David’s Blog
On Photography
There are rules, guidelines, suggestions, recommendations, procedures, instructions and directions in photography and all of them are handy most of the time and dreadful some of the time. As is said “Rules are made to be broken.” But there are also Laws in photography that are sacrosanct, to be broken only under great penalty. Curiously, most photographers...
Back when I was a kid…
I walked into a Bed, Bath & Beyond yesterday and saw a curious display of colorful plastic items that looked like those protective plastic cases that some eggs come in but on a much larger scale. Each one had two hinged sides of six round indents the size of half a baseball that could close creating a six-pack of hollow ball-shaped spaces. And what was...
The New 50!
Strap in and buckle up, it's going to get bumpy! For the last few years it has become popular to say when someone is celebrating a significant birthday that "50 is the new 40" or "60 is the new 50." Have you ever noticed who was saying this nonsense? It is not 60 or 70 year-olds. They know that there is nothing 50ish about being 60 or 60ish about being...
A Major Movement!
I have come to a big turn in my photography life. I am moving away form the 'how it's always been' to 'try something different.' No, it's not anything you, my kind readers, are going to ever notice but it is still significant. I have started the process of casting out the old and unneeded and replacing it with the shiny and new and unneeded. Afters years...
Don’t be Intimidated
I received in the mail the other day the equipment catalog for Really Right Stuff. RRS makes everything from quick release plates to tripods to ball heads to every kind of photography related gadget you can possibly imagine. And in my case, far more than I can imagine. There is gear in that catalog- 100 pages long!- that I have no idea how or why I would...
Florida Then and Now
I have been going to Florida, especially South Florida for many, many years and yet it wasn't until recently that I saw what it was supposed to look like. I always knew that there were a lot of exotic plants and animals in southern Florida everything from South American birds to Caribbean plants. Today the exotics are even worse- boas in the Everglades,...
Observation #322
Every year of my 6 decades of life I have spent at least three months living in winter, real winter- ice, snow, cold winds, etc.- and yet in this past 24 hours I have thrice been told, "it is cold outside. You should wear a hat and gloves." Do they think I have not mastered the complex relationship between low temperatures and low numbers on the...
Projects for 2016
One of the things that I really like to do with my photography is to work on a project or two. This gives my photography some direction and purpose and keeps me from shooting the same things over and over again and then wonder what to do with all the images. You can pick any project but it is best, I think, to pick one you can do locally. If project is too...
2016!
Happiest of New Years to all both of you who read these musings! Wasn't just 1990 something? When did we get into the 2000's? I turned around and it's January 2016...What happened? I'm not much for resolutions, never have been. I don't need to make public proclamations to help me not reach unattainable goals. I can do that quite quietly all by myself. I do...
What a difference a day makes
Same place, same phone, same pano, pretty close the same composition. Notice any difference? No matter how sophisticated our cameras are (or aren't) and no matter how clever our processing there is nothing more important to photography than the quality of the light. Nothing. Not talent, not equipment, not location, not reputation, not blah, blah, blah....
My Favorite Photos of 2015
It's that time of the year when I look back and review and evaluate that past twelve months of my photographic year. I do this by taking a look at all the pictures I have kept and picking those that are my favorites. I define 'favorite' by those images that I like the most and that were the most meaningful to me. This isn't rocket science, this is just...