This is a fun little project I started a while ago. Sunset on a cruise ship is a target rich environment for POPTP.
More Pictures of People Taking Pictures
Category Archives: Photography
Looking for the Heat
It’s hard to believe that just a month ago Kathy & I were plying the warm waters of the Caribbean on a cruise. This morning in Charlotte we tied a record low of 8 degrees. I suppose there’s some justice in that. But no matter, this being North Carolina we’ll be back into the 70s in no time. I hope!
Those of you who are familiar with my work know that I love to photograph architectural details and other interesting lines and shapes while we cruise. A person can’t drink umbrella drinks all day (Kathy says ‘oh, yeah?”), so I take pictures!
I’m working my way through some of the highlights, so as I process them I’ll probably throw a few out onto the blog, and at some point I may put together a gallery on my website. In the mean time here are a few photos of warmer times. Hope to see things warm up soon!
January 2015 Wallpaper
Well, it’s a new month and a new year. I’ve decided to stick with the wallpaper idea for a little while, but I think I’m going to try something a little different and leave off the monthly calendar. From my standpoint, I like to be able to change my wallpaper often, and while I can make my own wallpaper any time I want, having a calendar on there makes it a little hard for someone else to do that.
A number of people have told me that a particular photo is one of their favorites, and someone might want to keep it up all year long. And that’s fine with me!
If anyone misses the calendar and would like me to continue, I can probably do one of each, so let me know. I’m pretty easy to get along with!
More About Home
“Happiness doesn’t lie in conspicuous consumption and the relentless amassing of useless crap. Happiness lies in the person sitting beside you and your ability to talk to them. Happiness is clear-headed human interaction and empathy. Happiness is home. And home is not a house-home is a mythological conceit. It is a state of mind. A place of communion and unconditional love. It is where, when you cross its threshold, you finally feel at peace.”
― Dennis Lehane
The holidays are often a time when we think a lot about what “home” means. People ask us – probably less now than they used to since they know us – if we are “going home or staying here” for the holidays. I always reply, confidently, that this is home. We live here, the kids live here, and just about all of our friends and family are here. We are “home” every day.
Last year at this time we had just moved into our then-new house, and that was the first Christmas that we weren’t in the house that had been our home for the previous 17 years. Our kids each have their own place now, so there is no sentimental “home” where they grew up. My parents and Kathy’s parents are both gone, and the places they occupied can now be visited only through Google Street View. So there is no “somewhere else home” when people ask us if we are “going home or staying here” for the holidays. This is home.
The above quote comes from an author that Kathy is familiar with, but I found it by way of a blog I have been following for a while. This Way to Paradise is written by a woman who has been “homeless” for several years, but traveling the world, mostly self-supported but sometimes depending on the kindness of friends and strangers, all the while blogging about it. And of course she’s written a book (I think I need to write a book 😉 ). Although she has already seen more of the world at her young age than I will ever see, in many ways Valen’s philosophy echoes my own – that home is where we make it and that more often than not home is where we are. But that’s not to say that home is every place we are.
Kathy & I take a lot of comfort in having a “home base” to come back to after work and after every vacation. This may change when we aren’t paying our dues on the corporate hamster wheel, but for now at least we envision continuing to use our house as a jumping off point for future adventures. We have purposely made our house into a place that if we never left we would be perfectly happy to stay, and that makes it a terrific place to come home to. So far we have necessarily approached our travels as always having a finite end. Knowing that “home” is waiting makes it easier to return. And for the most part it is a place that one of us could live without the other if that were to become necessary.
Our friends Earl & Bonnie are starting an adventure of a different kind. With a 2+ year head start on us, they have already experienced life without the need to escape the work world every day and have realized that they don’t want or need a fixed home base. So they have decided to literally sell all their stuff and put themselves and whatever is left into a travel trailer and head out to see the world. Whether that ever becomes our own solution remains to be seen, but Kathy & I wish them only the best and are anxiously awaiting their progress reports as they embark on their journey.
So the point of all this rambling is that I find the individual approaches to “home” to be a fascinating study. As Kathy & I develop our plans and speculate on the direction of our own lives, there is quite a bit of uncertainty about how our philosophies will adapt as our lives change, but isn’t that part of the adventure? Wherever we live, the last thing we want to do is to become so entrenched in what we have that we lose sight of what we want. And that doesn’t necessarily mean a house, a travel trailer or even a cruise ship. If we haven’t learned anything else over the last few years we have learned that no decision has to be final. As long as we remain open to other possibilities and flexible about the outcome, home can take many forms. But we each have our own ideal outcome, and that is what I look forward to seeking and finding, as well as to sharing.
Belhaven Sunsets
As a general rule, I have gravitated away from trying to chase sunsets per se, as more often than not I end up waiting around for something that doesn’t happen. I do enjoy spending time on a beach that faces away from the sunset, as the soft light on the water is often conducive to the motion blur photos I have become so fond of.
Back in early November, Kathy & I visited Belhaven, NC. One of our frequent destinations, we often use the location as a jumping off point for trips around the eastern part of the state, looking for fishing boats, old barns or sometimes waterfowl.
For some reason though, I often find it worth my time to be “out” for sunset in Belhaven. Something there just causes the conditions to be good for great color. The downside is that there is not a lot of variety for foregrounds. There are a few docks, but they are all on private property and I tend to respect that. I do have a nice sunrise place where I have gotten permission from the owner to use her place when I am in town, and that has proven to be a good spot.
The great thing about sunset in Belhaven is that the bed & breakfast we stay at is on Water Street, so it’s easy to head out the door, grab my gear from the car and head across the street to the waterfront. For the last several years I have used the back yard of an unoccupied house as my staging area, and that is the place I have taken most of my sunset photos in Belhaven.
During our recent visit I found out that this house was recently sold. I met the new owner, and he seems like a real nice guy, but I’m not sure I will be able to keep using his yard for my photos. The next time I go there I’m planning to take him a couple of prints as a goodwill gesture, and hopefully he’ll grant me a perpetual pass to use his place. We’ll just have to see.
So what’s the deal with these posts? I assume that they are leftover from a long-abandoned dock, and eventually someone is either going to build a new dock or just pull out these posts. Something about them calls my name, and every time I go there I end up shooting at least a few frames of them. They make interesting subject matter, to me at least.
I hope you enjoy this selection of sunset photos from Belhaven, North Carolina!
More Pictures Than Words
Trying to catch up from a couple of weekends away and getting ready for an upcoming vacation. Lots of photos but no time for words!
December 2014 Wallpaper
Well, here’s the 12th in the series of abstract wallpaper, and the last for 2014. I hope everyone has enjoyed these as much as I have enjoyed sharing them. I don’t have any way to tell how many people actually take the time to download these, but I sure would appreciate your letting me know via comment or e-mail. I’m thinking about trying something different for 2015, but if I get a lot (any?) requests to keep them just the way they are I’m open.
I hope everyone has a joyful and happy holiday of your choice, and we’ll welcome in the new year very soon!
A Sense of Place
Several discussions have been swirling around lately on the various blogs I follow about the relative suitability of ones location in terms of climate, activities, culture, economy, etc. And not coincidentally, Kathy & I have been having similar discussions as we ponder our own futures and plan our eventual withdrawal from the corporate meat grinder. Interestingly, I find a wide divergence of opinion on the role that location plays in one’s outlook, from the overall quality of life to intangibles like access to healthcare, a reasonable sized airport, and proximity to important things like the beach, the mountains, and an ABC store. 😉
For the longest time, Kathy & I regarded Charlotte as a place to live until our “real lives” began. We saw it as a good place to raise the kids, it had and still has a good economy with reasonable prospects for employment, and we have much better weather here than we faced in northeast Ohio in the years prior to our move. Now that we’ve been here for a while – in December we will have lived in North Carolina for 20 years – we find that we really like it here. We absolutely love our new house, and as we work to put the finishing touches on making it our “dream home” we find that it’s easier and easier to think about it as a place we don’t need to leave. But ultimately it’s just a house and a place to store our stuff. It’s our outlook and our state of mind that makes a place our home. For us, whether we are in Charlotte, North Carolina, Hilton Head Island, South Carolina or Fort Collins, Colorado, I think home is wherever Kathy & I happen to find ourselves, not necessarily where our house is located. Although Jost Van Dyke holds some appeal….
As we travel we wonder about other towns as possible places to move to, but for whatever reason we always come back to our current home as the place we look forward to getting back to. And we’ve pretty much felt that way about wherever we have lived. It’s not that we wouldn’t or couldn’t make a new home somewhere else, but that we are comfortable with ourselves and are happy to make the best of where we are, wherever that is.
One of the many life lessons that I have learned from my photography is that there are an endless number of places that I could be at a given time. If I’m sitting at an overlook on the Blue Ridge Parkway socked in with fog and rain, someone else is at Clingman’s Dome in the Smokies witnessing a spectacular sunrise or sunset. I’ve seen people racing up and down the Parkway trying to find the perfect conditions, but I’ve made some of my favorite photographs from places where I have stuck around to see what happened and ended up making the best of the conditions I was handed where I was.
The key for me is to live my life and spend my time enjoying where I am and making the best of it, rather than spending a lot of energy worrying about where I’m not. And I realize that doesn’t work for everybody, but as I think about how I prefer to plan my days, I don’t worry about where I live, I just want to be sure that I do live, and that I make the best of wherever it is that I happen to be.
October 2014 Wallpaper
One technique that I’ve found works well for abstracts is to put my lens into manual and deliberately throw it out of focus. It’s funny, but as much as I love shooting abstracts I often forget to try that. When I was looking for an abstract for this month’s wallpaper, I wanted something that was about fall color. I came across a lot of shots, but then I remembered these. I only did a few of them but need to do them more often. I love the effect, as it is a lot like the results I get when I shoot moving water. But instead of the moving water making the patterns they come from the shades and tones in the scene.
Fall seems to be coming a little early around here. The weather in general has been very strange the last month or two. I hope everyone is able to enjoy fall wherever you are, or spring for those who are “upside down” on this earth 😉 .
Switches and Controls
We live in an age of absolutes. We have political parties who won’t support another party’s position just because it isn’t theirs, even when it is right. If we choose to not support a given cause then we are considered to be against it, even though we might be generous contributors to some other cause. When we drive it seems we are either rushing down the road like we’re on our way to a fire, or sitting at a traffic light checking the messages on our phones that came since the last red light.
Our Subaru came with a gauge on the dashboard that gives a visual reference as to whether we are “using gas” or “saving gas.” “Using gas” goes all the way to the 6:00, or “minus” position, while “saving gas” goes to the 12:00 or “plus position. When I am driving down a level road at a reasonable speed, the needle is horizontal at the 9:00 position, which in goldilocks terms means “just right” territory. But the scale between all the way “plus” and all the way “minus” is a continuum. When we first bought the car I became fixated on that gauge, mostly because I was surprised at how often it was pegged to the “minus” position and how seldom it hovered in “plus” territory. Sometimes the gauge just has to go into the Minus zone, like when pulling away from a traffic light, merging onto a freeway or going up a hill. But other than that, I have adjusted how I use the accelerator in order to keep that needle from “hitting bottom” any more than necessary.
This will sound silly, but in many ways that gauge has literally changed my life. That visual reference has taught me that the gas pedal is a control, and not an on/off switch.
My son Kevin has a term for people who pay attention to things and people around us. He calls us “observers.” I like that term because it is descriptive but not a label. Being an observer is both a blessing and a curse. Being an observer lets us experience things around us that other people overlook, for all the various reasons that people overlook things. Being an observer also makes us see all the things that people do that make us angry. One of the things I observe is how often people appear to live their lives either “off” or “on.” And for me that often manifests itself in how people drive.
I see that little needle as an analogy for the way I live my life, and I guess I project it on others as I imagine them running around with their personal needles pegged on Minus. This feeling is especially prevalent on my drive to work in the morning, as we move from one stop light to the next, all of us ending up in the same place, just in a somewhat different order. Some people race to get to the light sooner, and just have to wait longer for it to change. Others roll up to the light just as it is getting ready to change, but it’s the same cars each time. I guess in many ways I’m playing the role of the tortoise vs. the hare, but I learned long ago that no one gives out prizes for being the first person into the office in the morning. And they don’t serve cocktails to those who are still in the office at 6:00. When I leave for the day, I do so with the confidence that it will be there when I get back. Right where I left it the day before. It’s funny how that works.
So where did the title come from? I was thinking about the fact that people seem to know only two settings on their cars – “go” and “stop.” I was thinking about the fact that I can choose how hard to press the gas pedal – that it is a control that allows me to add gas gradually instead of just mashing it to the floor, instead of an off/on switch with only two settings. And I choose to live my life somewhere between the Plus and Minus settings. Sometimes it’s OK to peg the needle one way or the other, but things seem to run more smoothly when I keep the needle in the middle. And I guess I just find myself happier when my personal needle spends more time on the Plus side of the scale than the Minus.