Today

I will start today with three current works of photographic art, from
three fine photographer/artists.

Let’s begin with Michael Purcell’s incredible shot of a Brown Pelican
at the perfect moment of a dive. I have watched and photographed these
birds doing this in the Texas Gulf but failed to create results that
compared to this. Well-done Michael.

All nature photographers love to roam the world in search of images, but
sometimes there is nothing like being near home.

This beautiful and haunting rendition of a Nebraska
prairie was created powerfully by Gary E. Larson.

WOW!!  Leave it to legendary professional Jim Zuckerman to win the
day. This was made of the Lavender fields of Province, France. A
breaking storm and dramatic light never hurts, but being Jim Zuckerman
is the greatest asset of all when it comes to incredible images.

Yesterday

Lastly, I will leave you with a couple of my own images. They were
chosen as per usual, by the throw a dart against the wall and use
whatever gets hit method. I am in no way attempting to favorably
compare them with the powerful (and current) art I have shared with
you above.

When I made pictures for others, I saw my job as a photographer, as to
use my camera to visually “describe” an animal, or a flower or a
landscape, or a building, in the same fashion as I believed the
majority of people who might view that subject would see it.

When I created images for myself, and that included pictures that I
might sell for fine art and so on, I viewed my job as using that
camera to offer a description of what “I saw and felt” when I was
there on location.  That description, might be similar to what others
would see, or it just might be greatly different.

Either way, photography is a sort of visual dictionary. At times, the
definition from the dictionary would be agreed upon by most people who
were there at the time of the clicking of the shutter, but other times
it might be something that one or two or none of those people would
agree with.  My job was only to get a lot of people to agree with me
if I was on an assignment. Otherwise, I saw my job as to interpret a
subject in a personal fashion, and hopefully over time, others may
begin to accept and appreciate the way I saw it.

Mornings like the one that brought me this scene of a Whitetail doe
and her fawn, immersed in the deep prairies grasses of a northern
Illinois state park, are well, just one more reason to be alive.

The way you see it below, the composition and the exposure, is what I
saw it on that morning.  No matter what I saw, the pose of the
critters, and the morning light make the picture, and of course I
really had nothing to do with those things happening.

This occurred in 2009 but it feels like to was 20 minutes ago.

Peace and harmony is a good was to begin a day, and a great way to
close this post.

The ethereal and calm scene below was created while I was on a Lake Michigan
beach in Wisconsin, on a wonderful morning in 2003. My now long
antiquated (also sold many years ago) Nikon D100, was the tool I used.
That was my first digital camera as I began making my switch from film
in 2002.

I do actually remember that morning, and I made this picture right
after committing 2 or 3 frames of film to it. I would imagine, I
clicked off as many as 20 frames of digital images. That was one of the
great blessings of that “new” medium of image making. Frame to frame,
the cost is still much less with the digital format.

When I write articles where I speak about how long it has been since I
have made pictures, please do not get the idea that I am whining or
complaining. When I write or say such things, that is just an
observation. A self-observation, but an observation.

We face a million crossroads in life, and we make decisions about
which direction to go.  Some of my decisions about my health and other
things may not seem the best, but they were the path I took. I live by
my decisions, win, lose or draw.

Also, no matter how many articles I write about politics, social
discourse, crime (such as mass shootings), or the current state of
Christianity, and no matter how critical those articles may appear,
none of that means that I am not happy.

I have long ago made my personal peace and I enjoy my life, and
consider myself Blessed and incredibly fortunate.

Have a peaceful (and colorful) day,
Wayne