead, if done well, we’ll witness the lived reality of the person making something become more widely known.
HEIC
Who wants to fidget with large raw files? A JPEG is good enough, and now we have 10-bit HEIC.
Traveling Kind
Art includes the freedom to wander off. If someone says that they want to be an artist, that’s like trying to write words around the unexplainable. Why do it?
In our lifetime
We’re our age for a short while, yet the present touches eternity.
Sunset Limited
With a ticket, backpack, and several rolls of Kodak Gold, I watched Amtrak’s Sunset Limited coast to a stop at Alpine, 2 PM, would reach Los Angeles at 9 AM, December 2005.
The problem with mirrorless
Someday we’ll call it a camera with interchangeable lenses.
35 is a lonesome focal length
A 35mm pushes backgrounds away and magnifies foregrounds.
Completely covered with graffiti
Old age is the ultimate new cool. Be a little bit of kindness and friendship walking around in the world.
Heaven
Heaven is out here, working in Odessa.
Wildly kind and kindly wild
How do we remember a place?
Burgers, Fries, and Onion Rings
To see a photograph, we must forget that we’re viewing one. To see photography, we must acknowledge mood and atmosphere.
Studio
A note is a few words in a sentence or two; a picture is an individual frame, and a finding blends text with imagery.
Influence
Despair is progress misinterpreted. Make a stranger laugh. Focus on what you enjoy more than the attention it brings.
The Rule of Thirds
View something, then around and past it.
Education
The kids are smart and will do just fine. It’s grown soreheads like me who I worry about.
Warming
Warming filters, where have you been my whole life? A wide open sky in West Texas creates a blue color cast, and the warming filter, when white balance is set to daylight, removes it.
Simple Italianate
Simple Italianate houses fascinate me. The City of Cincinnati describes Italianates (1860 - 1890) as two or three stories high, rectangular in plan, with low-pitched roofs. They are brick with metal, stone, or wood ornamentation. A distinctive feature is a cornice. Their design is thin with tall windows, similar to 19th-century commercial buildings.
Wings on Our Shoes
Freedom is time with your thoughts and knowing they’re not yours. I can color-correct monochrome images exceptionally well, and the worst part of country music is drunken meanness.
Welcome
Navasota, Texas