The Road Less Traveled

I'm a photographer. It's in my blood. Not in a professional sense, at least not until now, but always there, an itch that I had to scratch. Throughout my life I've always had a camera ... sometimes a simple point-and-shoot, other times a serious instrument like a Mamiya twin lens reflex in high school or an Olympus OM-10 during my world travels in the 80s. Always a camera, always an image to capture or a memory to preserve. And always so much joy behind the lens.

But 'being' a photographer never happened. Life got in the way ... raising kids, working for the cash flow, chasing the ever elusive brass ring ... always something 'more important' interfering with what my heart really wanted. Year after year with my face pressed to the grindstone and that gnawing fear that time would run out for the dream. At times the idea seemed impossibly far away.

But life is always about second (or third or forth) chances. Circumstances change, opportunity knocks and, if you're listening, a new tune plays. And I am listening. Suddenly the obligations are gone, the impediments are pushed aside and I'm free to change direction. And what a change. You see, I've got a new passion in my life ... I'm going on the road.

The idea is simple and yet, maddeningly twisted. I'm buying an old truck (oh, not so old but not new either) and I'll put a cap on and get all the needed gear and flesh out the camera stock and computers and ... and then start drifting. I'll start in Albuquerque (I have family there) and follow the warmth as it moves north. By summer I'll be in Canada, maybe Banff, and then start working west and south as the winds blow cold. By fall I'll hit Washington state and follow the coast down to the Mexican border and finally back toward home base by late winter. Then wash, rinse and repeat, each time taking different routes and visiting new places. Always drifting, always taking pictures, always finding new experiences.

What's different is I'm inviting you to come along ... vicariously or in fact. I'll post my itinerary on this blog so everyone knows where I'll be. Look for the red flags on the Google map to the right. Click on the flag to see the date(s) I'm planning to occupy that location. Where I'm currently at shows in yellow and past locations in green. If my route passes near you ... you're invited to hook up and we can shoot together. Simply e-mail me and propose a time and place. We'll trade techniques and 'war stories' and learn together. My (our) images can appear here ... hopefully at least one per day ... along with occasional videos as I shoot, process and breakdown how I got to the final result. I encourage you to comment on the images (no flames please) and maybe more. I'm considering making the raw, source images available for download and you can play with them and post back your take on my stuff. The idea is to advance all our skills by sharing ideas. Does that sound like a workable plan?

Oh Man ... Don't You Just Want To Crack Them Open

I'm a few weeks away from getting all this started but I wanted to put up my first image. I shot these lobsters a few years ago while visiting San Francisco. These beauties had just come out of the huge steaming pot on Fisherman's Wharf and looked so damn good. The sky was salty blue but I let it blow out so the background didn't interfere with the main subject. This was a single shot, hand held. In post I pushed the reds to extreme and the sky to full white. My mouth waters just thinking about how good they must taste. Now ... where's the drawn butter?

Ready to eat ... 17 mm 1.6 crop, f/7.1, 1/13 sec, 640 ISO (License CC BY-NC 4.0)